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“You never disappoint,” he says. “That’s precisely the welcome I’d expected you to give me.”

“Why are you here?” I demand, pressing in with my legs and torso, leaving no room for him to move. His knees are trapped between mine. His back is forced fully flat against the bricks. It’s still not enough. I have the violent urge to reach through his robes, through his rib cage, find his heart, and twist. “What do you want?”

“To kill two eagles with one arrow,” he tells me.

I bring my hand closer, letting my power flicker over the side of his jaw. If it hurts him, he doesn’t show it. But of course—he had barely reacted when I’d pressed my sword to his neck. He wants the pain, I realize with a sick lurch. He thinks he deserves it. That’s no reason to feel sorry for him. That only proves he’s a masochist. “If you think you’ll be able to kill me—”

“I didn’t say if you were one of the eagles, or the arrow,” he interrupts. “Let’s not rush into it just yet. We have not seen each other in quite a while. How have you been?”

“How have I been?” I repeat, incredulous.

At the mere mention of it, the images I’ve been trying desperately to forget flood my mind. A tray of food slammed down on the floor before me, the broth so thin it resembled stale water, the rice so cold and hard it barely passed as cooked. The vicious whispers that fluttered after me everywhere I went, my face stinging. The gods glowering at me when I glanced up from the rubble I was cleaning, turning their backs to me when I opened my mouth to speak. The ugly rumors that circled the realm and always reached me: that I had been bewitched by the Death God, or seduced by him; that I had led him into the Celestial Realms myself; that I had long harbored a grudge against the other officials, and this was all part of my plan for revenge; that my kindness as a healer had been an act, and I was even worse than my parents were. Only Yuemo and Hanchen had not treated me like I’d transformed overnight into vermin, but I’d stopped accepting visits when the other gods began to sneer at them, too, by association.

“How do you think I’ve been? You barged into my realm and destroyed everything in sight and then you disappeared. You left me there with no explanation to clean up what you started. Everyone in the Celestial Realm hates me or suspects me. I have nowhere to go now, no place to call home.” Bitterness creeps into my voice. “I was so close. You don’t even care, of course, but I had waited and worked for centuries to get to that point. I was finally about to have everything I wanted. I could’ve been promoted to Celestial Healer. I could’ve been accepted as one of them but then you ruined it—”

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I didn’t mean to involve you. But I don’t understand either. Why do you care so much about whether or not they accept you?”

I glare at him, my rage rendering me briefly speechless. It’s no surprise that he doesn’t understand. All I’ve ever wanted is redemption. All he’s ever wanted is revenge.

“I only mean,” he continues, “that when someone harms me, my reaction is to harm them back. But when someone harms you, your reaction is to try to change their mind about you.”

“Well, what else was I supposed to do?” I snap. “Threaten the Celestial Emperor? Bring down the entire Celestial Realm? I couldn’t, even if I wanted. I didn’t have enough power, and my one chance at gaining any power at all was by rising through the ranks—”

“So you would submit to them?” he presses. “You would have joined them? Those false gods who think they’re superior to everyone else, who will look you up and down before deciding if you are someone worth talking to. That was the sad life you fought for, after hundreds of years?”

“Thanks to you, that’s no longer an option.” Suddenly, I am sick of talking. Sick of listening to him judge my choices. Sick of his unshakable calm. I clench my teeth and strike—

I expect him to duck.

To move away. His instincts are more than fast enough to protect him.

But he remains still, absorbing the full, blunt impact of the slap. The sound startles even me: a sharp crack, like a whip. He’s smiling when he touches a finger to the fresh blood blooming at his mouth. Lifts it up before him, examining the bright smear of crimson with something like mild wonderment.

My anger is wiped clean by pure shock. “What’s wrong with you?” I demand.

His smile doesn’t waver. “Where do I begin?”

“Do you—do you find the situation funny, somehow?”

“You didn’t use your powers,” he says, like this is significant. His black eyes glitter even as he bleeds. “Only your hand. Are you worried about hurting me?”

“I think you should be worried.” I let my divinity flow up my wrists again, let the threat hang in the air.

“Careful, now,” he murmurs, eyeing my raised hand. My power burns as bright as a torch, licking the wall around it. The bricks closest to me have started to crack and melt. “You’re welcome to attack me as many times as you’d like, but Junyi might notice us from inside. Or you might bring his house down first, which he would most certainly notice.”

Despite myself, I pause, closing my hand into a fist. “So that really is Junyi?”

“I arrived only seconds before you did, but I believe so, yes.” His gaze flickers in the direction of the window, and the line of his mouth turns cruel. “I would know that face even in my nightmares.”

A horrible thought clicks into place. “That’s why you’re here. To murder him.”

“What? No, Rujia, listen to me,” he says, and even though I shouldn’t, I find myself waiting for him to continue. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t lifted a finger to fight back. Or maybe it’s because, up close, his eyes are strangely sincere and weighted with something that could be exhaustion. Because his complexion, already a map of pale skin and dark shadows, looks far more delicate than I remember, the shadows ripening into the bluish-purple of old bruises. Or maybe it’s because the entire time I was suffering in the Celestial Realm, it had not evaded me that everything I endured was only a faint echo of what Keran himself had experienced; that if they loathed me so deeply just for aiding the Death God, how much did they loathe him? How much hatred had Keran absorbed from them when he was a child?

“I am here to help you,” he says steadily. “The crown prince is of no use to me in his present state. I will ensure that he survives his two trials as a mortal, and then, when he becomes a god again, you will be free to clear your name before the emperor and everyone else in the Celestial Realm and—”

“You will torture the crown prince,” I finish.

“I will make him suffer,” he says, his voice harsh. “I do not expect you to fully understand. The visions you saw; those memories of mine—” He swallows. Averts his eyes. “Those are just fragments of reality. You cannot possibly imagine the extent of what he has done to me. A regular murderer might still know limits, but he—he had none.”