“Where’re you going?” sniveled the girl. “Can you take me with you? Please? What’s your name?”

It was rather hard to think with the girl all over her, staring at her, pouring herself over her. Ruyi almost said “Ruyi.”

Instead Ruyi said, “What are you doing here?”

The girl blinked up at her stunned, and Ruyi got the distinct sense they were characters in a play and Ruyi had said something out of turn.

“What do you mean?” the girl said breathily. Up close she was even prettier; she had the sort of face that struck you at a glance, made you double-take. She was so pretty, almost the picture of a noble, but she smelled like she hadn’t bathed in weeks. Ruyi untangled herself, took a step back.

“All the villagers should’ve been evacuated,” she said.

“Oh,” said the girl. “My mother owns a spirit stone mine in the mountains—I was just visiting when…”

She sniffed, dabbing at her face. “Those ruffians… out of nowhere! Oh! They came so fast…”

She clutched at her arms, looking at Ruyi with watery eyes, and Ruyi got the overwhelming urge to run over and hug her. But Ruyi got that a lot. She resisted.

“What’s the capital of the Frostbite Peaks?”

The girl gawked at her. “Excuse me?”

“Please answer me.”

“Oh…” the girl looked down like Ruyi was bullying her, and Ruyi felt bad. But she had to be sure. Something felt weird… “I don’t know… it’s just, I think I need to sit down…”

Maybe she was just in shock. Maybe she couldn’t think straight.“Oh!” said the girl, perking up. “I remember now—it’s Renshou City, right?”

Ruyi frowned.

“Isn’t that right?” said the girl, faltering.

“It is,” said Ruyi. “In letters. You might think that if you’d only ever seen it in a book. But that’s not how you pronounce it. It’s Renshou City.”

“Renshou, Renshou, does it matter?”

“Nobody who’s lived here says Renshou. If you were a noble like you present yourself, you’d know that. You smell like you don’t bathe like people do. You’re wearing your hanfu with a shoulder out.” This was tremendously disappointing to Ruyi, since she was very pretty.

The girl blinked once.

Then it was like someone else stood where she’d been. Her posture went from hunched to straight, confident, chest up, head high, and the doe-like innocence went out of her eyes. She smirked.

“You’re smarter than you look.”

“Excuse me?”

“Let’s be frank, then. My name is Thalia Tenebros Ferrox,” drawled the girl. “My Uncle is the Shadowmancer Wyrm, Decimus Tenebros Ferrox, the Whisperer in the Dark. On his behalf, I extend a cordial invitation to you, Ruyi Yang, to join our tribe as a Named Warrior. We offer you one thousand high-grade Essence Stones on signing. Our tribe has enslaved a number of great Ice-Aspect warriors, among them two Kings, who shall guide you in your training. This is a great honor; we take very few outsiders into our ranks. Join us, and we shall make you great—your name will be loved and feared in equal measure.”

Ruyi was still reeling. She must be like Junius, an agent of a powerful demon—why did they all think she’d want to join them? She wanted nothing to do with them!

“So?” said Thalia.

By the look on her face she thought she knew Ruyi’s answer already.

“You tried to trick me,” Ruyi said hotly.

“…and this bothers you?” Thalia seemed astounded. “Join us, and you’ll learn the shortest way to get what you want isn’t always a straight line. Don’t be naïve. Uncle’s offer is better than any you’ll get. Certainly better than what Octavius’s agent would’ve offered you if he was allowed to get to you. I should know—I wrung it out of him.”

“I don’t trust you,” said Ruyi. “And I can’t be with anyone I can’t trust—that’s that.”

Thalia stared at her.

“You would spurn my offer over a little trick? Maybe you’re just as stupid as you look.”

Ruyi ought to get her eyes checked. This Thalia wasn’t pretty at all—her smirk was so ugly it made Ruyi want to punch her in the face.

“I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“Hmm,” said the girl.

She wasn’t a girl anymore but a serpent rippling with scales like hardened ink; ratlike wings flared out from her back. She bared two crescent-fangs and lunged.

Stolen novel; please report.

Ruyi was so shocked it took her a fraction of a second just to process what was happening. She barely had time to Demonform, put up an arm to block, and Thalia sank two fangs into it.

Howling, Ruyi batted her off; the holes smoldered with blackness, a not-quite-smoke.

Ruyi pounced for her. Thalia opened her mouth.

Then Ruyi’s world went pitch black. She was blind—she couldn’t see! She felt a surge of blind panic; she struck out, madly, hit something hard, and heard Thalia cry out, felt a surge of relief. It was like a cold wind blew over her face. What was that?

Then it felt like a long curved blade bit into her side. It didn’t go very far, but it still burned.

This was a Demon Queen, but not a powerful one. She tried wiping the gunk from her eyes and felt another stab of pain on the other side. Not enough to really hurt her, but it was starting to make her angry.

She hunched in, making herself small, whimpering like it really hurt. Then she turned all her attention to herself; she listened to her body.

The moment her skin felt a prickle of pain, the moment that fraction it started to bloom, she let out her domain—it was like she stood in a sudden blizzard; everything was weighed down by cold. Then she twirled around and slashed for its source. She landed hard, felt her claws sink through scales, then flesh, a knuckle deep. The serpent was more muscled than it seemed at first glance. It took two claws to hold it tight, and still it writhed so hard it nearly shook itself loose. But each hissing spasm only carved her claws deeper into its flesh. Ruyi her her; her paws ran warm with blood.

She was blinking the darkness out now, the way you blink spots out of your eyes. What had that been? Was that a Technique? It was like Thalia had taken the darkness and given it extra weight, a different form of the same thing, like ice melting to water. She didn’t know you could do that—could Ruyi do that?

She had the snake near the head, right about the throat. She leaned in, jaws wide, for the kill—

The body was smoke. Smoke in the shape of a serpent, slithering out of her fingers in dark rivers. It remade itself a few dozen strides away, gasping, its eyes wide and red.

It puffed away and was gone.

“What the Hell?” said Ruyi.

***

As she trudged her way up the foothills of the Desolate Mountains, she couldn’t get over that encounter. It felt like a bad dream, all of it—the play-acting, the attack on her… that snake-girl hadn’t been very strong, but she had so many tricks! How had she become smoke like that? Ruyi couldn’t do that. Was that just a darkness thing? But it was like she’d taken the dark and changed its form a little, the way ice melts to water. It was so weird.

It must be some Demon Technique. She wondered if there were Demon Techniques for creatures like her, too. All this time she’d been bodging stuff together on her own, with Mother’s help, and it was fine, but Mother fought with two hands and two feet, with Techniques she could run through her sword. She looked so graceful like she fought. Ruyi, meanwhile, usually looked drunk. She was out there slapping and slashing and moving jerky-jerky, even the half of the time when she wasn’t drunk.

She felt like she was on the edge of something big and deep. She felt this way when she got really into some Alchemy research. She always felt what set her apart wasn’t that she was smarter than everyone else—well she was, of course, but it didn’t make her special. What made her special was she could lock herself in a room and get so lost in something she could forget to eat and sleep for days. And this felt like the sort of thing she could really get lost in. As she started her way up the Mountain proper she felt a tingling of excitement. That cry back in the town had done her some real good; she felt raw, but sort of alright. It was nice to have something to think about other than her life falling apart around her. Maybe she was going to make it after all.

***

The roads were thinning, branching off, flatnesses vanishing into wild slanted planes of the range. Night was falling, and it seemed the sky was melting into the land. Ruyi couldn’t see where she was going anymore, but she never really knew anyways. She had a direction, and she went with it. The hills were getting more jagged, and she saw the range proper ahead like a field of giants’ spearheads jutting out of the ground, black triangles carved out against gray-black clouds. Shrill cavernous screams echoed down from the tips, winding through the gaps, the wind playing one chilling note. Ruyi thought she could make out some cawing in there—of some big bird, maybe? But she wasn’t sure.

She climbed over another peak. To the right, she saw Father’s forts and camps strung out in front of the range’s front face. From this far out they seemed like a row of candles.

Where she was, it was too rocky to make camp. Had Father forgotten this side pass? Had she gotten lucky, just once? It was a lot of ground to cover… maybe he ran out of men. She kept looking, kept listening, but she saw no-one. She felt hopeful.

***

A scrying glass resolved on Shao Yang’s desk. It showed only darkness, the scout’s face a ghostly blur lit only by the light coming through the glass, oddly shadowing his face.

“We found her!” came the voice, hushed and thrilled.

Shao jerked upright in his seat.

“Are you certain?” he snapped.

“Something big tripped the eastern proximity array. No fauna live here. I checked the glass—sure enough. It’s her, sir. At the eastern side, near Drakes’ Pass. There’s no mistaking it.”

“Understood,” said Shao. “You have done your nation a great service, scout.”

He tapped the glass, breaking the connection.

Then he leaned back, massaging his temples, and sighed. He’d thought his daughter smarter than this.

He had a special team—twelve Nascents ready to go at a moment’s notice.

He stood, hands behind his back, and started pacing. A single torch lit his tent, cut off here and there by stacks of papers and hanging glasses flickering shadows over him as he paced.

“Sir!” a boy’s voice piped up outside his flaps. “This is messenger Lang. I’ve got a letter for—”

“Haven’t I said I am not to be disturbed?!” snarled Shao.

The boy ran squealing.

For a while Shao stood there still, the hollows of his eyes cast in shadow. The array was tripped. There was no hiding this—not long. He knew what he had to do.

He crossed the room, picked out a scrying glass hanging higher than the rest, and tapped it.

“Sir!” His first lieutenant answered instantly.

“The girl has been sighted,” he said simply. “She’s tripped the western array at Fang’s pass. Take your squadron and eliminate her posthaste.”

“Yes, sir!” said the lieutenant instinctively. Then—“The western array, you said?”

Doubt flickered across his face. Shao knew why. The western side was nearly as fortified as the wall’s front face, and it was riddled with ravines too at Drake’s Pass. It would be mad to go west—they’d expected her east.

“How many times must I repeat myself? West! Time is of the essence, lieutenant! Go!”

“Yes, sir!” The man snapped to attention. Shao severed the connection.

Then he sagged; all of the tension went out of him at once. The alarm was tripped—sooner or later what he’d done would get out, and they’d truly be on her tail. He’d bought her a few hours at best. He caught his warped reflection in the empty scrying glass. He looked haggard, old, as old as he felt.

He buried his face in his hands.