I recall Yán’lù’s last moments. The fight on the shore, the way my jade pendant lit up. The black bristle he conjured with his dark magic.
Who’s watching over you?he’d asked from the verybeginning…and I had inadvertently given him the clue: my pendant.
Sansiran watches me with a small smile, as if she sees the thoughts running through my head. “Thank you for leading us to our victory,” she says softly, and begins to cross the chamber to me. She is illuminated by the moon, so I catch the gleam of the jade pendant she pulls out of her sleeve.Myjade pendant, the one secret I still hold that allows me to reach Hào’yáng.
The one I left behind in my chamber when I came to find Yù’chén.
“No,” I whisper.
The demon queen bends to me. “Call to him,” she says, and her smile is sweet as she slips the jade pendant back over my neck.
“No,” I snarl.“Never.”
She tips her head at me, eyebrows lifted. “No? I see. Well…what if my darling son asks?” she says, waving a hand toward where Yù’chén lies on the floor. The chamber fills with the hum of dark magic, trembling through the walls and rippling through the air, so powerful that the air echoes with thecracksof floorboards as they splinter.
Yù’chén tenses; his nails dig into the floor, and he squeezes his eyes shut.
“Go on, my son,” Sansiran croons. “Beg her. Let her prove how much she cares for you.”
She flexes her hand. Yù’chén’s body arches, and finally, a sound breaks from him. It might have been a sob or a gasp. Blood drips in a steady stream from his lips as he chokes out,“Please.”
I don’t know whether he addresses this to me or to his mother. I’m shaking, too, but I clench my teeth against the plea at the tip of my tongue. He deserves this—Iknowhe does—but it doesn’t stop the ache in my heart as his voice rises to a scream.
Veins begin to darken his skin. His teeth sharpen into points, a forked tongue darting out between them. The whites to his eyes yield to black, leaving only a red, glowing pupil. Red-and-black scales bloom on his face as a horn twists from his forehead.
Sansiran flicks her wrist, and Yù’chén rises to his knees. She crooks her fingers, and her magic pulls his head up to face me, and I’m seeing him for the first time, his full demonic form that he has hidden from me for so long. His eyes—in their horrifying demonic form—are dull. His hair hangs before his face, from which a pair of red, pointed ears protrude. His teeth extend over his lips. His entire body is covered in red-and-black scales, his fingers grown thick and clawed.
There is nothing of his ethereal beauty left in his face. Like this, he is terrifying. Like this, he is the very image of the mó that have haunted my nightmares for nine years.
I know I must have flinched. And I know he must have seen it.
Yù’chén’s gaze is fixed on a spot on the floor.
“Look at her, at the disgust on her face, my son,” Sansiran purrs. “See how she would gladly watch you die for no reason other than what you are. She could never love a creature like you. You would do well to remember where your loyalties should lie.”
With that, she flings him back down, relinquishing hergrasp on him. Slowly, Yù’chén’s ragged pants steady; slowly, the claws retract and the scales vanish and the horns and ears shrink as he morphs back into the form of a human.
Yù’chén is very still. Moonlight glistens, wet, on his cheeks.
I hear everyclackof Sansiran’s silk slippers hitting the floor as she approaches. Feel the sting of her nails as she grips my face with her hands—the very hands that killed my father.
“Fine,” she says, meeting my eyes. “I’llask.” Her voice hardens, amplifies.“Call him. Call the heir to the Kingdom of Rivers.”
The air trembles with the magic of her command. It wraps around me, plunging through my veins and my mind. And I am determined to fight it with every ounce of my being.
Easily, her magic twines around my jaw and pries open my clenched teeth. It unlocks my throat, and I make a choked sound as it forces itself through my chest.
The magic tears me open. The words fall from my lips.
“Hào’yáng,” I whisper to my jade pendant. “Help…me.”
28
In the silence that follows, I feel my heartbeat pulsing inside me. The enormity of what I have done, of the consequences of my failure, presses down on me from all sides in the surrounding darkness.
I have courted the enemy. I have unconsciouslyhelpeda spy from the Kingdom of Night penetrate the Kingdom of Sky, meant to be a safe frontier from the mó invasion. And I have just summoned the surviving heir to the Kingdom of Rivers into the waiting claws of the enemy.
The jade pendant warms against my neck, for it has never failed—hehas never failed. For nine years, the pendant and the boy inside it have been my salvation, the only piece of this world that has not abandoned me. Now, steadfastly and expectedly, it heats against my heart, confirming to me again what has become my very worst fear. I can still see Hào’yáng from earlier this afternoon, limned in the light against a backdrop of sunset skies and dancing petals.I’m here now,he told me.
