Slowly, the adrenaline seeps from my body, and I’m left with exhaustion and a faint, tingling pain in my arm. I nestle into the soft white feathers of the crane, its wings and the heat of its body shielding me from the cold. I hold Fleet tightly to my chest, the image of Striker plunging into the darkness fresh in my mind. And as the immortal and I soar deeper into his realm, I wonder if becoming immortal means losing more and more pieces of the human girl I once was.
26
Àn’ying
Kingdom of Sky
As we fly, we keep to the clouds, sometimes briefly skimming between them so I’m able to catch glimpses of the realm.
I’ve never been far beyond the Temple of Dawn or the drifting island with the great camphor tree where Hào’yáng and I used to train. Now, as I soar deeper into the Kingdom of Sky on the back of Jing’xiù’s crane, the immortal realm reveals its vastness to me…as well as the ravages inflicted upon it by the war.
Where sunlight once struck everything like molten gold, a cold shadow now lingers over the land, as though the realm is in a permanent state of twilight. We pass plumes of black smoke, delicate floating towns burnt to ashes, and flower gardens trampled to ruins. Worse are the pockets of darkness that swallow the landscape around them; we can see nothing at all of what is inside.
The red-crowned crane is careful to steer away from those areas.
“How bad is it?” I ask.
“The Kingdom of Night caught us unawares.” Jing’xiù’s tone is solemn as he follows my gaze over his realm. “More than half our armies have been lost to the war—and more troops are dying with each passing day. The mó have taken control of our wards; none may enter or leave without their knowledge, as you have just discovered. They have rounded us up like fish in a net. As the Kingdom of Night’s grasp extends over both the mortal realm and this, its power grows and so, too, does that of its soldiers.” He cants his head to the distant sun, almost sunken beneath clouds. “We immortals are beings of light. With the ever-growing dark, our power wanes. When our armies began to be overpowered by Sansiran’s forces, most of us went into hiding.”
My shiver has nothing to do with the cold.
The crane banks sharply and plunges directly into a hulking gray mass of clouds. When the clouds clear, we soar over a range of zigzagging mountains that drift through a twilight sky. A river winds through the valleys like a silver thread, and cherry blossoms, wisteria, and weeping willows dot the landscape.
As we plunge toward a waterfall, I brace myself for impact—but it doesn’t come. A warm, tingling feeling envelops me as we soar right through the spirit energies of a ward.
What appeared at first to be a pitch-black cavern ripples, and the ground opens to reveal—impossibly—blue skies and green valleys.
I twist back sharply upon hearing Jing’xiù’s amused laughter.
“Magic created jointly by the Eight Immortals,” he explainswith a wave of his hand. “Only those with good intentions may pass under the waterfall—and through our wards—to find our hiding place.”
Residences built of rosewood with curving eaves line the sides of the gulleys, their gardens filled with blossoming trees. Jing’xiù’s crane flies through the fretwork windows of one, alighting inside a chamber overlooking an enormous garden. Inside, it’s bright and airy, with a bed covered in soft sheets, and silk drapes to draw over the windows at night.
I step off the crane—just as that white-hot pain flares in my arm again, this time streaking up my shoulder to the back of my head.
For a moment, the world goes black. When I come to, I’m lying on the ground, my cheek pressed to the floorboards.
Overhead, a face swims into view.
“You certainly have an interesting way of making an entrance.” Jing’xiù peers down at me, arms folded.
I glare at him and push myself up. Pause when I catch sight of my hand.
Where the thorns punctured me, a spiderweb of black tendrils snakes under my skin, pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat.
“Curious,” Jing’xiù says softly, following my gaze. I’ve never been able to read immortals, so ancient and timeless that trying to do so would be like attempting to read the clouds or the ocean.
“What’s curious?” I straighten and tuck my arm behind my back. It’s disturbing, the way he’s staring at it.
“None who have attempted to escape through the Kingdom of Night’s wards have lived to see the next sunrise. I have seen immortals a hundred times more powerful than you turn to dust and ashes upon touching those wards.”
“That’s comforting, thank you,” I say flatly.
“You’re welcome. I know someone who can help with your wound.”
“Wait.” I push myself to my feet, still holding my arm behind my back, as though that can stop whatever it is I contracted from the thorns. “Who else is here?”
“All of us.” Jing’xiù pauses. “That is, the seven of us remaining.”
