The tides carry him like a throne of water. Sunlight gilds him, and even from here, I can make out the aura, elegance, and power that spills from him.
He is every bit the heir I am not.
Àn’ying raises her blade to defend him. Protectiveness tightens her features in an expression I have seen her wear when she speaks of her mother and her sister. Her loved ones.
As I watch, the ache flares again, hot and strong, like a blade slicing through my heart.
I want to call out to her. I want to step into that memory and hold her to me. I want to promise her everything I can’t and he can.
Most of all, I want to be on the other side of that expression she wears. I want to be someone she loves so much and so fiercely.
The words, the ache, build in my chest, burn up my throat. I swallow them all, hold myself very still in this hall I’m trapped in, gazing at an illusion I can never reach.
The memory vanishes like a flame flickering out, and thenI’m looking into my mother’s face. I know I’m no longer smiling, but I can’t summon the strength in this moment.
My mother’s expression has twisted into a snarl, her eyes colder than the depths of our kingdom.
“Tell me, myson,” she says, and suddenly, her voice is low and terrible, “how the mortal heir and the girl you love ended up in themortal realm?”
Shit.
I shrug. “Perhaps your defenses aren’t as impenetrable as you thought?”
Pain slams into me like white-hot lightning in my bones. I gasp and pitch forward, arms trembling as I try to hold myself up, to retain some semblance of dignity. Spots bloom before my eyes. What Niefuzan’s newborn mó did to me earlier feels like nothing compared to this.
It’s gone as suddenly as it came, and I’m left on all fours before the dais, panting and sweat-drenched. I hear titters around me as my mother’s most powerful generals and Higher Ones watch.
This is nothing new to them, but they relish it each and every time. Watching me, heir to the mortal throne, be denigrated at their empress’s feet satisfies an ancient anger they hold toward the other realms and the hierarchy that the Heavenly Order dictates. The hierarchy that puts the mó and the Kingdom of Night at the very bottom.
I push myself to my feet. There is no way out, no escaping this but to endure it until it is over. I’m breathing hard—and the strength it takes to lift the corners of my lips into a grin again feels like moving mountains.
My mother stands now. “The periphery of this training temple was completely guarded and sealed,” she hisses, her powercoiling like a gathering storm in her palms. The room darkens, charges with lightning. “Which means theonlyway out for them wasthrough your gates.”
Her fury hits me again, like a tide this time, pounding into me with the sensation of all my bones shattering and my skin tearing. My mother’s magic morphs, and she is endlessly creative in her cruelty, always seeking a new method of torture. This time, it mimics the feeling of water filling my lungs, that acute, burning sensation of drowning in thin air.
I choke, clawing at my throat, but I can’t breathe. My chest is on fire. Dimly, I hear jeers and howls of approval from my mother’s court as, finally, my body gives out and I crash to the floor. I’m curled up on myself, but I can’t scream, can’t make a single sound.
Darkness envelops my vision.
When I come to, I’m lying on the marble floor.Get up, I tell myself.Get up.
I bear no physical injuries—I never do, for my mother’s magic is too sophisticated for that—but every nerve in my body protests as I push myself up into a kneeling position. This time, I do not have the strength to stand.
But my mother does, her hand outstretched to something behind her. The taunting and mockery in the hall has given way to silence. All the generals have backed away a respectable step, and even the Higher Ones stand straighter, more alert.
Behind my mother, the mass of shadowsmoves, splits. As another set of crimson eyes flares open, I realize I’m looking into the faces of two of the Four Perils. It takes me a moment to recognize Táo’wú, with its boarlike tusks and gold-tinged mane. Yet as the other emerges, I’m filled with a cold premonition of what my mother means to do.
Qióng’qí’s growl rumbles like thunder through the hall. The last time I came across it was in the mortal realm, at the beginning of the Immortality Trials. Àn’ying tried to save me from this beast, not knowing that my mother had sent it to keep the other hellbeasts in the Way of Ghosts from tearing me apart before I completed my mission.
Now my mother is going to send them after her.
“No.” The word breaks from my lips. Too soft for most to hear. The vision the monster of nightmares taunted me with on Péng’lái Island flashes in my mind: Àn’ying, lying prone on the grass in her white dress, eyes glassy and stomach torn open.
And I know, without a doubt, that this is the worst kind of torture my mother can inflict upon me.
Sansiran’s lips curl. “Oh,yes,” she breathes as the two beasts flank her. “I think we’ll send a lovely surprise to them, don’t you agree?”
“Let me go.” I’m reeling, grasping at straws, but I no longer care. I have no more cards to play, no walls to put up—not when it comes to her. “I’ll find her and the mortal heir, and I’ll bring them back to you. I won’t fail you again, I swear on mylife.”
