Page 38

“You expect me to pretend that this is normal?”

“Yes. No. I don’t—” Out of desperation, I keep talking, trying to drown out my own pulse. “It isn’t important. It happened a long time ago.”

“You can tell me,” he says. Not a command, but an invitation.

I do not mean to take it, but the words leave my lips, confused and rushed, like poison sucked from a wound and spat out. “It was . . . just after my parents had been exiled to the Mortal Realm. The other gods were still deciding what to do with me, whether I deserved to be punished, too, and they told one of the gods to keep an eye on me. I don’t know if they were thinking . . . He had a few courtyards to his name, maybe—maybe they assumed he would simply keep me inside one of them. But he also had a private dungeon, magicked to only listen to its owner. Like this, but smaller.”

So small I couldn’t move my head. So small I was sure I would run out of air, and I didn’t dare to breathe in too fast, but that only made my breathing shallower. So small it felt like I was choking on the darkness.

I feel like I’m choking now as I continue, “He said that I deserved to be there. That my parents were a disgrace to the Celestial Realm and they’d probably brainwashed me so I would grow up to become like them too. That it was just as well if they suffered and died in the Mortal Realm if they were so attached to the lives of mortals. Our knowledge of the Heavens was meant to separate us from the mortals, leave them at our mercy; it was never meant to be used in aid of them. He really seemed to despise them—the mortals, I mean, not only my parents. He said the mortals were all thankless and took the generosity of gods for granted and prayed at the wrong temples. And he wouldn’t let me out; sometimes I thought it was just so he could force me to listen to him ranting. I don’t know how long he kept me locked up inside. Days or weeks . . . I hated it. I hated waiting by the locked door, dreading his footsteps. I hated feeling that powerless.”

Part of me is still there, knocking again and again at the locked door and kicking when that failed, and pleading when that failed, and part of me is trapped here in this grave, in the arms of Death, the earth rising up on all sides and the sky as far away as a reflection of the moon in a mirror.

Then the Death God runs his hand in a gentle line over my shoulder blades, and though it does not take away the fear, for a few seconds, I am more here than not.

“Who was it?” he asks, and there is nothing gentle about his voice.

“Fuhuo. A god of fire.” I pause. “Why?”

He does not answer. He just absorbs this silently, the way a chopping block absorbs blood.

I am in no mind to press him for more, to question what he has planned. I cannot think past the confines of the grave, the air tightening and tightening around us, inside my chest, the tremors rocking my limbs. My mouth feels like it’s full of sand. I would do anything to leave this place. Anything. If someone asked to turn my blood into a key, my first memories into an opening, I would gladly give it to them. This, I imagine, must be the same thoughtless, red-eyed desperation that drives mortals to gnaw on leather or bark or even their own during times of famine.

And then I realize what I have to do.

It is so simple. So terrible.

“Let me try,” I croak, pressing my palms together, my fingers pointed up, my thumbs bent down. My powers won’t come right away; my divinity feels frozen inside me, locked up by my own terror like a bird inside a cage. I focus on my breathing, imagine everything I have ever wanted. Easy enough when what I want right now is to be gone, to be outside, to be free. Then, a familiar humming. Light spills between us, flowing from my hands to his chest, right where his heart lies.

“If you were aiming for the barrier, you missed,” the Death God remarks, “by an almost astonishing degree.”

“That’s not what I was aiming for,” I tell him. “I know my strengths, and I am much better trained in healing than breaking barriers. So I am going to lift the curse completely. And then you are going to help us both escape.”

I feel him stiffen—in surprise or suspicion, it is impossible to tell. I know the dangers: that the instant the curse is gone, he will have no more need for me. I will be the bow stored away once the swans have all been shot; the military counselor killed once the enemy state has been conquered. That is why I have elected to heal him slowly over these past few days, in increments, toeing the line between being useful and being used up. But what good is there in scheming to stay alive if we are to stay trapped here forever?

“Ready?” I ask him.

He nods, and for the very last time, I fall into his past.

Everyone had forgotten his name.

Good, he had thought in the early days. Let it be buried. Let the boy disappear, and let those memories of him fade into the darkness, decay like any dead thing. Let them erase the bleak days of his childhood, all the foolish evidence of his hope, all his failed attempts to be loved, all his futile wishing and wondering. He had nothing he wished to save—nothing except, perhaps, one quicksilver moment in the past, but he tried not to dwell on that. He was the Death God now, and Death did not need any other name. Nobody would look upon his face and find him; they would only see themselves reflected in the black pools of his eyes. The lengths of their lives, their last words, their satchels of regrets.

“Death,” the prince called him as he rounded the corner. “Have you missed me?”

The Death God raised his head as high as the enchanted chains would allow. His vision swam so the other god’s figure was little but a pale blur at first. Then, as the sound of footsteps drew nearer over the marble floors, the form sharpened into varying shades of snow and swan-feather white, and then the delicate blue-and-gold embellishing woven down the sides in the shape of a blazing sun and rolling clouds. The symbols of the Celestial Realm. An eyesore. He almost preferred it when his vision was entirely obscured by blood, though he suspected he needn’t wait long before his vision was obscured once more.

“I have another little gift for you,” the prince said. Unfortunately, his face had clarified into view too. So many poems had been written about Crown Prince Junyi, each more nauseating than the next. A smile like eternal spring, they cooed. Eyes as bright as celestial flames. A general’s posture, an artist’s wit. A laugh that comes as naturally as rivers flowing forth from the south, the sound of it so delightful it could quiet any pain, soothe any soul.

The prince looming over him now was none of those things. His smile was all wrong, a cruel, twisting gash of red, exposing his teeth. His eyes were bright, yes, but feral and bloodshot, like the fires of a funeral pyre. If any of those self-proclaimed poets could see their beloved Prince Junyi in his present state, they would likely run screaming, as they always had from the god of death.

“Another gift?” the Death God said mildly. He knew it would only aggravate Junyi, but if he was to suffer through this royal’s childish acts of torture, then at least he would do it with his dignity intact. No begging. No betraying any fear. No crying out. He cared little for rules, but these were his three rules for himself. “Oh, but you shouldn’t have. I am still enjoying the last one.”

The prince’s wild gaze flickered down to the sword still embedded in his chest. It had been driven so deep that when the Death God moved even the barest inch, he could feel the point of it scrape against the stone wall behind him. He could feel his shattered bones attempting to rebuild around the invading object, could feel his skin struggling to knit itself back together time and time again. Spare yourself the trouble, he wished to scoff at his undying body, at the magic that condemned him to live forever. No wonder the death gods before him had all eventually succumbed to madness. We will be here for a while yet.

“This one should do the trick,” Junyi murmured. He was holding a goblet. Within it, there swam a thick black liquid that resembled old blood, but the Death God knew it could not be so benign. As if to confirm his theory out loud, Junyi cast him that disturbing, bared-teeth smile again. “I am told even the most feared god of war could not get past the second sip without sobbing and crumpling to the floor.”

His heart flinched.