She felt a prickling at the back of her neck. The hair on her skin stood up. Her arm felt like it was burning as Mother spirited her back to the manor.

She saw why. The eyes were coming to her. A scattering drifting over the faint outline of the Middle Wall, strangely silent, trailing wisps of red. Her blood boiled hotter.

“What’s going on?” she murmured.

“I don’t know,” said Mother. “But until I find out, you’re staying where I can see you.”

She threw open the manor doors and dumped Ruyi inside. Then she drew her blade, a slip of mirror-like steel whose face glowed blue. She looked to the sky.

The eyes drew closer, so close if Ruyi leapt she felt she could snag one in her teeth. A cluster passed overhead; their trails vanished like warm breaths on a wintry day.

“One’s landed in the forest,” said Ruyi. Her breaths came faster and faster. “I saw it!”

“Stay here,” said Mother. “I’ll investigate.”

“I’m coming with you.” Before Mother could protest, she’d demonformed. Two leaps took her around the manor, sweeping past heaps of tall grass tickling at her nose, leaping a glut of hedges. She raced into the dark.

She heard Mother curse. She heard Mother follow. Mother might be her better in single combat but on footspeed Ruyi had her beat. It wasn’t only her raw burst speed; it was the way she moved, slithering around trees, launching off the trunks, swinging around branches with her tail. She loved having a tail; she couldn’t understand why humans didn’t have one. So useful for balancing when she needed to round a sharp turn.

She dashed for the heat. The trees opened up before her.

It was her training clearing—her old one, the one she’d rigged up when she was still scared of being found out. It was blown out into an oval. Trees had been knocked over, charred to smoking husks. She pattered up to the crater, sniffing.

She saw them at the crater’s midst. They seemed precious to her, like the eggs of some legendary beast, black-and-red and seething with heat that wasn’t heat.

But it was what she felt from them that stopped her. The colors in them—blinding. They leaked into the ground around them like open veins, blackening the soils, and in the eye of her mind Ruyi felt their bright white colors. When she padded closer she found they weren’t one solid color but constellations, little stars hidden in the soil, just like qi was hidden in the air.

Could it be…?

She caught a hacking sound. She wasn’t alone. On the far side of the crater, a trunk was shaking. Little black arms broke free of the bark. Heads popped out with eyes like rubies, mouths slobbering drool.

Ruyi giggled. Squirrels! Larval demon squirrels. They were so cute. She felt like she was moving through a half-remembered dream. Everything seemed a little light to her.

“Rue!” Mother burst into the clearing. She stopped cold at the sight of them.

“Oh, Heavens,” she whispered. Why were her eyes so wide?

“They’re only Larval,” Ruyi tried to say, but it came out an amused growl. She forgot she was a lion. She bounded over, her weight creaking the charred tree-trunk, and stuck out a finger. The little beast chomped at her. Couldn’t even break the skin. She snorted at Mother. See?

But Mother’s eyes were on the sky where red trails blossomed, fading, the faint impression of a bloody rose.

When she came back to herself she looked so serious she startled Ruyi out of her playfulness.

“Kill the demons,” Mother snapped.

It took very little. Ruyi ran through them in less than a breath. Six in total; five had clawed out. One was still in the bark but she felt its little heartbeat and poked around until it stopped.

She licked her lips. It’d been so long since she tasted fresh essence… it sated her in a different way than anything else, in the same way water sated differently than bread. After the Cult fell it’d been so hard sourcing real flesh she’d learned to ignore it.

She missed this.

CRACK!

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

She flinched. Mother stood over the three demon-eggs, sword aloft. One had already gone dark, split in two. She watched, horrified, as the blade fell again—CRACK!

She was on the third in a blink, sat over it like a mother bird. She gave a low growl.

“Rue…” said Mother, a warning in her voice.

Ruyi shrank back to humanform.

“It’s mine,” said Ruyi. “I want it.”

“This isn’t a matter of debate. Get off.”

“No.”

“You’re drunk.”

“I said I want it.”

Her blade rose. “I will slash if you don’t move.”

“No you won’t,” said Ruyi. She curled over it. At Mother’s exasperated look—“This has to be a demon artifact. It’s much more use intact, so we can study it—just let me try to understand it, please?”

She felt the light in the soil, dimmer now that it had just one source. But this wasn’t like qi; this was light that loved her.

She had to have more of it.

Only when it was clear most of the thing’s damage had already been done did Mother let her have it. Still she seemed worried.

“I’m already a demon,” said Ruyi. “What can it do to me?”

***

It was as Mother feared. A demon surprise attack, and it spread across the Song Dynasty—the Post confirmed as much with an official statement by the Emperor the next morning. By then it was mostly under control. Most of the damage was in the Lower Cities, where Demon Shards—the tentative name—plowed through densely packed house clusters , instantly demonifying dozens.

But the Imperial Guard had been sent in, and for once the Lower City folk welcomed them. They routed the larval demons and cleared out the damage.

Ruyi read from Chao, matron of the Mei Wards, that they’d been spared most of the damage.

They’d been like cannonballs. Most of the damage, the splash of essence, was done on landing. But they seemed to have a strange effect on the soil, and anything living which touched them started to blacken.

***

Ruyi wished she’d studied Artificing. As it was she had no clue what she was dealing with. Mother made her fence off the area so no wildlife could burst through, and set up a tarp so no birds got any ideas. It was unnecessary; animals had fled for li around the blast. None of them wanted anything to do with it.

The Shard seemed to turn soil into something else—essence-soil. And from this essence-soil Ruyi could draw in little motes of energy, like she was cultivating. Little was right. She was near the peak of Demon Core, whatever that meant. In her Core swirled a whirlpool of essence. This essence-soil hardly added a droplet an hour. She was nearly full, and it’d still take a year for her to advance.

The neat thing about being very powerful was you could take stupid risks. The energy in the Shard didn’t feel right; it was something that made the energy she needed. In alchemy terms, a precursor. Still she opened her mouth, demonformed, and took a nibble.

It gave her nothing but a burning feeling at the tip of her fangs. They felt worryingly brittle for a few breaths, like they might shatter at any moment, but it passed.

Nothing for it. She’d need to dribble in new Essence…

Or mass enough of this stuff to brighten the ground to her liking.

***

Days later the Emperor posted a notice—anyone caught harboring Shards would be executed, and their family branded traitors to the throne.

Mother showed her the notice.

“You’ve had your fun, Rue. But this is where it has to end.” She felt Mother’s eye on her face as she read, waiting for her reaction. She was silent.

“This could threaten your Father’s position,” said Mother. “This could threaten Jin.”

“Well,” said Ruyi at last. “Will you break it, or will I?”

A week later the Emperor announced another draft—into both the army and the Imperial Guard. It was to be the biggest recruitment effort since the Nine Years War.

Mother thought they were bracing for something, but in his letters Father wouldn’t tell her what.

***

Ruyi wrote a letter to Sen. She finally gathered the courage.

A simple letter. She said everything Sen said about her was right. And she was sorry she kicked Sen out. It felt like Sen was leaving her, and she didn’t deal with that kind of thing very well, and she’d said things she shouldn’t have. She asked if Sen would like to talk it over tea.

This time it was Sen who didn’t reply. Ruyi figured she deserved it.

She thought about it lying spread-eagled one night in some nameless field, drunk as usual, staring at the stars.

Maybe some people weren’t meant to be happy with other people. Maybe some people were just screwed-up like that, and anytime they tried to love someone they’d always find a way to mess it up. Maybe some people should be alone, so they don’t end up hurting anyone else. Ruyi had a good long cry. It felt good to beat herself up about it.

Maybe the only person she could really rely on was herself.

***

Life had just begun to settle after the first shower when the second came a week later. This one was twin meteors. None landed in their yard, to Ruyi’s great dismay. The next day Mother was drowned in letters.

Dragonspire Province, the seat of the Li Clan’s power, had taken the brunt of the Shards. It seemed the whole province was lit up with little fires—none crippling, but in the rural areas and the danger zones, the zones few dared tread, several were starting to fester into something more serious. Mother was needed.

“I won’t be gone more than a week,” Mother said. Ruyi wanted to go with her but Mother wasn’t hearing it. Before she left, she held Ruyi by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

“Rue…” she said. “Can I trust you to take care of yourself?”

“I’m almost grown. I’m nearly Demon King! They couldn’t hurt me if they tried.”

“I know, I know. You’re a big girl now.” Mother’s smile was wan. “I’m not worried about them hurting you. I’m worried about you.”

“Me?” Ruyi blinked. “Why would I hurt myself?”

“Dear, you do it all the time.”

Ruyi frowned at her.

“And you get angry at me when I point it out,” sighed Mother.

“Is this about the drinking? I’ll stop. Promise.”

Mother looked like she wanted to say more, but instead she sighed and gently kissed Ruyi’s forehead. “You stay put. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

***

When the third meteor shower came, Ruyi was ready.

She had her mask and her cowl, had her dark silks all laid out. She had her leather sack twice as big as she was slung over her shoulder. Crimson lines streaked for the far mountains, and she chased them into the night.