“Àn’ying.”
I glance up sharply. Yù’chén’s tone has changed. It’s softer, gentle, the way he would call my name when we were still candidates in the Immortality Trials; when we were in the Kingdom of Night together.
When things between us were real.
“Àn’ying,” Yù’chén repeats, raising his sword again. “I promise,you’ll be safe.”
Safe, like a bird in a cage. Safe, like those claimed mortals relying on the whims of their mó masters. Safe, while his realm ravages mine.
I’d rather die than let that happen. And if this is how it comes to an end, then I’m going to take him with me.
Yù’chén leaps through the air toward me. Too high, too fast, and his cloak whips back behind him, revealing the glint of something familiar.
Something that falls, arcing like a crescent moon.
Right toward me.
Heart.
The blade I left with him back in the Kingdom of Sky. The one with the strangest talisman: a talisman that listens only to the intent of one’s heart.
I’m on my feet. My hand darts out; my fingers close around my blade’s familiar hilt, the touch of my energies activating the talisman engraved there by my father.
I pray for the talisman to work this time.
For my heart to guide me true.
Yù’chén lands before me. One step, two, and he’s within arm’s reach, his sword flashing as he thrusts it toward me.
I surge forward to meet him, arm outstretched, Heart gleaming in my hand.
I plunge the crescent blade toward his chest, where his demon’s core and his mortal heart sit. A move that will end with me on his sword, and him on my blade.
We collide.
Resistance. The sound of metal slicing through flesh. Liquid heat, spilling down my sword hand.
We are caught in an embrace: Yù’chén’s arm encircles my back, holding me to him, my hands fisted against his chest. The hilt of my dagger in my palm.
The blade buried in his heart.
The seconds pass by; the pain I’m waiting for doesn’t come.
Then, dimly, I hear the sound of a sword clattering to the ground.
Yù’chén slumps against me. His breaths heave against the crook of my neck as he lifts his sword hand and places it on the back of my head. He turns his cheek to me as he strokes my hair, once, infinitely gentle.
A stillness falls. The air that was, moments ago, charged with energies and motion has fallen still and silent.
I can’t move, can’t think, can’t process anything but for the ridges of Heart’s hilt in my palms, pressed against the warmth of his chest; the gleam of his own blade, discarded at his feet.
Yù’chén’s body seizes against me; his fingers dig into my back as a tremor passes through him.
I gasp and wrench myself from his grasp. He stands there, swaying, the hilt of Heart protruding from his chest. His head is bent; his hands are open. One is outstretched, as though reaching for someone or something. Suddenly, I’m reminded of that day back in the Immortality Trials when he was punished by the immortals for stealing a sewing kit—a sewing kit that he gifted me—and no one came to his aid.
Slow and steady comes the drip, drip, drip of his blood, seeping into the blue carpet and its gold dragons beneath us.
Over the throne, beyond the dais, the gateway gives a palpable shudder, like a ripple running across the surface of a lake.
