Wisps are strange creatures. These semi-sentient balls of qi appear nearly exclusively near or under the control of powerful shades and Yokai. And yet…there is no known link between Shades and Yokai other than their propensity to hunt in the depths of night. So, are wisps creatures of night? Or of death? And what would either connection imply about their wielders? –Exorcist Xin Taluen to his apprentice

* * *

I stared at Tenri, unsure if I wanted to scream or cry or run away. How could he sit there? How could he be so calm? He was staring at a face straight out of history’s darkest chapters, and he was treating it like he’d come across a merchant with a twisted ankle.

“Why?” My voice was cold as steel.

“Why not?”

I snarled. The smoke around me began to rise with my anger. It covered the trembling of my hands, but not even the smoke could hide the clinking of chains as my shoulders shook under the weight of thousands of years of history.

How could I tell him? I needed Tenri. I needed him to like me if I wanted to keep using him as an anchoring point in the world beyond the labyrinth’s walls. My soul was bonded to his. If only he hadn’t seen me this way…maybe I could get him to just forget. Spew some story about turning over a new leaf and that I just wanted to be a simple cultivator or something. Then maybe he could just forget the stories and let the twisted face in children’s books become some other monster, some other creature than me.

But now…everything was crumbling before my very eyes and no amount of moon qi would let me alter that reality, not at my current strength. I’d just started to rebuild my castle, only to find it was built on sand.

“Tell me your side of things,” Tenri said simply. “Tell me the story no one wanted to hear back then.”

Maybe…maybe this was for the best. If he was going to leave me anyway, maybe it was best to make a clean break here and now. I could disappear from his life altogether, and he could spin a story for Xinya and her father that I’d been eaten by…what did he call it? The Chain-Bound Fury? If I really was its spitting image, then surely, they’d believe it.

I slumped to the ground. Tenri was still several yards away, watching me with an unreadable expression. It took several minutes of silence to gather my courage, to prepare myself for the ultimate rejection of my nature.

“What is it you want to know?” I asked softly, studying the drifting wisps as they bounced slowly on the blades of grass.

“Why were you really imprisoned?” Tenri answered. I winced. Right to the crux of the matter, then. Well, at least it would be a short conversation instead of dragging it out.

The legends I’d weaseled out of Xinya over the last two weeks said that the Darkened Moon was an incarnation of the moon which descended to earth to take in all of earth’s beauty firsthand. However, upon finding lands that were wrought with strife and starvation, the moon decided that the world was actually ugly and resolved to wash away every imperfection. Nations fell, Ascendents got mad, one thing led to another, and the Darkened Moon was slain.

I can’t even count the number of things that are false about that legend, but the single truth was the most important one. I had killed people. I’d wiped entire nations off the map, leaving behind a silver wasteland of stone and nothingness where no life could flourish. Five nations in total met that fate, all governed by lesser artists who dared to challenge me. Five nations filled with innocent lives…gone because I’d lost control.

Tenri frowned and rubbed his chin upon hearing my answer. “What made you do it?”

“What made me do it?”

He nodded. “You don’t seem the type to go so far over a mere insult. You’re more laid back than that.”

“The truth is…I don’t know what happened,” I said. “In those days, the continent was mired in a qi drought. I was able to predict its coming, so I prepared. Though my people were more vulnerable to a qi shortage than other nations, we thrived in spite of this. Part of our preparations, however, included empowering me. My advisor prepared a ritual, and I became…like this.” I gestured to my hair and horns. “That advisor told me that it was perfectly safe, and I had no reason not to believe her. For a while things were fine, but one of my rivals k-” my voice caught as the past came rushing back. I paused, trying to focus my thoughts and calm my voice.

“Take your time,” Tenri assured. “I’m not going anywhere.” It was several minutes before I was calm enough to continue.

“They kidnapped my sister. In trying to get her back, she was killed,” I explained as quickly as I could before I broke down. “My abilities to alter reality, to pick a different path, to go back and do it all over, none of it worked. I don’t know why. But, the voices came, struck me in my grief, and…I guess I just got wrapped up in my own fury.”

Tenri rubbed his chin again. I watched him, noting every twitch of his eyes, every furrow of his brows, and every tweak of his mouth. He was trying to find the lie in my words. Once he found one, he’d know I was a monster. Even if he couldn’t find one, he’d assume one. He wouldn’t be the first.

“Are you hungry?” I blinked and stared, certain I’d misheard him. He repeated himself. “Are you hungry? Lang Tailyn said your dinner was…not good. Hanako made jelly dumplings. I could get some and bring them back.”

I shrugged. So, that was the path he was taking. Make an excuse and leave, then never return. I understood. He stood, then quickly retreated back into the woods. Only once he was gone did I curl up on the ground. The chains bit into my arms, but it wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to. I’d suffered far greater discomforts, and the weight of rejection was too much to carry right now.

Chiho nuzzled my cheek, and I stroked the crane’s head gently. It was my only real friend, the only one who had stayed by my side through the dark times. Even its master had abandoned me, but Chiho never did. For that, I was grateful.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It wasn’t long before I heard rustling in the trees. I raised my head to see Tenri approaching with a small bundle in his arms.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He frowned. “I told you I was going to get some food.”

“Yes, but I didn’t expect you to actually come back.”

“Well, I’m just full of surprises, aren’t I?” He sat down and unwrapped his package. A dozen dumplings steamed in the open air, and the smell was entirely too enticing. Tenri handed me a pair of chopsticks, which I took. After Xinya’s horrible cooking, I was starving.

“I’ve never had this kind before,” I said. “Tell Hanako they’re delicious.”

“Oh, she knows,” Tenri answered with a laugh. “The jellies only come for a short time of the year, and I tell her how much I like it every season.” I ate two more. “Listen, those chains, do they hurt?”

I shrugged. “Not really. The nail they drove into my heart was worse. It took me decades to get out of that. Once I loosened the chains enough to move, they really don’t bother me much, anymore.”

Now, it was Tenri’s turn to blink in shock. “They drove a nail into your heart?!”

I grinned at his surprise. Had he forgotten that I was a god? I set my chopsticks down and pulled aside my robes over my chest to reveal the star-shaped scar over my heart.

“They really tried to keep me down. The nail was high-grade purified sandalwood imbued with lightning qi. The Sword Saint drove it straight into my core, thinking that would keep me down, but I broke out of their coffin quickly enough,” I bragged. “Their labyrinth, though. It used my own power against me. A prison where I was both prisoner and power source. That took longer to break.”

“Looks like you had the last laugh in the end,” he said. “The last of the Ascendents in the story was the Sword Saint, and he died nearly a hundred years ago.”

“Did he now?” My heart ached with a combination of phantom pains and loss. It had been the Sword Saint who had hammered in the nail. Chiho trembled in my hair, and I reached up to comfort the pin.

I leaned back, looking up at the stars. They were different than the ones I knew, so much time had passed. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if, in all his years, had the Sword Saint ever missed me?

That was ridiculous. Of course he didn’t. He’d betrayed me, after all, not the other way around. I deserved it, for the things I’d done, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

I looked over at Tenri, who’d leaned back to look at the stars through the trees and ghostly wisps. Maybe I really had been given a second chance by the heavens. After all, Tenri hadn’t rejected me just for being a monster, both literally and metaphorically. Instead, he’d shared his home and a meal.

My chains clanked together as I rested my head on my hands, staring up at the stars. The silence was comfortable, and the company was good. What more could I ask for in an evening?

* * *

By the time I woke, the sun was already well into its ascent over the trees. I looked down at my hands to find them still stained with the void. Chains still rattled at my sides, and dark smoke still coiled around my feet.

Tenri was already gone. No doubt he rushed back to town as soon as he’d woken so no one would notice his disappearance. But me? I had nothing to do.

I stood and stretched. The sun was entirely too bright, and my skin was already starting to burn in the blistering light. I would need to find somewhere out of the sun, both to keep hidden and to keep from burning to a crisp.

In the end, there was really only one place I knew of nearby: the lighthouse. Before I left the clearing, I gathered some rocks and arranged them into a small note to tell Tenri where I was, should he come looking. Then, I made my way to the north.

By the time I ducked into the blessed darkness of the lighthouse, my skin was blistered in several places. Whomever thought it was a good idea to clear the space near the lighthouse of trees and other forms of cover clearly didn’t have shades and monsters in mind.

And this would be why I built a kingdom with plenty of shade and whole regions where the sun never rose. It was also why the Sun Queen and I never quite saw eye-to-eye…

The darkness of the lighthouse, though, was cool and calming. The windows were still covered in dust and salt, and even though most of the furniture was broken beyond repair, it was already starting to feel more like a habitable space with Sai Lyn’s death aura gone. A little bit of fresh paint, some scrubbing of the floors and walls, and everything would be perfectly cozy should Xi Qian take me up on the offer to become the keeper.

That said, there wasn’t much I could do about making the place more comfortable without exposing myself to the sun beyond. Instead, I found a nice, cozy corner in one of the old bedrooms, pulled over the shredded remains of a blanket, and settled in to cultivate.

It’s dull work, cultivation. I sat in quiet meditation, focusing on the shape of my core and the qi that flowed through it. Systematically drawing qi to every portion of my body, focusing on my connection to the moon and all its aspects, and feeling every breath and pulse as it delivered nourishing oxygen to my body. All these things were necessary for cultivation, much in the same way that practice makes a good musician or strength training makes a good martial artist, but knowing its importance doesn’t make it any more exciting. Most days, I do a little bit before falling asleep, as it makes for a great sleep aid, but since I had nothing better to do while sitting in a lighthouse waiting for the sun to set, it was my only option.

I also took the time to count my blessings. Mostly that I never had to cultivate all day if I didn’t choose to. In many sects, the lowest disciples are charged with two things: running errands for the elders and cultivating. It helps to strengthen one’s qi and increase their control.

Luckily for me, I never had to spend much time as one of the lower disciples. I was a prodigy, raised to inner disciple by our sect leader in record time, which consequently pissed off several of the sect elders who made it their life’s mission to make me fail. They ate their words when I outpaced everything the sect had to offer, graduated with honors, and then went on to Ascend.

Moonlight and void filled my body. My chains grew brighter. My shadows grew darker. The two seemed entirely separate and unwilling to mingle. I frowned. Shouldn’t they be more compatible?

Within the Celestial Cycle, the six celestial powers are grouped based loosely on their arrangement in the heavens. Sun, Wind, and Lightning make up the positive forces that have physical impact on the earth. The wind blows, lightning strikes, and the sun warms the earth. The Stars, the Moon, and the Void have a more metaphysical impact, and so are also grouped together. The powers of conceptual imagination, reflections of reality, and isolation and destruction are more difficult to see in a physical sense. Because Moon and Void are similar, the two forms of qi swirling in my core and body should have been more compatible.

I focused, trying to forcibly mix the two into a technique. The simplest form of moon qi is light, and the simplest form of void is destruction. Holding out my hand, I tried to summon both at once.

A light appeared in my hand. It was soft, with a bluish tinge to it that was suspiciously reminiscent of the wisps that followed me in my current form. I studied it, trying to figure out how the void was presenting itself. However, other than being a little bit ominous, I couldn’t find any difference between this light and regular moonlight.

With a sigh, I dismissed it and gave up on cultivating for the day. It was too dull, and hours had already passed. The sun was low over the trees, and it would soon be safe to leave my dark sanctuary. I was just leaning back, considering how I might be able to entertain myself during the hour or so remaining when someone shoved open the door on the floor below.