It was over in an instant. Lynx leapt. The falcon sliced. The slice landed first. One bright cold edge shattered the ice on the lynx’s face. Then the other wing took the lynx over. In the same instant the lynx dug a claw into the falcon’s belly, dragging it to the snow, and they went over slicing and scraping, sinking fangs and claws into each other and gouging out huge reams of flesh. Blood fountained out, sprayed the heaped snows. The air around them glowed the dark blue of overlapping domains, so that the blood on the snows was red outside; inside it was a lurid purple.

“They’re killing each other!” cried Ruyi.

“Not yet,” said Livia.

“Aren’t you going to stop this?” Weren’t they her warriors?

Livia shrugged. ”It isn’t my place.”

Ruyi couldn’t look away. The force they threw at each other… it was true hate. There was so much feeling in every shot. Was this sparring, or a duel to the death? She’d never gone at Jin like that—she wouldn’t ever! When she’d sparred Jin they’d kept points—one for each hit… but this…

The falcon clawed out the tendons from the lynx’s arm; she saw them snapping, saw the lynx howl. When the falcon stepped off the limb ice crusted the lynx’s limp arm, cuffing it to the ground. Then the falcon stepped straight on the lynx’s throat.

The lynx flopped, frothing at the mouth, but the light was going out of its eyes as more and more ice built up around its neck. Ice shot out madly from its claws but all they did was throw up snow showers. Ruyi was horrified. It was dying right before her eyes, she had to do something—

“Yield!” someone shouted, and only then did Ruyi notice the warriors standing on the edge of the battlefield—one behind each fighter. The woman had screamed the word, her hand held high. A fresh cut marked her palm, blood welling up.

“No true Frigus warrior yields a duel,” said Livia. “Not in battle, not in training—surrender is the ultimate dishonor. Their seconds yield on their behalf.”

“Heavens…” whispered Ruyi.

The falcon shrank back. It was a woman—Ruyi swore she’d seen this woman once in a statue of a warrior goddess. She was tall and muscled and lean, as much a huntress in this form as she was in the other. The lynx had shrank back too—to a clean-shaven, dark-skinned man. Why were they all so good-looking? The man was clutching at his throat, which still bled, and his arm was useless at his side. But he was smiling fiercely. The woman was too. She held out her hand; he took it, and they embraced. Ruyi had only ever seen naked bodies embracing in a very different situation, and she was briefly scandalized. Then she saw it wasn’t a lover’s embrace; it was a warrior’s embrace, not tender but vigorous. When they pulled apart, hands still clasped, she could see the respect on both their faces. They spoke to each other, one nodding, then the other, laughed, went to pick up their clothes, still smiling. It was the most emotion Ruyi had seen out of anyone at camp.

“Woah…” breathed Ruyi.

“That is our way,” said Livia. “The blood runs hot in battle. But the cold returns, and we come back to one another. We love each other as passionately as we fight each other. Though you’ll seldom see it in our faces or our words.”

She paused, inclining her head. “I’m given to understand humans speak their love—our way is to show it.”

“Woah…” said Ruyi. Her heart was still racing. What was that? It was like nothing she’d ever seen.

They noticed her—“Livia!” the falcon-woman shouted. She marched over and the dozen or so warriors there followed. Up close Ruyi saw the three blue streaks on their faces, like whiskers—it must be what marked them as warriors. There was no bowing, no saluting.

“Well met,” said the falcon-woman, tapping a fist to her chest.

“Well met, Sabina,” said Livia, tapping her own chest. Then the falcon-woman turned her eyes—frighteningly blue eyes, like icicles in sunlight—on Ruyi, and Ruyi felt herself looking at her feet and blushing.

“This is the Calamity?” said Sabina. Ruyi felt the woman’s eyes raking her up and down, taking the measure of her. “What is your name, little Calamity?”

“Ruyi,” said Ruyi. She had to look up just to see the other woman’s jaw. And what a jaw it was… like it was sculpted by the Heavens, that jaw, her whole face, really…

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“Ru-yi,” said Sabina, stretching out the syllables. Then she clasped her fists. “It is an honor to have you as our guest. I have heard much of your exploits.”

“You have?”

“Of course. You spent two days and nights in the In-Between, and stole from a Queen of Hell! And you are the slayer of Gaia, are you not? Powerful. Powerful indeed.”

This goddess of a woman was calling her powerful?

Ruyi could’ve melted then and there. She kind of was.

“Uh,” she said.

“Perhaps you shall meet me on the training ground,” said Sabina. She flashed Ruyi a fierce grin. “I would be honored to feel your power.”

“Yes! Anytime,” said Ruyi, nodding enthusiastically. She wasn’t really sure what she was agreeing to. It seemed to make the other woman happy, though.

“We ought to be on our way,” said Livia. “Well met, Sabina.”

“Well met, Livia. Well met, Ru-yi.”

“Well met!” cried Ruyi, thumping her chest.

They went along the makeshift street. They’d left most of the bustling bits of camp behind, it seemed—the parts where the blacksmithing and the alchemy and the living quarters and the butchers’ stalls were. They passed a quiet patch of ice where shamans sat—it seemed they were marked by the swirly signs on their foreheads just as the warriors were marked by those blue whisker things on their cheeks. The shamans hummed, brows drawn tight, as incense sticks tall as bamboo burned around them.

“They know me here?” whispered Ruyi as they went. She was buzzing.

“Perhaps not by face, but by name.” Livia smiled. “Here we respect strength—of power and of will. Nyx was one of us once, a distant ancestor of mine. No common mind could defeat her.”

Ruyi perked up. That was exactly right! She was special, wasn’t she? She deserved a little respect, didn’t she? As she went along, almost humming now, a passing warrior thumped his chest at her. She thumped right back.

“Why’s he have four whiskers?” said Ruyi, pointing out a white-haired old warrior on the training ground ahead.

“It’s a sign of his warrior rank,” said Livia. “It can only be earned through deeds. Flavius’ earned his fourth stripe nearly a century ago, by slaying a brimstone dragon.”

Livia gave him a chest-thump as they past, and he chest-thumped back. He was teaching some children—feral ones by the looks of them. Some still had snouts, some crowns of horns or forked tongues, and for some their whole lower body was stuck in demonform. They came running up to her pointing, whispering.

“Livia said she was coming with the Calamity,” said a little dragon-snouted girl. She had big pretty red eyes. “Are you the Calamity?”

“That’s right,” said Ruyi proudly.

“Woah…” said the little girl. They huddled around her, staring and whispering. At first Ruyi was tense—when children gathered around her they usually made fun of her. She had some bad memories from past Banquets… but these children seemed awestruck.

“Can you show me your demonform?” said the little girl.

Ruyi preened. “Of course!”

She transformed for them. The little girl told her she was the biggest demonform the girl had ever seen, and Ruyi preened even more.

It seemed to her she was finally being treated with the respect she’d always deserved. They might look strange, but she sure liked them better than human kids. When she transformed back to human-form she even gave a little bow. Then a bald boy asked her if she’d thrown out her back. Livia was stifling a laugh—“That isn’t necessary here,” she told Ruyi.

She was enjoying herself so much she stayed behind to answer their questions. She performed little tricks for them, slashing with her claws, leaping ten strides high, and they oo’ed at her. It was all going so well until a boy came up to her and asked her, “Why are you so fat?”

She stared at him, slowly reddening. It was the way he asked it—he wasn’t even trying to be mean; he had these big curious eyes. “Um,” she mumbled after a while. “I’m working on it…”

That was the end of that little excursion.

***

“You’re embarrassed,” Livia observed as they went.

“No,” said Ruyi, arms crossed in front of her belly.

Then, after a few more steps—“In the human world I’m considered very beautiful, you know! Not flabby at all, and certainly not fat.”

“You are beautiful,” said Livia. “You are also chubby.”

Somehow Ruyi felt a little better. “You’re a very blunt people, you know that?”

Livia laughed. “And you are an amusing girl, Ruyi Yang. You change colors so easily.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She gestured at her cheeks. “Your face. You blush quite easily. Your feelings are written on your face. See? Like this.”

Ruyi turned away, blushing. What was wrong with her? She’d gotten pretty good at hiding her feelings these past few years, she felt—at least to outsiders, to folk she didn’t know. But nowadays her feelings felt like they were slipping through her fingers, just like everything else in her life. She couldn’t stop anything.

“No—it’s a good thing,” said Livia. “You said we are blunt… I don’t think of it that way. I think we’re an honest people—we pride ourselves on it. And this—” She gestured to Ruyi’s still-red face. “Means you are honest with me, emotionally. It makes you easy to trust. I appreciate this.”

Ruyi wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

They stopped outside a tent twice as big as any tent they’d seen. It so white it seemed made of snow at first; like a natural formation rising out of its snowy landscape, inscribed with thousands upon thousands of jagged runes. This one was a fat cylinder, and thick clumps of smoke drifted out from its top. Blue-white banners with mountain peaks, Frigus banners, hung from its sides. The entrance was strips of tanned hide. The stern wooden face of an owl hung above it, drifting gently in the winds. The place smelled old—Ruyi didn’t know how else to describe it. There was a certain dusty scent, the scent of ancient tomes…

“This is the Lorekeeper’s Tent,” said Livia. “Where we keep the knowledge of our people. Our Techniques and our manuals, passed down through the millennia…”