No more hesitation, no more delaying it. Lan pushed herself into a sitting position, feeling every bone in her body protest. With trembling hands, she brought her ocarina to her lips and began to play.
The song came painfully slowly at first. She forced her mind back in time to when she and Zen had opened theClassic of Gods and Demonsin the desert night, sand beneath their feet and stars above their heads. She thought of the story within the tome.
Stroke by stroke, the Godslayer started to form in the air above her like a silver river, streaming toward the two Demon Gods in the distance. There was a stutter in the qì of the BlackTortoise and the Azure Tiger; they let out great roars as the Godslayer coiled around them.
Sweat dripped down Lan’s chin; she was shivering, every fiber of her being wound taut to wring more qì from her.
She was so focused that she almost didn’t catch the ripple of motion behind her.
A seam was opening in the tapestry of energies. And through it came a familiar qì that reached her with the scent of burnt roses and blood and smoke. The sky turned crimson.
Pain exploded in her back. The Godslayer faltered as she broke away from her ocarina. When Lan looked down, there was a sword protruding from her stomach, glistening with red. Her blood.
“I couldn’t have you conjurethat,my dear betrothed,” Hóng’yì said in her ear. “Not before I joined the fun.”
He twisted the sword in her, then ripped it out and shovedher.
She fell from the roof. Lan slammed into the ground shoulder-first; felt a sickeningcrackas her collarbone splintered. It was suddenly difficult to breathe; through the haze of pain, she realized the ground beneath her was rapidly darkening with her blood.
Hóng’yì stood over her, resplendent in his crimson hàn’fú. She caught the red curve of his smile as he spoke, but his voice was muffled, his outline growing blurred.
Inside her, something was breaking. A silver light blossomed from her wound, fractaling toward the skies. Lan felt dynasties of power pouring from her as, for the first time, the Silver Dragon’s strength and will overcame her own.
A serpentine form lit up the sky, hoarfrost crackling to form its scales and ice gathering into claws and teeth. Lan felt as though she were being swallowed by that monstrous power. A frozen whiteness was settling over her mind, blanketing herworld, erasing everything that she could see and hear and feel: Hóng’yì with the wings of the Phoenix unfurled behind him, laughing; the forms of the Black Tortoise and the Azure Tiger flickering, weakened by the part of the Godslayer she’d conjured…the palace with its curved golden roofs, the Heavenly Capital and everything in this world she’d been fighting for…
And as Sòng Lián began to die, the Silver Dragon reared back and let out an unfettered scream.
Long ago, the Heavens split
Like teardrops, its fragments fell to the ground
A piece of the sun bloomed into the Crimson Phoenix
A slice of the moon turned into the Silver Dragon
A shard of the stars gathered into the Azure Tiger
A splinter of the night became the Black Tortoise
—Various composers, “Ballad of the Last Kingdom”
The Crimson Phoenix was here.
Zen had sensed its energies appearing somewhere in the vicinity of the Heavenly Palace: a spark at first, then a blaze. As the energies of the Black Tortoise and the Azure Tiger stuttered, held in place by a rapidly disintegrating Godslayer, he turned his attention to the streets behind him where Lan had disappeared. Across from him, Erascius, too, had paused in their battle; his face was pale, his mouth twisted, as he looked from the Godslayer to Zen.
“What is that?” he snarled in his language, but there was true fear in his eyes.“What is she doing?”
Zen ignored him. He sensed the other qì first: one of flame and bitter smoke. One that he had fought back in the desert and was intimately familiar with.
Hóng’yì.
He searched for Lan’s qì with increased urgency. And…there,on the ground in a back alley, he found it—stuttering, weak, and fading.
Fear spread through his veins like ice.
The Silver Dragon rose into the night, higher than the surrounding mountains. Its crown grazed the snow clouds that had gathered as it tipped its head and let out an unearthly shriek. Across from it, the Crimson Phoenix unfurled its wings and responded with a battle scream.
For the first time, Zen and Erascius were united as they stood, frozen in disbelief at the turn of events. The Royal Magician stared at the Phoenix, his lips parted and his expression morphing into one of greed.
