I lean back slightly, studying his eyes. He looks right back at me, cocking a brow. If he isn’t lying and the gate is closed so that no hellbeasts or mó could have gotten in…that leaves one more possibility.
“Did you kill her?”
I feel the stutter to his breaths, and then warmth against my neck as Yù’chén exhales. “Who?”
“Candidate Number One,” I reply. “She’s dead. I found her in the Celestial Gardens, with her chest ripped open and her heart devoured.”
Yù’chén’s jaw tightens. A few of the candidates glance over at us; he wraps a hand around my waist and tugs me sharply forward so I’m pressed against him in a semblance of an embrace. He dips his head, and I shiver as his lips graze my hair. “And you’ve come to ask me if I killed her, ate her heart, and drank her soul like the wicked demon I am?” he says softly.
I swallow, and his hand tightens against me. I’m the one holding the knife, but he’s the one in control.
“Àn’ying,” he says, drawing back slightly. “Even if I feasted on mortal flesh, do you think me so stupid as to leave a half-eaten body in the middle of these temple grounds?” His hand trails up my spine, and a cruel smile curves his lips. “If I were to have devoured anyone’s heart, it would have been yours,last night in the middle of the ocean, where no one would have known.”
I shove him away. Before I can respond, Jing’xiù stands, his bamboo scepter in his hands. The hall goes quiet.
“Candidates.” The announcer’s voice is grave. “As you’re well aware, the Temple of Dawn runs by a set of Precepts made to reflect the ancient Heavenly Order. These Precepts forbid murder on temple grounds.” He pauses to sweep a glance over all of us. “A candidate was found dead on temple grounds. The initial investigation concludes she was murdered.”
A collective gasp rises from the hall. By my side, Yù’chén tenses.
“This matter is still under investigation. In the meantime, security around the grounds will tighten. Once the culprit is found, they will face not only expulsion from the Immortality Trials but also the harshest of punishment allowed under the Heavenly Order.”
My fingers tighten around the hilts of my crescent blades in my sleeves.Her chest was ripped open,I think.Her heart was devoured.There’s a big difference between announcing that a candidate was killed…and that she might have died at the hands of a being from the Kingdom of Night.
The crowd is murmuring. Evidently, most of the candidates have figured out who the victim was; Number One was popular, her presence observed with a mixture of awe and jealousy.
Jing’xiù taps his bamboo scepter, and the candidates grow quiet again. “While the death of a candidate outside the trials is a grave matter, it poses no challenge to the integrity ofour institution. The Temple of Dawn will continue to run on the power of the Eight Immortals and the hundreds of guards dedicated to its protection. The Immortality Trials will continue.
“Which leads me to my second announcement: tonight, we begin the Second Trial.”
14
The roar that goes up in the crowd of candidates fades to a high-pitched ringing in my ears. The Second Trial? After all that has happened…they’re going to proceed with theirtournament?
“Every year,” Jing’xiù continues, his voice filtering through to me as though from very far away, “a long-lost island that drifts between all the realms reappears. Mythological beasts of old roam its forests.” A hush has fallen over the candidates. “It is in these eternal forests of Péng’lái Island that you will fight to qualify for the Third Trial…and earn your way back into the Kingdom of Sky.”
Something sparks on my wrist. I look down to see my golden bracelet beginning to glow. It unwinds from my arm, flames catching and transforming it into a burning scroll, as it did when it first came to me at Gods’ Fingers.
Welcome to the Second Trial,the parchment reads, and then the fire begins to eat away at it. Sparkling ashes gleam in itswake, and a golden butterfly flutters where there once were flames. I can just make out a number on its wings:44.
“Find your bracelet to reenter the Kingdom of Sky and pass the Second Trial. You have one hour,” Jing’xiù booms as my butterfly begins to flit, with astonishing speed, out into the night. “That’s it. Those are the rules.”
That’s it?I want to yell at the Eight. A candidate isdead,likely murdered by a demonic beast that is still on the loose. And more of us might be dead by the end of the night.
The immortals don’t care. This is all a game to them. And to play their game, to gain immortality, we must leave behind more and more of our humanity.
My hand goes to my jade pendant, nestled beneath my collar.Is this why you left, Bà?
In the crowd, another candidate’s bracelet has begun to spark. And a third. We’re being dispatched in the opposite order of our arrival—perhaps by way of giving the slowest and weakest a way to survive.
“Àn’ying.” Yù’chén’s voice jolts me from my thoughts. The light of the butterflies reflects in his eyes, and when he looks up at me, the concern on his face feels too real. “Go,” he says in a low voice.
Numbers Forty-Three and Forty-Two are already dashing for the gates. I’ve missed my head start.
I take a step toward them. I shouldn’t be concerned with the safety or politics of the Kingdom of Sky. The immortals have more than enough power and resources to find the culprit for one murder.
I need the pill of immortality to save my mother’s soul, and I am the only one who can win it for her.
I hesitate.
