Koida blinked and stumbled as the petal-and-ash-strewn bedchamber disappeared, replaced by the destroyed alchemy laboratory. Warm hands caught her by the upper arm, preventing her fall. Approaching thunder rumbled, and wind howled through the broken wall, carrying away the scent of lotus blossoms and venomous dragon fire.

Regaining her balance, Koida pulled herself from her half-brother’s grasp. To be touched by anyone so soon after seeing the sisters weaponize their bodies made her skin creep and crawl.

Lightning cracked across the dark sky outside the tower, noticeably closer than it had been before. No trace remained of the sunset, and yet it felt as if hardly any time had passed while she lived the Dragon Ha-Koi’s life.

Yoichi watched her return to reality, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “No other Path has such a close connection to their founder as we Water Lilies have.”

Koida wrapped her arms around her middle, but could not forestall a shiver.

“I know how to repair my deficiency,” she said.

She also knew how Yoichi kept surviving when he should be dead a hundred times over, but this information she kept to herself. Absorbing venom into the Ro as Ha-Koi had done would not only repair any damage to weakened or damaged life energy, it also anchored one’s soul to a corporeal source. In this way, the body would refuse to give up its spirit until both the physical form and the soul anchor had been fully destroyed.

The question, then, was how she would destroy the venom Yoichi’s soul was anchored to.

“The Dragon and the Whisperer found a way to bind the physical to the spiritual, and in doing so replaced the slow, painstaking process of cultivation with a much faster alternative.” Yoichi’s voice had taken on the tone of a lecturing master once again. “Poison and venom give greater power to whole, healthy Ro and replace what is missing from unhealthy Ro.”

Like the Path of the Living Blade Koida had grown up in, the strong grew stronger—except on the Path of the Water Lily, provision had been made for deficiency, damage, and cowardice. On the Path the sisters had created, the weak could grow stronger as well.

“With your newfound knowledge comes a choice,” Yoichi said. “Here at the beginning of our Path lies a fork: venom or poison. Which most calls to you, little sister?”

Koida slipped a hand under her sleeve and rubbed her empty wrist where the two-headed glass moon serpent used to reside. It was the exact place Ha-Koi had coaxed the red deathwhip to bite her the first time.

Unbeknownst to Yoichi, Koida’s little demon beast was no longer in his possession. He had been so focused on her left hand holding her eye open to receive the Water of Knowing that he hadn’t felt her right slip the purse from his robes. She felt the serpent slithering against her stomach, nosing at the confines of the purse as if it could sense its true master through the leather.

“Venom,” she answered.

Yoichi nodded approvingly. “My mother believed that poison held the greatest advantages for a Water Lily, but I sought a middle ground for my advancement.” He manifested an oily black fan in one hand and raised a stone phial in the other. “Venom for force and poison for subterfuge.”

The sight of the phial brought memories of the day so long ago when she met him in the alchemy tower. That day he’d held a matching phial filled with the poison that would destroy her father, Shingti, and the father of her heart, Batsai. Or perhaps it had contained the poison in her cup, which Raijin had drunk to save her.

Poison where cowardice is allowed to flourish, and venom when hiding can’t save you, she thought.

“You spoke truly about the Water of Knowing,” she said. “I saw how the Sisters stole the Ro of an immortal and Ascended.” She pressed her fist to her heartcenter and bowed, this time a seemingly sincere mirror of her earlier mockery. “Apologies for disbelieving you, esteemed elder brother. However, I am left to wonder how you intend to find an immortal to kill in this day and age.”

“Your presence drew the perfect immortal victim out into the open.”

“Me?”

Yoichi’s plum-colored eyes flashed with a fire Koida had seen in her father’s when he was in the depths of recounting his favorite exploits from his Heroic Record.

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“There was a time when I believed the throne was my destiny—the Rising Phoenix Emperor, soaring from the ashes of the Shyong San dynasty, and secretly avenging my mother and myself for the dismissal from my father’s presence—but I could never leave behind the certainty that I was intended for greater things even than this. Finally, she revealed the truth I had felt all along: I was never destined for a lowly mortal empire, but the glory of an immortal throne. All her urging, all her directing had been leading me to my Ascension. She chose me, little sister.”

Koida’s brows knit. “Your mother?”

“The Whisperer.” His voice was pitched low with reverence. “She saw my greatness and chose me to rule the heavens beside her.”

It took several seconds of wrestling for Koida’s mind to untangle what Yoichi was attempting to tell her.

“Misuru, the younger Sister of Destruction, who I saw in the vision,” she said haltingly. “This Whisperer—she spoke to you?”

“She speaks to me,” he clarified, as if this were a highly important distinction. “Tomorrow, when I consume the immortal Ro of your Ji Yu lapdog, I will Ascend to the heavens and take my place on the throne.”

“Raijin?” Koida laughed. “He cannot be an immortal, he’s no older than you or Shingti.”

Even as she scoffed at the idea, the memory of that deep and complex jade Ro prowling her heartcenter returned. The ice coffin that had surrounded Raijin. The ancient accounts the Uktena had collected of immortals being encased in ice. Their Unbreakable Fact, that one man had followed the immortal path and perfected himself until he became a god.

Setting aside all impossibility, could she imagine anyone except Raijin accomplishing such a thing?

Yoichi sent her a lopsided smile. “I shared your skepticism when the Whisperer first directed me to him. Whatever immortal he murdered to gain his place must have been a fool or half invalid.”

Cold loathing burned in Koida’s heartcenter. Raijin would never harm another for personal gain. Yoichi was a fool if he believed her betrothed would stoop to the level of a Water Lily.

The level she was about to stoop to in order to cure her deficiency.

She shoved the thought away. Immortal or not, Raijin needed her. Whatever shame and recriminations she might incur could be dealt with later.

“Elder brother’s plan is to Ascend and leave the Empire to the mighty Hakiko?”

Yoichi’s pale brows quirked with amusement. “As the heroic new wife of the immortal Rising Phoenix Emperor, the people could hardly ask for a greater ruler. I thought the return of your family’s Empire was what you desired.”

“It was.” She glanced past him at the flickering, lightning-lit clouds. “When I did not know immortality was within reach.”

A slow smile spread across Yoich’s handsome features. The endless hunger for greater and greater power was one of the few things her half-brother could understand.

“You are well-suited to the Dragon’s side of our Path, little sister. Let us say this: if you repair your deficiency tonight, I will allow you to prove your allegiance to me by acting as executioner tomorrow. Behead that piece of trash before your Empire—however many hacks of your precious savage-sword it takes—and I will share his Ro with you.”

Koida made no effort to cover her disgust at the brutal scene he described. She could feel his plum-colored eyes taking in every shadow of emotion that crossed her face. Too quick and too hearty an agreement would be as damning as a violent refusal.

“Fine. The execution will be carried out as elder brother says.” Then, as if reconsidering, she knelt and raised her clasped hands, bowing her head to him. “As the esteemed Grandmaster says.”

Yoichi gave her an acknowledging nod.

“If the ambitious Water Lily student wishes to be whole by morning, we should continue with the next step of the ritual,” he said, going to the ragged hole in the wall.

A deep, oily black aura radiated from his heartcenter until his entire body was surrounded by the dark, polluted light. Tendrils of darkness seeped from him like creeping vines and reached out into the night.

“Beckoning Vines,” he named the technique.

Koida forced herself to remain rooted in place despite the roiling in her stomach at the thought of that vile energy accidentally touching her. In a matter of hours, she would be filled with the same festering corruption.

A distant, eerie music drifted in on the wind.

“What is…?”

Her question trailed off as wings rustled outside the tower. Pale shapes flashed and dove, glowing in the night, then flickering to shadowy silhouettes backlit by the lightning. The music grew louder, an inhuman singing that filled her bones and resonated inside her skull.

“The lunar peacock” A strange note of pride rang in Yoichi’s voice. “A rare demon beast of incredible beauty; it makes unspeakably potent venom. There is no antidote for it.” He chuckled regretfully as if remembering a poorly told joke. “Had I known that Ji Yu scum was going to drink the poison meant for you, I would have filled your cup with lunar peacock venom instead. Though after the first year, I doubt his screams would have provided much entertainment.”

Koida’s throat went dry. More glowing, darting shapes had joined the first outside the tower.

“The strength of the lunar peacock’s venom makes it a perfect choice for a Water Lily’s soul anchor,” Yoichi said. “Though the consequences of failure frighten my fellow practitioners too much to risk attempting to absorb it. I advanced by incorporating lunar peacock venom, and if you are strong enough, so will you.”

He turned and headed for the trap door to the stairs.

“You aren’t staying to guide me?” Koida took a halting step after him. “What if I fail?”

“Don’t,” Yoichi advised with a wry smile, “or you will have a very, very long time to regret not dying immediately.”

Then he stepped down onto the stairs and pulled the trap door shut. Metal scraped against wood as he shot the bolt behind him.