There are two of them, as different as ice and fire. Power radiates from them in an almost careless manner, the air and flowers trembling from the sheer magnitude of their dark magic. Immediately, I know these are not the same as the mó dancing to the moonsong below us.
These are mó from the Court of the Aurora.
Higher Ones, my instinct screams.
My gaze is drawn to the woman. Her hair has the sheen of freshly fallen snow; her eyes are fully white, her lips the palest, most delicate shade of blue. She wears a finely-made dress that looks woven of frost, as if she has draped a winter forest over herself.
Her breath plumes as she leans forward.“Oh,”she breathes. “What a lovely mortal face. What do you think, Niefuzan? Was she worth the extra effort?”
The mó next to her is one of the biggest I have ever encountered, yet his bulk does not diminish his grace. He holds himself with a predatory sharpness, and when he grins down at me, his elongated teeth gleam. Behind him, emerging from thefootpaths leading from town, are more mó. Their glittering attire suggests they also hail from court, yet they lack the sophistication and power the two Higher Ones hold. Their red eyes flash as they settle on me, noses twitching as they no doubt scent the blood thrumming in my veins.
The one named Niefuzan steps toward me in an elegant, deliberate move. “I wouldn’t know, Xisenyin.” His voice rumbles like thunder. “Perhaps I should have a taste of her myself.”
But I’m staring at his face, struck with a sense of familiarity and fear. Memories resurface in my mind: the taste of black water, of numbness poisoning my body. The image of my friend Fán’xuan, green eyes open and blank.
“You,” I whisper, and I can’t help the tremor in my voice.
Yù’chén tugs me sharply back to his side. “I’m not in the mood for games tonight, Niefuzan.” I flinch at how cold his voice is. “You want to play, come back later and I’ll entertain you and yours for as long as you like.”
The Higher One’s lips pull back in a grin. His pupils are permanent black slits, the rest of his eyes completely red. “No need for hostility tonight,Your Highness.” The title sounds like a mockery on his tongue. “We only came to see that you were adequately enjoying what you so desperately bargained for.” His gaze slides to mine, and I suppress a shudder. “Besides, it seems as though she recognizes me.” Niefuzan’s smile splits his face. He wears vaguely mortal features, yet threaded through them are what must be his true form. Dark veins filled with his demon’s ichor bulge from his taut muscles; his hands end in claws tipped with familiar-looking black spikes. “Or perhaps,” he continues, “she finds me familiar because she has come across the halfling I sired.”
The realization hits me:Yán’lù. The other halfling who bypassed the Kingdom of Sky’s wards and participated in the Immortality Trials. He’d been tasked with finding the identity of the mortal realm’s heir.
And he’d killed five candidates—including Fán’xuan.
Hatred surges in me as I stare down his father, bigger and crueler and more beautiful than Yán’lù ever was. “I relished hunting your son,” I spit, but Niefuzan only laughs.
“I do not think of that pathetic halfling as myson. Merely a creature I bred and raised to be of use to me. I would not debase my lineage by mixing my ichor with the mud of mortals.”
“This is all rather dull, Niefuzan,” Yù’chén drawls. “If you’re intent on ruining my fun tonight, then we’ll take our leave.”
“Is she not drugged, Princeling?” the female with the white hair—Xisenyin—says suddenly. Her gaze is sharp on me, like a cat scenting prey.
“I don’t see how that’s any concern of yours,” Yù’chén replies after a nearly imperceptible pause.
Xisenyin laughs again, a soft, beautiful sound. “Oh, it isn’t. It just makes playing with them so much more fun. Worry not, Princeling,” she adds as Yù’chén moves toward me suddenly.“Just stay there and watch.”
The words are spoken like a casual invitation, but Ifeelthe tremor of power to her command. Yù’chén freezes in place, his hand at the hilt of his sword, his muscles straining against her magic.
“Come to me, mortal girl,”Xisenyin says lazily, and her power twines around me like iron, bending my body and legs into action.
She smiles at me as I approach, and I am certain she canhear my racing pulse, scent the sweat beading on my scalp as I try and fail to resist her magic. Her fingers are ice-cold as she takes my wrist and, with her other hand, she pulls something from the glittering folds of her winter gown. I recognize the hilt engraved with the talisman and the curved blade before she presses it into my palm.
It’s my crescent blade Fleet—I can immediately tell by the grooves in the wooden hilt, the shine of the metal.
My blade. She has my blade.
“Cut open your throat for me,”Xisenyin sings.
Yù’chén makes a sound, but Fleet is at my neck before I can blink. A hot flash of pain, then warm liquid spills down my collarbone, seeping into my dress.
My mind blanks.
Xisenyin shifts, reappearing behind me. Her hand envelops mine, and my blade vanishes into her grasp again. I feel the scrape of her teeth against my skin, the softness of her tongue as she traces one long, languorous lick up the curve of my neck.
Trapped in my own body, I’m reliving the nightmare of nine years past, when I sat beneath my kitchen table and watched a mó drink my father’s blood. Sansiran had held him as tenderly as a lover as he’d struggled, and I’d recalled seeing, in the forest once, a deer caught in the claws of a mountain lion.
“Mmm.” Xisenyin makes a satisfied sound as she draws back. Her pupils are dilated, her mouth and chin smeared with my blood, and her teeth red as she says, “Lovely.Now walk off the edge of the cliff.”
