Without warning, a vine lashes out at me, lunging for my wrist. I jerk back, but not before one of its thorns pricks myskin.
I reel through the air, my iridescent cloud shifting faster in my panic. Pain flares in my forearm. From somewhere nearby comes a monstrous shriek and the sound of rapidly approaching wingbeats.
I raise my lotus sword.
The first hellbeast shoots out of the clouds like a shadowy arrow. All I catch is a streak of darkness and blazing red eyes before it is upon me.
I swerve, swinging my sword, but it becomes clear how ill-matched I am, even with my newfound powers, against a hellbeast. My coordination of flight upon my cloud is clumsy, like learning to move with a new limb; my skills with a sword are unrefined compared to my prowess with my blades. As I miss the creature again, I’m thrown off balance. I spin through the air, barely turning in time to catch the glint of sharp teeth and razor claws.
I dodge, letting myself fall, buying myself time—and as I do, I swap my weapons. My sword shrinks into the lotus hairpin; with a flick of my wrists, the hairpin is tucked safely in my sleeves…and my crescent blades Fleet and Striker are in my hands.
A blur of darkness overhead, and the next moment the creature is upon me. Its wing slams me solidly in the ribs. I grit my teeth at the pain and latch onto one of its wings, Fleet propelling my movements faster than the eye can see.
I rip Fleet through its wings, satisfied when I’m rewarded with the hellbeast’s earsplitting scream. Then I haul myself onto its back and plunge Striker through its head, where its core should be.
I let go as the creature begins to disintegrate into the shadows and ichor of its makeup, undone by the fatal wound I’ve dealt it. The last to go are its blazing red eyes and the ghost of its snarl as it fades into nothing but dust and ash.
Then there is only silence.
The second hellbeast strikes out of nowhere.
One moment, I’m in the air; the next, I’m falling, my stomach twisting with vertigo as the world turns into a blur of gray clouds and cold, sharp winds. I can smell the rotten stench of the beast’s breath, see the saliva dripping down its dagger-length fangs. As the creature wraps its claws around my ribs, I yield to its embrace.
And plunge Striker between its blazing red eyes, into its core.
The creature screams—and a new, white-hot pain blazes through my forearm. My fingers spasm, and to my horror, Striker tumbles from my grasp and into the darkness below.
“No!”The cry wrenches from me. Overhead, the hellbeast’s corporeal form disintegrates.
I twist as I fall, reaching out for Striker in the air. But my crescent blade is already gone, a speck of silver against the dark—before the shadows swallow it whole.
Another flash of pain lances through my left arm, and I find I can’t move, can’t breathe, as I plunge through the cloud-smothered skies of the immortal realm down, down toward certain death.
Only…there is a shift in the clouds around me. A great silhouette appears overhead; from the distance comes a rumble of laughter. A single white feather twirls through the sky. It stretches, and when it’s as large as a hammock, it suddenly dips beneath me.
I land on fluffy white down.
The clouds part. A great crane with a red crown glides gracefully overhead, and seated on its back, grinning at me with a hand raised in greeting, is…
“Honorable Immortal Jing’xiù?” I croak in disbelief, wondering if I’m hallucinating.
The immortal gives me a cheery wave with the bejeweledbamboo scepter he always wielded to amplify his voice as he spoke to us in the Temple of Dawn during the Immortality Trials.
The great feather soars up, depositing me on the back of his crane. “Hello again, Number Forty-Four,” he booms, and then chortles at my expression. “Never thought you’d see me again? Or, rather, neverwantedto see me again, I presume?”
He’s right on both counts, but of course, I don’t say that as I pull myself into a sitting position. The pain flares again in my wrist and I wince, but Jing’xiù appears not to notice. He looks unchanged, as all immortals are: his face handsome and ageless, long black hair and beard flowing neatly beneath his imperial cap, and official robes blazing red and gold. Legends say that he was once a mortal general distantly related to the imperial bloodline before he began cultivating his powers to cross into the immortal realm and earn eternal life.
“Thank you,” I manage, but that only makes him laugh harder.
“Only you would be grappling with one of those hellbeasts and trying to stab it instead of running away, my dear,” Jing’xiù says.
His levity irritates me, just as it did the first time I met him at the Temple of Dawn, when he tried to disqualify me for barely finishing the First Trial.
“Oh, don’t look so furious, child. Be glad you’re alive—unlike many others.”
The solemnity of his words lowers my defenses enough to ask, “Who else is with you?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” Jing’xiù’s smile fades slightly, and his gaze slides to my left arm. The wounds where the rosethorns punctured my skin have turned black. “You’re injured. Unfortunately, healing that kind of a wound goes beyond my abilities. We’ll have to see what tricks Cai’hé has in their basket.”
