At first Ruyi thought she was just lucky. As she crept up the excuse for a road trickling between the mountains, she met no-one. No squadrons of angry men coming to fight her, no assassins, not even a scout.

Then she realized she wasn’t giving herself enough credit. She really was far better at sneaking around than even she’d thought. Moving slowly, deliberately—that was the trick of it. This way no one saw anything flash by. Even if there were scouts up there on the mountain peaks—it was quite hard to tell, with how dark it was—they wouldn’t be able to see her either. She felt wrapped up by the night, made a part of it, almost invisible. If she tried, really focused, she thought she could slow her heartbeat down too. It felt slower to her, at least. It was also a matter of self-belief. If you felt like a rock, if you truly believed you were one with the landscape, then you were. You probably couldn’t see her even if you were ten strides away. She was so sneaky. She would’ve made a good scout.

The farther she went the more the land emptied out. There wasn’t any plantlife even as far back as the foot of the range, but by now there was no water, either, not even those milky, stinking pools she had to step around early on. The only things here were what creatures who’d passed by left behind. Demons and humans had fought here not long ago, and a fresh carpet of bones was strewn about the grounds, clear white over the duller white of the older stuff ground so small she could almost think it was sand. Most of it was shards now, but she could make out fingers and skulls every once in a while.

Some of these must’ve belonged to demons, but there were no huge bones like you’d expect from Demonforms. Did they just shrink once they died? It was probably essence that was changing their shape. And they’d died just weeks ago, but she’d still expect to see some meat on them, if badly rotted. These were picked clean.

She looked up and saw tiny dark flecks flitting between peaks. Vultures, if she had to guess. She wondered if they were looking at her, just as she was looking at them. She wondered if they were waiting to swoop on her.

Probably not, she told herself. She was too sneaky for them.

She knew at some level this probably wasn’t true, but she’d always been good at getting herself to believe what she wanted to believe. So she forged on.

Eventually she came to the start of the range proper. The climbing was done—the height of the valley leveled out from here on out, it looked like…

There was a nub of a peak nearby about half as short as the rest. She climbed as high as she dared, high enough she could see through the gaps between the mountains out onto the valley floor, out where Father’s armies had made camp. There were lights twinkling at the base of the range—at the foot of her side of the mountains, she saw with a shock. When she’d set off they’d gone west!

They were coming for her.

Her heart sank. Maybe she wasn’t so sneaky after all.

“Well,” she said out loud. She started a little. Up here the wind wasn’t as loud—she could hear herself speak, and she hadn’t heard anything in hours. It was spooky hearing her voice in this place. It didn’t feel like it belonged.

“Well,” she said again, clearing her throat. “I guess there’s no turning back, huh.”

She found a ledge slashing down the mountain and plopped onto it. Then she sat there and stared out into the distance. She couldn’t really see anything— all that was concrete got faded out by the distance, so there was only a haze of colors—but she imagined she could make out the lights of Jade Dragon City in the horizon. It would be a long time before she saw Mother again, she thought, and Jin. She felt a pang of sadness. And Tingting and Sen, too… and even Father…

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

She wished she’d said goodbye. She would’ve liked to give each of them a hug before she went. Instead she was here.

She waved goodbye to the distance. She was starting to get tearful anyways—

“Hello.”

She shrieked, jerked around, lost her grip on the ledge, and fell off the side of the mountain.

She heard a rush of air, she flailed blindly, but her body always seemed to know where to fall. She landed on paws.

A thump landed not three strides from her.

It was a red-eyed girl in a dark, form-fitting tunic. She had grisly scars running across her face in an X, breaking up her nose, making one side look off from the other. She was quite ugly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” The girl held up her hands. “My name is Livia, special envoy of Warlord Drusila Glacialis Vespertilio,” she said.

Ruyi regarded her with narrowed eyes. Sometimes you could tell if someone was a good person just by looking at them—like Sen or Tingting. Ruyi had known they were good people the moment she saw them. She got the opposite feeling from this girl.

“Would you please humanform? It’ll make speaking easier.”

Ruyi did nothing. She couldn’t get over the girl’s face—one side of her mouth drooped as she spoke.

“These mountains are treacherous. You’ll need a guide.”

Ruyi bared her teeth.

“I come in good faith. I’d like to make you an offer on behalf of my Warlord.”

Ruyi snarled at her.

The girl frowned, cheeks drooping, eyes sagging, and it looked like her face was melting. Then blinked, nodded.

“Very well,” she said slowly. “If you were to change your mind, Drusila would be pleased to have you.”

She leapt, and her body shrank and drew out. Wings blossomed from her back. A huge raven drifted off into the night.

Ruyi searched the sky, all tight, for another hour, but the ugly girl didn’t come back to attack her. She kept expecting it.

Huh.

Rattled, she forged on.

Maybe that girl had come in good faith? But Ruyi didn’t trust any of them. She was better off alone.

***

She’d never seen such a lifeless place. Everything was a gradient of gray, lighter up at the top, then deepening until it got to where she was. A bank of listless black clouds muffled the moon. She could hardly see where she stepped. It was like she was wandering through purgatory. The only thing that told her she was still trekking the range’s floor was the crunching of bones.

She kept walking for a while, started mulling what she’d done since she had nothing else to do. She had no clue where she was going. The more she trekked, the more confused she got.

Ugly girl offered to be a guide—maybe Ruyi should’ve heard her out? Ruyi had gotten a bad feeling from her… or maybe Ruyi just thought she was ugly, she couldn’t tell… Hours passed like this—hours which felt like aimless wandering.

How long had she been going? It felt like quite some time… her thoughts were starting to get stringy, floating away from her, fading out, and it felt like a low fog was settling into her mind. She had to keep going… was it morning? It did seem lighter, but the clouds had thickened, pouring out one flat wall of dim light, so she couldn’t see if there was a sun or a moon. She yawned at it.

She blinked. Her limbs felt strangely heavy… she could go longer without sleep now, but it didn’t matter how strong she got. It caught up to her eventually. But she could go a little longer, she felt. She could sleep once she was out of the mountains… once…

The next thing she knew she was jerking upright, stumbling hard, and narrowly avoided running facefirst into a wall.

Had she just fallen asleep? On her feet?

It had to be morning. It was brighter now and the mist was burning away. She could see maybe twenty strides ahead, but it didn’t help much—it all looked the same to her. She really should’ve brought a map. Then again, most maps ended just about here. They cut off at the base of the mountains, like they were the edge of the known world. And she was going off of it.

She yawned again. Maybe she could take a nap. Just a short one, then she’d be on her way. Not now, though… in a little…

***

She woke to the rushing of air. She yawned, stretched, felt her arms and legs hit only air. She opened her eyes.

Why was she so high up? The ground was getting farther and farther away… was she dreaming?

She looked down and saw a claw fastened around her belly. She looked left, then right, and saw nests of gravel perched on ledges near the mountain tops. In those nests were lizards with fangs and wings, eyeing her with slitted, shockingly yellow eyes.

She screamed.