I turn.
From beneath the shadows of a blossoming cherry tree, a familiar figure steps out. I’d have recognized his red cloak and his wild spill of hair anywhere.
Yù’chén’s sword glimmers in his hand. The gash in his shift I made with my blade is still there, and I catch a sliver of his pale stomach underneath—healed. He does not move to hurt me or to stop me. He only stands, watching me with the unnatural stillness of a mó.
Steel rings out in the night as Hào’yáng draws his sword.The motion jars me into action; I flick my crescent blades into my hands. This time, I will not miss.
Even from here, I can make out the red in Yù’chén’s eyes and how, in the darkness, they suddenly ripple with an emotion I cannot decipher. His knuckles whiten against the hilt of his sword.
“Go,” he says quietly to me. “Go with him.”
For some reason, I can’t bring myself to move.
“Go!”Yù’chén’s voice cracks.“Go, before I change my mind!”
With a fluid stroke, Hào’yáng sheathes his sword and takes my arm, tipping us off the edge. The last I see of Yù’chén is his face split by shadows and moonlight, the black veins pulsing beneath his skin, and the crimson of his eyes, on me.
Hào’yáng and I fall through the night.
Back into the mortal realm.
30
We reach land sometime in the ghost hours of the night: rocky shores overgrown with pines and mulberry trees. I know in my bones we are back in the mortal realm; there is dirt and grime, the trees are imperfect and crooked, and the landscape lacks the ethereal perfection and soft radiance of the immortal realm. Here, everything is duller in color, solid and still and dusty.
Real,whispers a voice in my head.
I shake it off, the memory of Yù’chén dissolving into the darkness.
The candidates are exhausted. With Yán’lù gone, the remainder of the candidates are quiet and cooperative. There is an air of camaraderie, of mutual interest, between us, now that we are no longer competing in the trials—now that we are all equally prey.
Now that another realm might fall.
Deep in the forest, when we are certain we are far enough from the borders of the Kingdom of Sky, we stop. We agreeon taking shifts so we can rest: Lì’líng and Tán’mù take first watch. Meadowsweet, back in her form as a white horse, settles down by Lì’líng’s side, and the girl snuggles against the dragonhorse. Tán’mù leans against a tree. Her face is drawn with exhaustion, but she gazes at Lì’líng with tenderness.
I turn to Hào’yáng. His hand is on the hilt of his sword, and he faces the direction of the ocean, toward the night skies and the clouds beyond which sits his home of nearly ten years. He catches me watching him and says, “You should rest.”
I’d like nothing more than to sleep, but my mind is buzzing from all that has happened. “I should,” I agree.
“But you can’t,” he finishes for me.
I shake my head.
“Walk with me,” he says.
I fall into step by his side. Out of habit, my hand strays to my collarbone to touch my jade pendant—and I realize it’s gone.
Panic rises, sharp against my throat. Hào’yáng casts me a swift look.
I swallow. It’s silly, since I know I will no longer need it, but I somehow feel unmoored without its familiar weight against my chest. “My jade pendant,” I explain to Hào’yáng. “I left it back at the Temple of Dawn.”
Hào’yáng’s gaze flicks to the hollow of my throat. Then, wordlessly, he reaches up and slips off his own pendant and proffers it to me.
“I won’t need it any longer,” he says, reading my silence. “You’re here now. Take mine if it lends you comfort.”
His half of the jade pendant glimmers as I take it and tie it around my neck. It settles against my throat, still warm. I curlmy fingers around it, rubbing a thumb against its unfamiliar edges—edges that are a perfect complement to my own pendant. “Thank you.”
Slivers of the skies show through the canopy of fine willow leaves, and the salty tang of the ocean begins to weave in the breeze.
