Two months before the Midsummer Banquet, Father gathered them at the dinner table.

“Marcus has slain his second,” he announced, drawing a gasp from Mother. But the name meant nothing to Ruyi.

“You may know him as the Demon Lord, but I’ve never liked such monikers,” said Father with a dismissive wave. “They grant him too much mythic power. He is mortal and he is fallible.”

“Who was it?” asked Mother.

“Cato.”

“The bull demon? He made Warlord?”

“Improbably, yes. I’ve always felt he was quite the idiot,” mused Father. “And he’s proven it by challenging Marcus. Another demon back to the dust. It is the one redeeming quality of their species—their pride means they fight each other almost as much as they fight us. But they do still fight us, alas, and it is about to be much worse. I’m needed at the border.”

“Now?”

“I leave first thing tomorrow morning.”

“For how long?” asked Jin, frowning.

Father shrugged. “As long as Marcus sees fit. He is a politician. In times of instability, as now, he unites his warlords with a war. He sates their bloodlust with our blood. Who knows how long it’ll take? We’ll hold the border west of the Desolate Mountains until they grow bored, or tired, or both. I expect it’ll be at least a year, likely longer. Your Mother will handle you.”

“Do you have to go?” said Ruyi. She hated how whiny she sounded.

“The nation needs its general,” said Father simply.

For a few breaths she stared down at her warbling reflection into her soup, quiet. “So I guess this might be the last time we talk for a few years, huh.”

“Perhaps,” said Father. “I know I have not been kind to you, Ruyi. And for that I do not apologize. You do not deserve kindness.”

Her mouth dropped open. And to think—to think she was feeling sad about this old fart’s leaving! Why should she? What the Hell had he ever done for her, other than make her feel like the dirt scuffing his shoe?

“You—!”

“You deserve better,” snapped Father. “Kindness did not make you who you are today. Kindness is not a useful emotion—it is a complacent one. Kindness makes weak soldiers. It is discipline and motivation which forge the strong. You would do well to remember that in my absence.”

“I’m not a soldier. I’m your daughter.”

“Which is why I do what I do. I would never go to such lengths to train a crippled soldier—if he suffers, that is the Heavens’ will. But you are my daughter, and I love you, and I will not see you suffer a life of impotence and shame. So I pushed you, since I knew what you could be. You are not Ruyi the cripple anymore, you are Ruyi, the youngest alchemist in history. Soon you’ll be much more than that.”

Ruyi was still reeling—had he just said he loved her? It might’ve been the first time he’d ever said it.

“For what it is worth,” sighed Father. “You have surpassed my wildest expectations. I am proud to call you my daughter.”

“…Oh…”

She wished she could throw it in his face, say his approval was worth nothing to her. But Heavens if she didn’t tear up a little just then.

“You’ve grown,” he continued. “I was useful to you as a child, but now I am superfluous. Do not grow idle in my absence—become what you are meant to be.”

Ruyi nodded, sniffling. She kind of hated him. She also kind of wanted to hug him. “I will.”

***

Even with Gao’s notes the Tartarus Elixir was Hellish to make. And not merely because it was a chain of dangerous reactions—it needed all kinds of rare ingredients, ingredients she bought through the Guild at dizzying prices. Some would take months to arrive.

But one of these—the most critical piece—was totally out of reach.

“Essence of the Demon,” she said. “Hmm.”

The Codex’s original formula used something called ‘demonic essence,’ originally a synthesized ingredient whose formula was lost, but any scrap of demon flesh would do as a substitute. Only there wasn’t a demon within 10,000 li, so far as she knew…

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

How was she meant to get this?

Probably this whole thing was a massive waste of time. Probably she should give it up, sieve out a few useful ideas, and move on—

…Wait. The Demon Cult.

Those cultists had prattled on about eating demon flesh, hadn’t they?

Probably they were boasting. Probably they didn’t actually have access to any of it. Besides, even if they did, how was she to get it? Sneak out into the Lower City? Join the cult in disguise? Infiltrate its ranks and do some investigating?

It usually took Ruyi at least three hits of the old pipe before she got high enough to entertain fantasies as wild as this.

She shook herself out of it. “This is stupid,” she said. “I am not going to risk my life, just to try out some insane experiment which probably doesn’t work anyways!”

Then she repeated it to herself, just to make sure her brain got the message.

She would prove Gao wrong. She would be cautious, pragmatic, smart. A model alchemist. This was a professional curiosity, of course. That was all.

….Besides—even if she were to get out into the Lower City, was she really going to sneak past all those demon cult cultivators? If even the slightest thing went wrong, she was done—she could hardly resist a prepubescent child, much less grown fanatics.

Yes, yes, best to forget about it. It would be monumentally stupid to try it, even for her, and the margin of error was so slim. She discarded the idea—and good riddance, too. She was glad; imagine if she actually went through with it! It could’ve ended quite poorly.

…But say, just for the sake of intellectual curiosity, she treated the whole thing as a puzzle. This cult was huge. It must have weak links. She wouldn’t even really need to put herself in danger—maybe she could snoop around. She could learn the manners of the locals; she could be discreet.

This was ridiculous! It wouldn’t work—who could believe she was a peasant? She caught a glimpse of her reflection in a window and sighed. She was simply too beautiful, too unforgettable. Alas, she could never pass for ordinary. You could tell she was a noble from a li away.

…But maybe—

***

Ruyi was not a writer of letters. She was a replier to letters. Imagine if she wrote something and the other party didn’t reply—she’d never live down the embarrassment! So it was that she eagerly awaited the five o’clock hour when the mail came every day. One day she’d tripped and nearly sprained her ankle running down the stairs.

But each day there were letters about estate taxes or something. No imperial seal, no neatly written script. She knew before she’d even checked whether the princess had written; on especially desperate nights she’d even resorted to sniffing the parchment of Tingting’s last letter just to remember her smell. She was aware, at some level, that this kind of behavior got people sentenced to mental wards.

A week in she couldn’t take it anymore.

She broke her own cardinal rule. She wrote a letter first. She drafted it three times, since the first draft was far too humiliating. By the time she got to the third she’d cut out all the lovey-dovey crap—this version was suitably cool, she thought. She signed it, ‘yours,’ which ambiguous enough, right?

She waited another week. No response. By this time she was getting itchy. Yet another week passed, and she began to panic. Had she actually sent the letter, or had it been some kind of hallucination, a bad dream? Or had the postman lost it?

By the third week with no response she was steaming with embarrassment. Never again. Never again would she be the chaser. She had her dignity.

That night she sent a second letter, extremely drunk. She was so hammered the next morning she couldn’t remember much of it, only that it included a lot of begging and apologizing and was definitely signed ‘Love.’ Which was nearly enough to make her hurl herself off the top of the mansion.

One more week with no response and she fell into a depression.

She woke up that morning and flopped around in bed for nearly three hours, staring at the ceiling, trying and failing to muster the strength to get up. She did not bother brushing her hair, nor did she bathe, nor did she eat. Every little effort felt like an impossibility. How could anyone possibly be happy in a world so dull, uniform, so colorless?

There was a knock at the front door, but no-one answered. The knocking continued. Growling and snapping Ruyi stomped on over and thrust open the door—in her nightgown and all, hair a mess, smelling something awful, and not caring a whit. She thrust open the door. “Who dares!—”

It was the Princess.

For a breath Ruyi just gaped, wondering if she really had cracked after all.

“Hi,” said Tingting with that little shy smile.

Ruyi pounced on her. There was nothing romantic about the kiss; it was hungry and desperate and it only stopped because Ruyi had to come up for air. They stared at each other, breathing heavy, blushing furiously.

“Why didn’t you write?!” said Ruyi.

“W-What? I—I did! But I thought you weren’t answering…I thought maybe you decided you hated me or something…”

“I would never!”

Tingting gave a little gasp. “Father. He must’ve been intercepting your mail!”

“The Emperor?”

“He’s just an old meddler,” said Tingting, wrinkling her nose so cutely Ruyi had to restrain herself from from kissing her again.

“Why’s he—” but Ruyi hardly needed to ask. “Oh. He doesn’t like me.”

“No! Well—I mean—I said, um, I told him I had the intention of courting you, and… um… he’ll come around.”

“Why doesn’t he like me?” But again—did she really need to ask?

“He’s silly!” breathed Tingting. “Don’t worry about it.” She leaned in for another kiss but Ruyi pulled away, leaving her pouting.

“Who’s this?”

Ruyi spun around. It was Mother, descending the stairs.

“Good morning, Madam Li,” said Tingting, curtsying.

“Ah,” said Mother. “She is very pretty.”

“Sorry?” said Tingting, blushing harder.

“I figured Ruyi was exaggerating by the way she’s been speaking of you. It’s nonstop, I swear—”

“It is not!” Ruyi’s ears felt very hot.

“She’s obsessed with you,” continued Mother, utterly heedless of the permanent damage she was doing to Ruyi’s reputation. “You should’ve seen when she read your first letter. She ran around the mansion screaming—”

She cut off because Ruyi tackled her. “Go away you old hag!”

Chuckling, Mother faded up the stairs—she seemed quite happy with her emotional terrorism—leaving Ruyi to deal with the consequences.

“You were talking about me?” said Tingting.

“No. That is slanderous. My mother is a habitual liar—what are you so happy about?”

“Nothing!” said the princess, a far-too-happy smile on her face.

They walked down the hall in silence.

“She’s lying. She is,” insisted Ruyi.

“Mhm,” said Tingting happily.