Page 77

It feels like thousands of ants are swarming over my skull. For as long as I’ve been alive, I have not heard anything of the kind before.

I let the man leave with the panicked masses, then I turn to Keran, who has been silent this whole time.

“What do you think it is?” I ask. “A curse? An illness?”

“We will see” is all he says.

We do not have to wander much farther before the blood begins. It flows down the empty alleys like rainwater, sullying the surrounding tiles, finishing in puddles outside the shuttered stores and abandoned teahouses. Without any luminosity, the crimson looks pitch-black, unnatural, closer to ink than the makings of mortal flesh.

A girl stands over a corpse.

She’s holding an axe in her hand, but it looks almost comical; the axe is nearly as tall as she is and so heavy that her frail body keeps tilting to the right, dragged down by its weight. Fresh blood is splattered on her cheeks, smeared across her lips. I take a cautious step closer, and her eyes snap to us. They flash bright red. There is no recognition, no mercy, no fear in them. Nothing except the desire for destruction.

No wonder the civilian believed her to have been possessed by an evil spirit.

“Be very careful,” Keran warns me. “She’s lost the ability to think.”

“I know,” I whisper. My gut twists. I am less afraid of her attacking me than having to defend myself against her.

Then someone else limps out from the shadows. An elderly woman who appears to be nearing the end of her mortal life, clutching at the bleeding gash in her side with one hand. Her thin, snow-white hair hangs down her back, and her gnarled fingers quiver as she reaches for the girl. Yet the soft wrinkles of her face are set into an expression of hard resolve.

“Put the axe down now,” she calls to the girl, the way you might chastise a child for playing out in the sun too long, or not finishing all the vegetables in their bowl. “Listen to your nainai. Whatever it is that’s wrong—we will fix it. Come to me,” she urges. “Don’t be like this.”

For a moment, it seems possible that the girl might listen. The air freezes in my throat as I watch her falter, those strange crimson eyes shifting from the bloodied axe to her wounded grandmother. There is the briefest glimmer of recognition, before her mouth twists into a smile: hungry, cruel, wrong. It is a smile even more out of place on her girlish features than the weapon in her grip, as if something ancient has crawled up through the cracks in the streets and sneaked under her skin. It is the smile of a demon, of chaos incarnate.

“Watch out,” I cry, except it’s already too late.

When she lunges, she does not hesitate.

She seizes her grandmother’s shoulder, as if to hold her in place, and buries the axe in her stomach with inhuman strength. The blade cuts straight through to the other side. Blood splashes the ground. The scene is almost strangely peaceful; no scream comes, just the faint half breath of surprise. Then the grandmother slumps forward, her arms falling over the girl’s shoulders.

The crimson in the girl’s eyes flickers. “Nai . . . nai?”

“It’s okay,” the grandmother murmurs, her face white with pain, her eyes closed. Mortals lose blood far more quickly than gods; soon, she won’t have the strength left to move at all. Still, with her remaining energy, she lifts a shaking hand, brushing the back of the girl’s head. “It’s okay . . . Don’t be scared . . . It’s not your fault . . . Your nainai is here. . . .”

“Nainai,” the girl whispers on a sob. “I don’t—I don’t understand—”

But even as she’s crying, the clarity is fading again. Her hands tighten around the axe, slippery and stained with the same blood that runs through her veins, and wrench it out. The elderly woman crumples on the street, next to the dead boy, red seeping from both their robes.

Swaying a little, the girl raises the axe again, her expression eerily blank, and slashes it across her own neck.

It doesn’t feel real. Not when she collapses, too, the axe clattering against the ground. Not when the stillness sets in over the three bodies piled together. And the screams continue in the distance, crashing over one another like the waves of a rocky shore.

Wordlessly, the Death God glides forward and runs his palm over the corpses. Their souls shiver out and rise to meet him, glowing brighter than the full moon.

“Did you know?” I ask him, the horror of what I’ve just witnessed pressing against my voice. “Did you know these deaths would happen?”

“I didn’t,” he says, staring down at the blood smudged along the hem of his robes. The Death God does not grieve. That is what they all say. The Death God cannot grieve for any of the souls he takes, or else he would be grieving for an eternity. But there is a touch of regret to his tone, something different warring in his expression. “This is not how the mortals should have died.”

“No, it is not,” comes a familiar voice from behind me. The voice of a god.

Yuemo bolts the door shut and turns to light the sole lantern inside the tea store with a snap of his fingers. All the other lanterns must have been taken in the frenzy, alongside practically anything that could be fashioned into a weapon for self-defense.

The small flame flickers to life, casting strange shadows over the dark, sun-dried tendrils of tea and the porcelain pots lining the back shelves. Hanchen leans against them, his right hand perched on his sword. A deliberate choice, just like his choice to stand as far away from Keran as the small, cluttered room will allow.

“Well,” Yuemo says, walking over to join Hanchen, rubbing a weary hand over his eyes. “I understand these are peculiar circumstances, but we need to talk. Something like this . . . It has never happened before, not even in the long memory of gods. The Celestial Emperor noticed the disturbances in the Mortal Realm and sent us down here to investigate—”

“And what have you found?” Keran asks coolly, sitting up in the chair beside me.