I know you wish to convince me to stop, dear son, but I cannot. I made my choice millennia ago, it is time you all let me go. I am tired of being alone. All I have left are my children and proteges, it is time you all had a run of managing this mess. – The Sun Queen to her son Salis according to his distributed autobiography.
* * *
Tenri yelped in pain as Hanako pulled the bandages on his arm tight and tucked it into a sling. The clinic was more filled than I’d ever seen it…which really only meant that all four defenders, plus Xinya, Hanako, and Jaili were present along with Zumi who was taking everyone’s statements for the town records.
“I’m fine! I’m fine! I swear!” he protested before trying to stand from his seat. Hanako rolled her eyes before giving me a look. I smirked and stood, intercepting her husband and putting a hand on his chest.
“Come now, Administrator, there are children who accept being bandaged better than you do.”
“That’s because she’s gentler with the children than with me!” he complained.
“Because they don’t fuss about, now sit down before I ask Tsuyuki to make you!”
It was late in the evening, and a storm had darkened the sunset across the Moon-Soaked Shore. In the aftermath of the battle, we’d only barely been able to clean up the mess outside of town before the sky had begun pouring down on top of us. The oxen had been put down, since no one in Saikan had the expertise nor power to care for them, and the rest of the cultivators had been properly housed in a crude warehouse outside town. So many of their number had died at the horns of their own secret weapons. Their morale was crushed and none of them wanted to continue the fight.
While their injuries were seen to by Pollen, Hanako, and Jaili, the rest of us had organized the bodies. The survivors didn’t have the manpower to take their dead with them, so they would be buried here. As commander, Shen Yaoxan would be the only one brought back. The water artist from the battle, an Iron from the capital by the name of Xi Qiwu, had promised to deliver the body to Shen Tori along with our demands.
Henceforth, Saikan was to be left alone by the Lunar Hunt. The town would send its taxes to be collected by the groups in Pemai, the next town to the south. The declaration was unprecedented, but Tenri had been drafting such a letter for weeks and was confident that his wording would be just palatable enough to the Governor that we wouldn’t be accused of rebellion and treason. It conveniently left out any mention of moon artists or their allies, which was for the best. As long as Shen Tori and his forces stayed away from Saikan, they never needed to know that Xinya and I were still here.
“This is the treatment I get? After the long day we’ve had?” Tenri complained as he sat back down next to his wife. “First, we’re attacked out of the blue, then I’m dragged by a carnivorous cow for nearly half a mile! I nearly got my arm ripped off!”
“Which is why I’m bandaging it,” Hanako muttered with a shake of her head.
“It doesn’t need bandaging! We were working most of the evening without it being bandaged! I’m clearly fine.”
Hanako huffed. “Make up your mind! Either you’re a war hero in need of patching up, or you’re just fine!”
“Accept the help while you can, Tenri,” I called, barely able to hold back my laughter. “There comes a point around Gold or Salt where healers stop offering to help with the small stuff. You’re expected to patch yourself up at that point.” Tenri huffed and sat still while Hanako finished. Once she was done, she turned to me.
“Your turn, sit still,” she ordered. I did as I was told, sitting patiently while she applied several sterilizing ointments to the small hole in my shoulder created by Shen Yaoxan’s dying attack. It would heal on its own, given time and an appropriate amount of qi, but Hanako was insistent that we all receive the proper treatment. We couldn’t begrudge her the care she gave us.
“I can’t believe you guys made me sit out!” Xinya grumbled. “I could have learned a ton, but it was already over by the time I got to the walls!”
“I don’t think you would have seen much from the wall top,” I offered with a sheepish smile. “It was kind of chaotic below.”
“Imagine the chaos if we hadn’t gotten the defenses in place.” Tenri rubbed his temples before removing his glasses. “Which reminds me, how did you know the attack was coming?”
Suddenly, all eyes were on me, and not in the way I usually liked. My hands trembled. Hanako took notice and gently put her hands on mine. The warmth of her support cleared the panic of my thoughts just enough to fabricate a suitable story.
Of those in the room, only Tenri and Hanako knew my true identity as the Darkened Moon, the ancient deity who’d once wiped several nations off the map in a fit of grief and rage before being beat into the ground by a coalition of five other Ascendent-ranked cultivators. If it was known that I was free of the prison they’d put me in, who knows what kind of cultivators would descend upon me in an attempt to put me back. My identity was a secret, and I had to guard it carefully.
Which also meant that I couldn’t tell them the truth of my blooded techniques. Flash Forward and Flash Back were incredibly powerful, well beyond the abilities of a normal Iron. To fool them, I needed a convenient lie, one with enough of the truth to be believable. Luckily, there was a ready-made one available.
“I possess the Bloodline of the Lunar Prince,” I lied. “I learned the techniques when I came to this land, but I’ve only just mastered them enough to use them in practice. They warned me of danger.”
The reactions were mixed. Pollen, as the one with the least knowledge and bias about the Darkened Moon, seemed to ponder it curiously. Next to her, Pharyx seemed less convinced. The hornet frowned, and I felt his eyes examine every inch of me. Finally, Xinya, who I’d expected to be quite excited to hear that her cultivation master was so powerful, narrowed her eyes at me as if she sensed the lie. There was no way she could know the truth, though, so I tried to shrug it off.
In the end, it was Jaili who finally broke the silence. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard it referred to as the Bloodline of the Lunar Prince. I’ve only ever heard it called the Cursed Line of Misfortune.”
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“Misfortune? Why would it be called that?”
“Because the Darkened Moon is the Demon of Misfortune from the Sun Queen’s Prophecy.”
“Prophecy?” This was the first I’d heard of such a thing…not to mention this new title I supposedly had. I cast a glance at Tenri for answers, but his eyes were firmly on the floor.
Xinya’s frown deepened. “You don’t know about the Five Demons of Devastation? It’s even more famous than the Legend of the Darkened Moon!”
A wave of nausea began to rise in my stomach. My past crimes were many. I knew that. However, there were many practices in the Moon-Soaked Shore which were pinned on me that I had no knowledge of! The execution of moon cultivators and anyone with lunar affinity was supposedly my fault, but I had nothing to do with that! The Spirits of the Shore, who were known to harass and kill travelers all over the region, were supposedly doing so under the Darkened Moon’s orders, which I distinctly never did.
It was one thing to be the monster under childrens’ beds for crimes I did commit. It was a completely different thing to be allegedly responsible for things I had nothing to do with. I had never even heard this prophecy, and I was certain that I didn’t want to know what mythical deeds I’d been blamed for to gain the title of “Demon of Misfortune.”
“Xinya, don’t speak so harshly,” Hanako scolded. “Tsuyuki isn’t from the Shore, remember? Perhaps it’s not common knowledge in the Pearlescent Valley?”
“If he’s even from there,” the little girl muttered under her breath.
Hanako ignored the jab and began to explain. “It’s said that in ancient times, the Sun Queen had a dream. She foresaw a great war where all order had broken down. The dead roamed freely, and cultivators fought one another for scraps. According to legend, five individuals will be responsible for bringing this state.”
“The Five Demons?” I guessed. She nodded.
Xinya jumped up onto one of the beds in excitement. “They’re all figures from various points in history! The Oni Prince, the Darkened Moon, the Star Hunter, the Dragon of the Depths, and the Captain of the Ghost Ship will join together to bring about untold destruction, and not even the Ascendents will be able to stop them!”
I wracked my brain, trying to see if I knew anyone matching those titles, but only one of them was familiar to me. The Oni Prince was the yokai lord who ruled in the age before the Sun Queen and I rose to power. He was cruel, and it was fear of having to fight him that kept something vaguely resembling peace in the world.
My nausea rose, but Xinya wasn’t finished.
“Each of them has a fancy title based on the stories around them! The Darkened Moon is the Demon of Misfortune because his powers cling to the victim until they have a terrible accident and die horribly!” She was practically jumping on the bed with excitement. I knew well that the Legend of the Darkened Moon was one of her favorites, being one of the most popular legends of the Moon-Soaked Shore, but she didn’t need to be quite so excited over one of the worst times in my life.
“That’s not quite what he did,” I protested, desperate to clear my name in some small way.
“If you’re such an expert, then you explain what he did,” Xinya challenged.
Except…I couldn’t. My mind flashed back to the silver thread of qi that wrapped around Tenri during the battle. Everywhere that thread appeared, some accident occurred. Shen Yaoxan had fallen in a sinkhole. The Spider Matriarch had nearly been crushed by a falling rock. Tenri had been the victim of a rogue bull splitting off from the pack. On their own, each one was an extremely unfortunate event and could be explained as the whims of fate. Together, however, they made a trend. Was I really the cause? Had I cursed them without realizing it?
“His bloodline isn’t evil,” was all I could muster. Even that much was half-hearted at best.
Chiho vibrated from its position in my hair, but its comfort was not enough. The lie that I held the bloodline was far preferable to the truth, and even then, it had turned me into the villain…again. Was that just the role I was destined to play? After all, the Sun Queen had made a prophecy about how I was one who would bring doomsday to the land.
Maybe it would have been better for the world if I’d stayed in prison…
I stood. “Thank you for your care, Miss Jaili, Miss Hanako.” I bowed to each of them before leaving. The storm was better company than those who thought I was a monster without knowing even half the truth.
“Tsuyuki,” Tenri began, but I ignored him and stepped out into the rain.
I was soaked through within moments, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Instead, I walked to the docks and stared out over the turbulent waters. The waves rose high on the horizon, whipped into a frenzy by the howling winds. The coral reef below was completely invisible in the darkness, the roiling waters blocking the light from the lunar tears.
Once they were called Yoru’s Tears, I remembered. The Shade in the lighthouse had said as much. The luminous rocks were moon stones cast down onto the shore when the Sword Saint had slashed the moon itself, taking advantage of the sympathetic connection I shared with it. That attack had won them the battle.
I was out of control. I deserved it. It took me many years to come to terms with why I’d been imprisoned, and I regretted every action I took. Why was fate so unkind as to add insult to injury and foretell that I’d do it again? Wasn’t once enough?
The cold waters splashed against me as I sat at the end of the docks, wrestling with the anger and despair that waged war in my heart. Half of me wanted to scream that I was better than some stupid prophecy, but the other…the other was worried it was right. All of me wondered if my mistakes were so terrible that, even after a thousand thousand moons of imprisonment, karma still wanted my blood.
I just want to help people, like I used to.
I curled my knees up to my chest and leaned against a post. Maybe the cold would numb me enough that the phantom pains from a wooden nail driven into my heart would fade. I doubted it.
“Mister?” I spun around to see Xinya. The soft light of her moon-enchanted hairpin cast shadows over her face, but it was clear that she was soaked through and shivering.
“What are you doing here?”
“Hanako said I needed to apologize,” the little girl muttered, scuffing her feet.
“I doubt she meant you needed to go out in the storm for it,” I pointed out.
“Well, it’s fine. I’m not c-cold.” Her hands were balled in fists at her sides to keep her from trying to cross her arms in the blustering wind. “I…don’t really know why you got mad about the Darkened Moon, but I’m sorry for saying your bloodline is evil.” She paused for a moment. Her violet gaze filled with determination. “But, if it’s not too much trouble…would you tell me why you got mad?”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I want to know.” I tried to put off the answer, but she interrupted me before I could. “I owe you so much. You saved my dad, then you saved me several times, and then you’re training me, but through it all, you tell odd lies. I just want to know the truth behind the Master who’s given me so much.”
I considered her request as the rain beat down on us. Knowing just how manipulative the girl could be when she wanted something, it was hard to take her words at face value. Yet, she was exceptionally intelligent. If I didn’t tell her, she’d find out some other way. If she was going to be afraid of me anyway, why not get it over with now? But…if I did…the very idea of her looking at me with the same hatred and fear with which I saw myself made me want to run and hide forever. After all, she was my first disciple.
In the end, it wasn’t her arguments, nor my own internal concerns that convinced me. Xinya began to shiver even more violently, and my heart twinged. I sighed.
“Fine, but let’s get inside first. Then I’ll tell you everything.”