I study the gold stitching on its collar, the threads reminiscent of those spun by desert silkworms of the Western Province. The red is an unusual shade, the weave as fine as those Ma used to make for the nobility of the Imperial City. Curious, I bring it to my nose and inhale the crisp scent of pine, soap, and something I can’t place. Something that reminds me of a cool night breeze.
I sit up, only to find the owner of the cloak watching me.
The practitioner, Yù’chén, is perched against a bush of silvergrass, arms tucked behind his head, his black tunicdappled with sunlight and shadows of leaves. He’s chewing on a stick of sugarcane, but his gaze stirs heat beneath my skin. I can’t help but think of the way he blew on my hands to heal them yesterday, of how gentle his fingers were as he wrapped his cloak around me.
A wicked gleam enters his eyes. He shoots me a toothy grin. “See something you like?”
I draw his cloak tighter over my chest and bristle, the memories bursting like bubbles. “Your shirt’s torn in a few different places, and your cloak could use some patching,” I snap.
“Mm. Should I simply go without them?”
I grit my teeth and fling his cloak at him. He catches it with the tip of his boot.
I threw out the retort on a whim, but as I turn my attention to myself, my heart sinks. Áo’yin’s claws have shredded gashes in my dress, tearing through Méi’zi’s careful stitches. I didn’t notice last night in the cover of darkness as I hurriedly slipped it on, but in the daylight, they are glaringly obvious. My throat tightens as I run my hands over the tears. It’s silly, fussing over a dress, but this was the only gift from Méi’zi I brought with me.
“Might I hazard a guess at your profession?” The practitioner’s watching me with that lazy smile of his.
“You may not.” I snatch back my finger from where I’ve been picking at the torn stitches.
“A seamstress,” he says, and at my silence, his grin widens. “Did I guess true?”
I study the ruined fabric. “No,” I say quietly. “I just like to sew.” I blink, and correct myself. “I used to, that is.”
As we pack up and set off, my thoughts return to my strange encounters with the two hellbeasts from the Kingdomof Night. I still can’t make sense of the way Qióng’qí seemed to back away from me just moments before Yù’chén arrived, nor can I explain how I slew Áo’yin. I might have fought mó with my crescent blades, but hellbeasts are legendary creatures said to be under the command of the demon queen herself.
I chose to train you for a reason,my father wrote.
Again, I have the feeling that my father has woven secrets through my life, secrets that I have yet to unravel, beginning to manifest in signs here and there. A glowing blade that slew a legendary hellbeast, for one.
“Have you fought a hellbeast?” I ask. I’m aware of just how jarring my voice sounds, cutting through the silence and our steady footfalls. The forest has grown still as we near Heavens’ Gates, the white cottontail rabbits and golden-tailed pheasants and chittering sparrows acutely absent amidst the mist-twined firs.
Yù’chén casts me an amused look. “Is this how you were taught to make small talk?”
“Haveyou?”
He turns his face from me. The sun shifts against his face, spinning gold into his hair. “I know a lot about the mó and their beasts. I’ve been to the Imperial City.”
“You’ve been to the Imperial City?” I’ve heard stories of the fallen palace, lost to the demon realm—how it’s mired in an eternal night, how red-eyed beasts and hungry demons prowl the grounds in the darkness. “What’s it like?”
“Dark. Cold. Filled with mó and hellbeasts. The wards are so broken that sometimes you don’t know if you’re walking in the mortal realm or the demon one.”
His expression has closed off. I’m about to ask him more—why was he there, what was he doing?—when he nods at something ahead.
“We’re almost at Heavens’ Gates. Blades ready. There could be other candidates here.”
The cathayas and larches are beginning to thin out, and before us rises what looks like a wall of jutting rock. It is only when I look up through the canopy that I realize two things: First, that this is no wall. And second, how the Heavens’ Gates received their name.
We stand beneath a nearly vertical set of cliffs. They soar into the skies, disappearing into dense fog. Pines and lichens dot the surface, growing from fissures that might serve as hand- and footholds…but apart from that, a single slip is a fall to the death.
It seems we weren’t the only ones who survived the Way of Ghosts. Up high, against the flat wall of rock, I spot a figure zigzagging upward. From trees to outcroppings of rock, the candidate moves with fluid ease. It isn’t long before the mist curling over the mountain swallows them.
I’m decent at climbing mountains, but notcliffs.I know that the practitioners of old trained with an art called qing’gong, which rendered them capable of inhuman feats: walking on water, scaling vertical walls, jumping impossible distances. I saw my father in action, his steps lighter and nimbler than those of ordinary mortals, imbued with an unearthly grace. And I’ve recognized that same grace in Yù’chén’s movements.
I glance at him now. I have no doubt he can climb these cliffs without issue. Without me. And an alliance is only useful so long as both sides provide value.
My fingers tighten on the hilts of my blades.
Yù’chén sheds his cloak and folds it into his silk storagepouch, then stretches in his formfitting black tunic and pants. He catches me looking at him and flicks me a lazy smile that sends little tingles to my toes. “Shall we race?” he says, leaning against a boulder and crossing his arms. His muscles stretch the fabric of his shirt taut—as if I need another reminder of how thin and weak my own arms are.
