“No!” I steady my voice. “No, Meadowsweet, take him andrun.”
“Meadowsweet,” Hào’yáng repeats. “Stay with her. If anything happens to her, then I—”
But the rest of what he says is drowned out by an earth-shattering roar. The second Peril’s crimson eyes sweep over us. Pin Hào’yáng.
Hào’yáng spins and kicks off, and his fingers slip through mine as he arcs through the air, an image I will never forget: a golden streak against the overwhelming darkness of the other realm—and Táo’wù.
Àn’ying.The dragonhorse’s familiar voice sounds in my mind like rushing currents of a river.Your house.
I turn, and my knees weaken.
Over the gentle curve of gray-tiled roofs, my plum blossom tree has vanished, swallowed by the night pouring from the gash in the skies.A gate, I think, recalling the openings Yù’chén once made in the Kingdom of Sky’s wards, enabling us passage between realms despite the immortals’ magic. No one knows for sure how the Kingdom of Night first gained access to the Kingdom of Rivers, but the rumors whisper of a gate opening between realms.
I have never seen anything on this scale: a gate large enough to envelop half my village.
And I can no longer see my house.
A scream dies in my throat as I run toward it.
The scene on my street unfolds in chaos and terror. The tables and chairs meant for our wedding banquet are overturned, some splintered into pieces. The lanterns and decor aretrampled and torn, strewn like entrails in the dirt. A fire has started; flames lick up Fú’yí’s wooden shed, illuminating the battle waging before me.
A small white fox darts through the wreckage of our wedding banquet. It turns back to bare its teeth as the entireskyseems to shift.
Overhead, Qióng’qí’s tangle of razor-sharp bones and skeletal form is cast into sharp relief by the firelight.
As it lunges toward Lì’líng, a shape rises between them: the silhouette of a monster I have never seen before. Slate-gray scales and webbed wings that shift like smoke as they uncoil from a serpent’s body with a woman’s torso and arms. Bloody light limns the monster’s face, and I nearly stop in my tracks. It’s a yao’jing—a halfling child of a human and a spirit—and it takes me a moment to recognize her as someone I know very well.
Tán’mù’s features are longer, sharper, and more terrible than her mortal form as she rises to meet Qióng’qí. Her tail whips out, catching the hellbeast square in the shoulder and sending it stumbling back.
By my side, Meadowsweet, too, is shifting. Her snowy coat morphs into rippling silver scales; her hooves lengthen into claws, and then it’s no longer Meadowsweet cantering by my side but the full dragon form of She of the Moon-Frosted Sea. As she leaps forward to join the battle, I swap my crescent blade Shadow for Striker and lunge.
My weapon barely scrapes the thigh of Qióng’qí before the monster pivots and vanishes from my sight. I feel a huff of fiery breath against my back, catch a glimpse of shadows in my peripheral vision, but I can’t turn fast enough…
She of the Moon-Frosted Sea lunges between us, jaws open. Mist pours from her mouth, forming a tide of ice. Qióng’qí rams into it with enough force to shatter city walls. Specks of ice tumble from the shield, and as the Peril’s tail whips out, I catch sight of something that draws a scream from me.
“Lì’líng!”
The small white fox looks up just as the shadow of the hellbeast’s tail smashes toward her—
A spark of spirit energy; a resoundingcrackechoes in the night as Qióng’qí’s spiked tail strikes an invisible barrier. As it recoils, I spot Lì’líng, now in her human form as a young girl—and before her, holding a very familiar crescent blade I gifted her, stands my little sister.
Méi’zi smirks as she lowers Shield. She’s in a pink silk dress, the shape of which mimics the white one she made for me. She’s woven her hair into two braids, and as she lifts her chin, the firelight catches in her eyes.
Tán’mù lets out an inhuman scream as she slices her claws at Qióng’qí. Behind her, Méi’zi pulls Lì’líng to her feet. The fox spirit bares her teeth and with a leap, she joins the fight by her lover’s side.
I race to my sister.
“Jie’jie!” She folds herself into my arms. “Ma’s safe, sheltering with Fú’yí. We were waiting for you.”
“Méi’zi,” I begin, and that’s when Táo’wù, several streets down, lets out an earsplitting roar. I look up, and there, in the shadows, a streak of golden armor plummets from the skies like a shooting star.
Hào’yáng.
Suddenly, I recall the memory of Lady Shi’ya falling fromSansiran’s death blow, her spirit energy trailing ashes in the night.
Realize the consequences of the choice I am to make.
I take my baby sister’s face in my hands. Hold her tightly, so tightly, so that she knows in my heart, I wish to never let go.
