David

When the hem of David's robes touched the dancefloor, he was shocked by how few people there were around him. The light red haze that covered the room wasn't thick enough to slick the ground, but he could feel a slight wetness on his ankles.

The smell was unbearable. Beneath the thick, brackish scent of copper was a searing note of burnt flesh and the cloying taste of ash that settled in the back of his throat.

The wall of sound, so clear on the raised platform that seated the cultivators of Huzhou, had faded to a dull roar that came from across the room, where the crowd still pressed against the exit.

It had been minutes since the first explosion, and only those who were in no condition to rush for the double doors in the distance remained this close to the stage.

Lightning struck Song Mountain. The flash overtook the pale cast of early dawn through thick storm clouds and lit the Hall of Voices in pale white, clear and bright.

Bodies.

A few silhouettes were curled up in sticky, dark red pools. They trembled like leaves in the wind and pressed their fingers against gaping wounds.

Others held onto the unmoving. They caressed cooling cheeks, opened their mouths to scream, to pray, shook the bodies of their loved ones, stared past the stage at Song Mountain's storm clouds.

David heard the sound of the Song, a faint whimper that swirled in the air and he now understood why cultivators referred to the common folk as mortals.

Thunder.

David had known the name of the first bolt of lightning, when Daoist Bo had knocked on the gates of Heaven and had received an answer. Censure.

This was not the same. It was a different chord, played on the same instrument, and he'd heard this one before as well, in a far off library. The Song was dissonant, violent. Refutation.

David tore his eyes away from the suffering around him to glance up at the cultivator's section. Wen was staring at the skies over Song Mountain in abject horror. The storm clouds had not subsided. Bo had survived, for now.

Rain.

Water fell from the sky, pattering on the platform that extended out onto Immortal Lake.

David’s eyes scanned the survivors and then he found Liu Na, sitting with her legs crossed, not far from where the woman had pushed her off the stage.

Her amethyst eyes locked onto him. There was a flash of shame within them. Liu Na was unharmed.

What was going on here?

Rumbling. A single bolt of lightning had fallen for the Widow of Tianbei, raw and wild, when she had played a game with the skies above, but that was Heavenly Tribulation. How did it compare to what Bo Yun faced?

Escalation. The storm clouds gathered, dark and thick. Bo had told him that she would receive more than just that from the skies above. Heaven would be punishing a favored child today.

David named the bolts in his mind again. Censure, refutation- what was next? He listened for the sound of the Song and a lesson from music theory rang true. The weight of heaven fell from the sky. AmenAmitahbaMashallah- A plagal cadence. Four-one. Played in strings, played in woodwinds, played in brass. This was faith, this was-

Suppression.

Lightning lit the room in sharp relief yet again, casting the pink-red misted dancefloor in that pale glow. David’s eyes turned back to Liu Na.

Still she sat there, crosslegged - she was now unable to meet his eye. In front of Liu Na was a familiar figure. David had almost forgotten her - she was the girl from the cart. The mortal he’d so carelessly promised to see again.

“Yanyan!” David mouthed. The hoarse gasp didn’t manage to leave his throat. “Yanyan,” he tried again, successfully now.

Liu Na turned to look up at him shortly, with a touch of disdain. She had assumed he was addressing her. Her mouth opened, but David paid her no attention. He dashed across the slippery floor and fell level with the prone girl.

“Yanyan,” David whispered. A hand found her cheek. The girl had no marks on her - not that he could see. Why was she even on the ground with eyes closed and not rushing for the exits?

“She won’t wake,” said Liu Na. The woman pushed her bangs away from her face. Her disdain from earlier had become something more timid.

“Why not?” There was something guilty, something culpable about her words.

“She gave her life for me.”

“What?”

David’s gaze jerked sharply between Yanyan, motionless on the floor, and Liu Na, still, stock still.

“I said that she gave her life for me,” she said more confidently. “It was her honor to do so.”

“For what purpose?” David thought of Liu Na, of her success on stage, of how much Yanyan worshiped the woman.

“I was betrayed.” Liu Na glanced up on stage, where the old woman was still trying to pry the Amplifier away. She was no further than thirty feet away, but the distance seemed almost infinite, immaterial. “Wounded.”

She didn’t seem wounded to David.

“Are you going to stop her?”

“I cannot. The Hall of Voices prevents it. You won’t be able to get onto the stage even if you try.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“And Yanyan?”

“It was voluntary,” said Liu Na. “She chose-”

“Chose to die for you? How?”

“I asked her if I could partake in her essence. It was-”

David exhaled, a sharp, short breath through gritted teeth. “She was not a cultivator.”

“She knew the-”

“Knew the risk?”

The pieces clicked into place. The Three Worships of Three Worships Hall came to David like Revelation. Heaven, Earth, and Karma. He thought of the bitter smile that Shishi gave when she mentioned the exploitation of mortals. He thought of how Bo Yun was known for not forming relationships with her fans. He thought of Uncle Jiang warning him and Alice not to make karmic links with those who would pray to them in the coming years.

There was a reason Liu Na was not wounded at the moment.

“You pushed your wounds onto Yanyan.”

“Was she a friend of yours? A great cultivator like yourself, from the Ascending Sky?” There was a note of mocking in Liu Na’s tone.

“I barely knew her,” said David, to be as honest as he could. His fist clenched. “But I can tell you this. Yanyan was born in Dongjing. She was a laborer who fell in love with the music of Liu Na, and rode on a bumpy carriage for hours to see her favorite singer-”

“Who cares?” spat Liu Na, interrupting his pitiful attempt at a eulogy.

Morning sun spilled through the clouds lighting the contemptuous curl of Liu Na’s lips in red as bright as the silk ribbons she wore.

Bo Yun’s words echoed in his ears. That was the most ironclad promise anyone has ever given. Bo Yun, the woman who the Heavens had sworn to suppress.

“Your Master will care,” promised David, looking at the horizon past the stage. “No matter how unfair her trial, she will survive. And she will see what you’ve-”

“What I’ve done?” Liu Na’s eyes narrowed, her lips settled into a hard line. She was beautiful, but in this moment, there was a feverish, angered craze. “Perhaps you should think about what Master has done.”

David resisted the urge to shout.

“Bo Yun, the darling of Song Mountain Sect, the most powerful cultivator in Huzhou - she has two students. She picked her first student, a treasure, during a successful album release twenty years ago. She picked her second student, trash, off the side of the lake twenty days ago.” Her voice had become raspy and strained. “She has taught her second student many lessons.”

David’s eyes snapped to the woman on stage, still fiddling with the Amplifier. “Betrayed?” he whispered, suddenly remembering Liu Na’s words. Then he realized. “You planned- you planned this.” David waved his arm at the scenes spread out before him. “But you expected Daoist Bo to be present.” He thought of the failed assassination attempt on Shishi. “You meant to kill your master. You wanted-”

“Kill my beloved master? Why would I ever want such a thing?” The manic grin on her face told David everything he needed to know. “In this world, suffused in red dust, the mortal suffers for the samsara but the samsara is faceless - it does not care for the suffering of mortals.”

The assassin had spoken in such terms.

“You’re part of this cult. You’re part of the Dust of Buddha,” accused David.

“Of course I’m not,” said Liu Na, still smiling. “And after I’ve been attacked by them, no one will be able to prove otherwise. Who would listen to the mad ravings of those who dared to attack a daughter of Song Mountain on her debut? Would they listen to a guest from a rival Great Sect, who’s lost a mortal friend in the commotion?”

She stared down at Yanyan’s body. “Maybe you’re right,” she said, in a faux begrudging tone. “Maybe I overdid it a bit. I wasn’t really that wounded. But once you feel the ecstasy of worship, you feel the links of fate and karma flow into you, you really just can’t let go.” Her qi sang, but the only Song that David could hear were the screams of the crowd - from around him, from within her.

David’s hands clenched into fists.

“This girl, this Yanyan. She really did love my work very much, didn’t she?”

By now, David could feel the heat in his face, could feel the wetness in his eyes. “I was told,” he started, short of breath. “I was told by Senior Sister Hong that whatever I did in Huzhou while delivering the Duzhong flowers-”

“What are you muttering about?”

“I was told not to start any wars. Cause any international incidents. Make any problems for my Sect.”

David heard the sound of the Song - it was coming from David. Perhaps he was easily influenced by the world around him, because he heard the cadence from the Hall of Portraits once more. Five-seven-one. Innocence has passed us by.

He fell into the fourteenth stance of the Dance of the Falling Leaves, leaned back with his fists forward.

“What?” whispered Liu Na, with a sudden terror. “You can’t attack me, not here.” She had just managed to form her core, but David’s own was already harmonizing with him, with the world around him.

“This is Song Mountain. This is the Hall of Voices!” She leaned away from him, her eyes darted towards the cultivator’s section, searching for someone to stop him. David knew no one would, not even Wen. No one had attempted to stop the woman fiddling with the Amplifier from attacking Liu Na. No one had even checked on her except for a single visitor from a nominally allied sect.

Some people were horrible by any world’s standard.

David took a step forward. Liu Na scrambled back, her palms slamming against the wooden ground. She made to stand, but the wetness on the ground unbalanced her. She slid back, but both of them could feel it - what came next. It bound them to one another, taut as any chain. David felt that link there in his heart, held it tight within his fist.

Do not start any wars. Do not cause any international incidents. Do not make any problems for the sect. But now that he had it in his hand, he just couldn’t let it go.

“I’m going to kill you,” said David.

Perhaps this, too, was karma.

The sound of thunder echoed in the distance, though David couldn’t say for certain if it was the reverberations of Suppression Lightning from Bo Yun’s Earthly Tribulation or if it was his heartbeat pounding in his eardrums.

White light, white heat, a high pitched sound.

There was a splatter.

A spray of warm and wet splashed onto David.

Liu Na gave a short scream, but she was in no danger.

Standing in the air above the stage, with the glow of the morning sun behind her, was Daoist Bo Yun, Resolved. She was dressed in red silken robes that bared her flawless arms to the light rain.

David’s eyes immediately settled onto the pair of hands clasped around the Hall of Voice’s Amplifier.

Nothing was connected to the hands. There was no trace of the rest of the old woman who had been trying to steal it.

Bo Yun descended onto the stage with a twirl, like a Fairy from a higher plane. Her toes touched the stage soundlessly.

There was an utter silence now that descended as Daoist Bo had. She pushed the hands that still gripped the Amplifier off of the jade stick with a grimace, then smiled beatifically, staring outwards at no one in particular.

“Would all concertgoers please line up in an orderly manner and exit the premises? We are very sorry for the interruption to your night, and Song Mountain will more than make up for it in the coming days.”

The panic had stopped instantly, now that sunlight lit the room so brightly.

From the cultivator’s section, Shishi leapt past onto the stage, grabbed Bo Yun by the sleeve and pointed directly at David.

“He’s going to kill your student!” she exclaimed cheerfully.

“She has been incredibly cruel,” he said, throwing Bo’s words back at her.

Bo stared down at Yanyan’s body at his feet, confused.

“Master, you have to understand,” Liu Na cried out, tears in her eyes. “I’ve advanced! I’ve formed my Core!”

David searched for fury at first, then for anger, then for disappointment from Bo Yun. But he found none of those things. He saw her eyes soften. He heard her gentle sigh.

“Then it can be excused.”