“I came to say congratulations,” said Tingting.

“Ah,” said Ruyi, and she smiled. It was a trick she’d picked up from Jin. She could be melting inside but she still made her face make the shapes, pulled up the muscles of the upper cheeks, tightened the muscles around her eyes to make the little crinkles, the ones that gave all smiles a glimmer of truth. She’d practiced in front of a mirror for hours until she could get it just right.

For too long her feelings were written plain on her face. She was handing out knives. Now she could give off nothing except what she wanted to give off. So she could be melting inside like she was now, and yet seem utterly at peace. She figured this was what it meant to be mature.

“Thank you,” she said. “Very kind of you, Princess Song.”

Tingting hadn’t mastered the skill. Her eyes were watery as they gazed into Ruyi’s. “Um,” she said. “Who’s this?”

“Oh! I’m sorry,” said Ruyi. “This is—”

“Sen Li,” said Sen, stepping in so close to Ruyi they were nearly touching. She put her body between them; she was bristling. “Ruyi’s girlfriend.”

Ruyi didn’t miss how Tingting’s face fell at that.

“Sen is acting as my bodyguard,” said Ruyi hastily, pushing past her.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Sen told Tingting.

“Oh?” Tingting laughed nervously. “Only good things, I hope.”

Sen said nothing. She just kept sizing her up like Tingting was her arch nemesis. Tingting, meanwhile, clutching herself tighter, swallowing, shrinking into herself. “Well anyways,” said Tingting. “Um, since we were both here, I figured we could maybe catch up... since it’s been, y’know, so long—”

“Why would you think Ruyi would want to talk to you?” said Sen sharply. “Didn’t you say you never wanted to speak to her again? She was very upset. You hurt her.”

“Sen!” Ruyi rapped her on the arm. “Stop it. I’d love to catch up, Princess—”

“Too late,” said Sen. “You screwed it up.” She hugged Ruyi tight to her, so tight Ruyi gasped.

“Sen!” Sen was usually polite to a fault, but she was also deathly afraid of losing Ruyi. She got all overprotective. Ruyi liked it. She felt a little guilty for liking it, but that didn’t stop her liking it.

“Well…” said Tingting. She looked like she couldn’t stand the awkwardness anymore, or maybe Sen’s death-glare was too much for her. Whatever joy she’d had coming in had petered out. Now she just looked sad. “I’d best leave you two be, I think…”

“Tingting!” His voice raised the hairs on Ruyi’s neck. She was halfway to a snarl before she saw who it was. Chen Qin, draped in so much finery you could’ve mistaken him or an Emperor. He even wore his little prince consort’s crown. “There you are,” he said, and Tingting made herself even smaller in her presence. She blinked at her feet.

“I thought I said to wait outside,” she said in a voice small as a mouse’s.

“And miss a chance to meet the youngest Grandmaster in history?” Chen Qin smiled at Ruyi like he didn’t know she hated his guts.

“A pleasure, Ruyi.” He held out a hand. When she didn’t take it, his smile didn’t waver. He pulled it back as though she’d shaken vigorously, then wrapped that same hand around Tingting’s waist. Tingting gave a little “eep!”, and Ruyi ground her teeth.

“Tingting here can’t seem to stop talking about you,” he mused. “She thinks you’re brilliant.”

“That’s very kind of her,” said Ruyi.

No one seemed to want to break the terse silence. “It was wonderful meeting you,” said Chen finally. “I expect we’ll be seeing more of each other soon.”

He steered Tingting away by the waist; Tingting gave a little squeak, but she didn’t protest. She did give Ruyi one last pleading look before she went.

His back was turned. If Ruyi demonformed now, she bet she could lop off his head in two clean swipes.

“Do you want me to stab him for you?” said Sen. “I’ll do it.” She sounded so earnest Ruyi wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not. Knowing Sen, probably not.

“No…” sighed Ruyi, deflating. “Well, not here, in any case. Too many witnesses. You didn’t need to bully poor Tingting like that, by the way.”

“I wasn’t bullying her,” said Sen, looking away. “You’re not, um, still writing to her, or anything, right?”

“Of course not.” Ruyi took Sen’s hands in her own. “You can relax. I won’t leave you, I promise.”

“I wasn’t worried about that,” said Sen, a little too quickly.

“I know you weren’t,” said Ruyi. “You’re Sen Li! You’re never worried about anything.”

“Mhm.” Sen nodded.

Ruyi tiptoed to give her a pat on the head. “Good Sen.”

She caught the wince on Sen’s face as she turned away.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” said Ruyi. “Better we get it out now than you sit and stew for a few days and explode the head of some poor practice dummy. We agreed on this, remember? Talk to me. You said you would.”

Sen crossed her arms; she looked so adorable when she pouted. “I don’t like it when you treat me like a child,” she blurted.

“What?” Ruyi’d expected a lot of things, but not that. “What are you talking about?”

“Like… patting me on the head.”

“You said you liked it!”

“I liked it the first time. Then…” She shook her head. “I feel like you don’t take me seriously.”

“Uh,” said Ruyi.

“I feel like you just like…you just like…” said Sen, talking faster, the words tumbling from her mouth now. “You don’t even like me. When I talk about stuff I like you don’t even care. You just like kissing me.”

“Of course I like hearing you—”

“Please,” said Sen, strained, and a note in her voice made Ruyi pause. It was rare to see her this emotional. “Stop it.”

For a few breaths they stood in silence.

“How long have you been keeping this in?” said Ruyi.

“…A while…”

“You really think I don’t like you?”

Sen looked stricken. She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said miserably. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No,” said Ruyi at last. “You’re right. I… yeah. I’ll confess—I don’t really care about Weng. Actually he bores me to tears. And I could do with seeing a few fewer art museums. But I also like that you like these things, because I do like you. Things feel so easy with you, I guess because you don’t play games with me? And I’ve… I’ve been playing with you a little. I guess I thought it was fun and harmless… I’m sorry. I like being with you—of course I do! How could you think otherwise?”

“But when you’re with the Princess you can talk about Alchemy,” said Sen, stubborn. “When you’re with me it’s just me rambling at you. Or… doing other things. But not talking.”

“Are you still thinking about Tingting?” sighed Ruyi. “We don’t need to talk for me to show you I like you.”

She leaned in for a kiss but Sen gently pushed her face away. “We do,” said Sen seriously. “For the next month, no kissing. Or touching.”

It was turning out to be a day for pouting. “…That’s just unnecessarily cruel.”

“And no more lying to me. Not even little ones, like leaving things out. You have to be honest. If you really cared about me you’d be honest.”

That stopped Ruyi cold. “I’ll be honest,” she said. “Promise.” This time she actually meant it. There were few things Sen hated more than being lied to.

Sen relaxed at that. “Okay,” she said; she managed a weak smile.

Sen was right. They didn’t have much to talk about. There was something they could both go on endlessly about, Ruyi was sure—fighting.

But Sen could never know about that.

***

Marcus expected Octavius to try something at the Five-Years Gathering. When all the disparate tribes of the Demonlands congregated for one great festival of drinking and violence and sex. Hundreds of li of land were staked out for it. At the heart of the grounds were the Blood Arenas, where elite demons gave their blood back to the lands in life-and-death duels to the amusement of thousands. Duels often broke out spontaneously in the stands; the Warlords made a killing off of the betting. There were the Fiendfyre Feasts, where the slain Demonforms from the arenas were roasted and brought up on a spit for any passersby to take a bite out of. There were the mating tents, rather self-explanatory. The Altars of the Hell, which gave tribes an excuse to sacrifice their most-hated members to appease the Demon Gods. And then dine on their corpses at a Fiendfyre Feast, of course. Hundreds of little attractions and stalls were littered throughout; on his way to the Forum he passed a boar-demon selling giant centipedes strung on equally giant sticks, magicians juggling balls of raw lightning, the odd spontaneous life-and-death duel in the street.

None of it was to Marcus’s taste, but he had to be seen out and about. He tried a giant centipede to roars of great approval. He slapped backs with lesser chiefs, drenched himself in giant kegs of ale, and eventually ambled his way to the Forum, where Octavius was no doubt doing his best to put him on the metaphorical spit.

Caius nodded to him as he crested the top box. In floor of the misshapen attempt at a stadium, a monstrosity of stone and red dust, stood Octavius, smiling his trademark smile. His teeth were like a shark’s, Marcus thought, but bigger and shinier. A lot of demons seemed taken with it. He supposed sharks liked other sharks.

“He never does stop smiling, does he?” muttered Marcus.

“Sleeps with his fangs bared, I’ll wager,” grunted Caius.

“—time, my brethren!” crowed Octavius. “We are children of Tartarus! We were not made for cages. In us flows the blood of the Almighty! The Heavens confine us to our Demonlands, oh yes, east of the Wastes. The Heavens fear us; they fear what we can be—but friends, we were born to run free. We were born to rule!”

“He sure can talk,” said Caius.

“Talk is all he has,” Marcus assured him. Though he wasn’t so sure himself.

“You’d better hope so,” said Caius grimly. “After the debacle…”

“Don’t remind me.”

Octavius reminded him enough. He brought it up at every opportunity; at every gathering he’d been trying out a new moniker—the Capital Catastrophe, the Great Flop, but the one he kept going back to, the one that seemed to stick in the mind of the public, was Marcus’ Folly. It had been two years since the failed uprising at Jade Dragon City, but Octavius spoke of it as if it happened yesterday.

There was a popular image of Marcus as some wise, all-knowing, all-powerful ruler. Marcus found it quite funny. Every day he felt more foolish and more ignorant, and all-powerful? Almost nothing was within his control. He was forced constantly to put his faith in subordinates he had no faith in. None of these realities stopped his enemies from propping up his effigy and flaying it, to much public amusement.

The fact was the failure was his; he was ruler, after all. Now Octavius had the ear of half the warlords in the Demonlands. Marcus couldn’t silence him if he wished, and he dearly wished to.

“The land is our cage,” Octavius boomed. “The moment we set foot on human ground, we lose our connection to Hell! Our powers diminish. We can no longer drain Essence—not from their weak barren soils. The Heavens would confine us!”

He shook his fist, and a wall of anger answered him. “I spit on the Heavens! Behold!”

Beside him was a man-sized crate draped in matte black cloth; with a flourish Octavius tore it off.

A marble podium led up to a plush red cushion, and atop that cushion sat a perfectly round sphere. It was so black it seemed otherworldly; this was a black not found in nature. A splotch of red like freshly spilled blood shone eerily from its center.

Demonic Aura tore through the arena, buffeting the crowd, howling into the skies; it felt like they stood in the middle of a hurricane. The air distorted, stretched by pale gray winds.

It vanished. Octavius had replaced the cloth.

It took a moment for the crowd to recover its breath. Then the roars erupted. Octavius had a set of lungs on him, but even he could barely make himself heard over the noise.

“My artificers at the Lyceum have worked a miracle!” he said. “Behold—the Demon Heart! Plant it in the ground, and any land becomes demon land!”

His grin widened. It was a grin of triumph.

“In truth, this discovery was made years ago. But I have kept quiet… lest my enemies try to thwart me…” His eyes flickered to Marcus’. “Biding my time… building my stock… until I was certain I was undeniable. I come to you today to proclaim the world is ours for the taking! Rejoice, my brethren! At last, we are free!”