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“We had an agreement,” the Celestial Emperor continues in that same merciless tone, with a terrible finality. This is not a trial. This is the sentence, a declaration of why I deserve what is to come. “You were already aware of the consequences when we reached it.”

“But—”

“Begin.” The single word slices through the realm like a sword, drawing blood the second it lands.

The platform beneath me shudders to life, and a triangular array carved into the stone emits an eerie glow, pulsing with the sound of a distant, distorted heartbeat. With each new pulse, light pools into the grooves and climbs up the neat collection of lines, the tremors building through the chains until they reach my fingers—

My head jerks back.

I scream.

It feels as if someone has pulled apart the nerves inside my body, minced my flesh, pushed countless invisible needles under my skin, straight into my marrow. It is an agony so pure, so blistering I am shocked that it exists, that it’s possible, that my soul hasn’t already shattered from its intensity. An agony not contained at the surface, but driven deep into me, without limits, without end. Just when I think it must be over, simply because it cannot be any worse, I am proven wrong. It can always be worse. The beat picks up like a war drum heralding one last battle; I no longer know if it’s coming from the clouds or the array itself or from inside my own skull. I only know the bolts of pain come faster and faster, leaving no space to even catch my breath before I’m crying out again. I thrash and writhe and pant, my shoulders shuddering. I want to recoil, retreat into myself like a soft creature inside a shell, drawing my skin around me, but there’s nowhere for me to run.

“Do not expect any mercy.” The Celestial Emperor’s voice is everywhere, crowding in. “You’ve shown that you do not deserve it. What a shame,” he adds coldly. “I had hoped you would learn from the foolish mistakes of your parents. You could have proven that you were different from them . . .”

I shake my head, half delirious. I’m being cut open. I am certain of it, even if there is no blade; my arms are fracturing apart, my heart splitting out from my chest. This will never be over. Another tide of pain rips through me, rattling my ribs. When I cough, blood breaks through my lips, runnels of it dripping down my chin. Why isn’t it over yet?

“Now, this is how everyone will remember you,” the Celestial Emperor goes on. “Another traitor to the Celestial Realm, a fallen, disgraced god who made all the wrong choices. Your legacy will rot, and your light will fade, and you will have nobody to blame except yourself.”

When the light shoots across the chains again, the pain is so sharp it seems to tear my soul and body in two:

There is my physical being, chained to the platform, battered and bleeding, and then floating just a few inches above it is me. I am here, but not. The world is real, but not. Everything is an illusion, a mirage in the red dust, both ephemeral and eternal. It is like the times I went into isolation deep in the mountains to purify my energy, when nothing could disturb me, when the universe felt closest and I thought I understood true divinity. The body was only a cavern, a place to store the soul. Skin can be shed, faces can be forgotten, but the soul—the soul must stay intact. And then distantly, as if from a thousand miles away, I remember: Keran. Keran must be the one to kill me. I cannot risk dying here or being taken to the water dungeons after; I must follow the path laid out by the Heavens if I want to restore order to the world. It has to be him holding the sword.

I return to my body, root myself in the pain. It feels like lowering myself into a vat of boiling water. My fingers are trembling so hard when I reach for the bell tucked inside my sleeve that I almost drop it.

Keran.

Come find me. Take me away from here.

What do gods pray about? Who do they pray to? I have wondered this often in the past, and it had seemed like an impossible riddle: the loneliness of the immortal. When you had the most power, there was nobody else who could save you; when you stood at the very top, there was nobody around who could help pull you up. But now I know. There is someone I would light incense for every day of this lifetime, and every lifetime after. Someone I would turn to in the darkness.

Death, my beloved, my one true god.

I pray only to die by your hand.

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake the bell. I cannot hear whether or not it makes any sound over my screaming.

But I shake it again, and again, as though it is the only thing I know, the only thing I’ve been taught that will keep me from losing my mind entirely.

Keran. Where are you?

Even when my palms are slippery with blood and sweat, when moving my arm feels like swinging a shattered bone, I ring the bell—

And there comes silence.

Deafening, complete, compact as the air inside the grave we fell into. At first, I wonder if my ears have ruptured from the pressure, if I have lost consciousness. That would explain why the pain has retreated, too, why there are no fresh lashes, only the ache of existing wounds. Then there is the softest, strangest sensation of fingertips grazing my cheek. Like a cold cloth soothing a burn. A butterfly landing on a bloodied sword. Such a change from the violence I’ve just endured that I wonder if I am dreaming.

“Rujia.”

My eyes fly wide open.

Keran is standing on the platform before me, watching me with such a haunted, harrowed expression I immediately scan him for injuries, only to find my own reflection cast across the darkness of his pupils. It’s as if he has absorbed all my pain into himself. I am so relieved to see him that everything stops hurting. A smile flickers across the drying blood on my lips.

“You came for me,” I whisper.

His complexion is white, his fingers trembling, but he nods. “You called.”

I unfurl my fist, showing him the bell. “I told you before, didn’t I? This works exactly the way I want it to.”