Too much was happening all at once and she somewhat wished she had been left back in unconsciousness, but she was awake now so she pushed herself to sit up on the bed and then moved to the window where the screams echoed from. The screams sounded distant, but in such volume that it somehow still managed to reach her in the decorated room.
Outside the window was a dazzling city, every house a magnificent palace and the streets paved with delicate stonework and gleaming patterns that from the height she viewed them from she realized they were in fact poetry writing. She could not read what they said however.
People were running across them. Many carried with them books, scrolls, chests, smaller objects she could not quite make out. Glancing in the direction they were fleeing from, she saw a wall that reminded her of the walls she saw in the cities of the Four Kingdoms, just on a far larger scale and rather than manned by soldiers alone, writhing slender bodied dragons, horned equine creatures wreathed with clouds of smoke, and other fantastical creatures. Blood soaked down the walls, one massive heron's body was sprawled at the top of the wall with its wings draping over the side, its blood gushing from its opened stomach.
White roots, akin to worms from the distance she was, looped into the body.
But thirty soldiers ran over to the body, pushing it over the edge to outside the city. Six of the soldiers then vanished over the side as well.
"Don't spend too much time looking outside, you'll only make yourself depressed."
Looking away from the violence outside, Eona looked to the door where a tall women stood with her arms tucked into long wide sleeves and her hair in an ornate coiffeur with pins of gold, jade, and bone that trailed with little ornaments of their own. The hem of her long white skirt was dirtied, and the severe black of her outer robe obscured any possible filth. Her face looked exhausted, deep eyebags under her eyes and her red lips set in a permanent severe frown.
"The Red Moon Array can be used both to sequester something within a small area and as a dam against the flood of roots, but it cannot last forever and depends on at least three of us being here to sustain it," the Empress of Hell, even far away from her court and without her army of overworked scholar-gods and terrifying judges, still managed to look imposing. The air around her seemed to faintly seethe with a dark glow and her eyes alone looked enough to cast eternal judgement. She smoothly stepped aside from the doorway and pointed to the hall with one pale slender hand, "we should go down to the throne room where the others are at."
"Why?" Eona asked. She had many questions in truth. Such as the moment of agony that had consumed her, what had become of Liu Xie, where her daughter was, what exactly was happening and how could it all stop. But instead all she was able to croak out was a singular word.
"Because my brothers want to see you," she replied simply. "Lingering at the window, anyway, may prove detrimental to your ability to stay here safely."
There was a snapping sound as the room darkened. The window was abruptly covered by paper that squirmed with various tiny writing that held a dim hue, a blackish light moving more like tendrils than rays emanating from it.
Eona's hand was firmly held by the Empress of Hell and they left the room together, moving swiftly down a hall with walls painted with murals of various scenes Eona somewhat recognized from poetry or tales she had read about in the Four Kingdoms. As they walked they came across a group of young men with their sleeves rolled up and hands splattered with paint and ink as they painted over one scene of a maiden in a lake beneath the moon and replaced it instead with a group of mountains that the tiny figures of soldiers trudged over. The moment they noticed the Empress of Hell they dropped their brushes and pressed themselves quickly against the wall to avoid being in her path, not even casting Eona a glance from their pale frightened faces as she went by them.
They went past windows overlooking grand scenes of beautifully arranged rocks, trees, grass, and falling waterfalls of clear water that sounded like a thousand bells as they cascaded into lake sized pools where golden and silver fish lazily swam.
She caught glances of beautiful amber eyed maidens scattering flowers into the water, where they lazily drifted around to the admiration of finely clothed officials and scholars who seemed unaware of the chaos at the walls.
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They left the hall and entered a small room bathed in a vibrant glow, human-sized polished bronzes mirrors had been set into the walls and the Empress continued pulling her along straight into one that rippled as she pushed through into it. Eona felt a cool wave pass over her as she was pulled into it and then out into a much more expansive room where a crowd of people stood near a middle aged man with amber eyes who was patiently stroking his beard and nodding his head so much it looked like his mortarboard would fall off as the people complained to him. His face radiated a patient wisdom and deep power that somehow managed to keep the desperate crowd in front of him from completely falling into violent hysteria.
"My gardens are completely gone!"
"The sixth outer ward's covered in flowers now, what do we do? The army fell back and I still have servants in there!"
"Why is this happening? Where did Lady Cai go?"
"Do something! He's your cursed relative, why are we suffering?"
"The mortal world is in chaos!" One woman shrieked, "the rivers are turning red and monsters are prowling the cities! My temple was flooded in the blood of infants! I can still hear their parents begging me to do something, what can I do? There was nothing left of them!"
A man nodded, "if we can't do something, they'll turn to him, and that'll just feed him more."
Eona blinked, realizing now these people were all gods. She had memories of seeing gods before, when Liu Xie would take her to New Years celebrations or Mid-Autumn, but then they had looked dazzling to her. Ornate clothing, skin as clean and pure as porcelain, the trailing ribbons on the outfits of goddesses possessing a life of their own, the voices of gods causing the air to tremble, wheels of fire escorting child-sized gods and goddesses who endlessly floated as they sang in voices more beautiful than any songbird's.
She could see some of the deities, such as the shrieking woman, were indeed floating. But now they just looked like people. Maybe that was all they truly were.
Only the Empress of Hell and the Amber Emperor who continually nodded his head at their yelling still retained the divine aura.
"Yes, yes, I understand," the Amber Emperor nodded. Eona found there was something familiar about his voice, but she could not quite place it. "We are all very concerned-"
"He is at the walls! The Celestial City is at death's door!" Another man, dressed in the robes of a scholar, wrung his hands. "I have been a god for two thousand years and I've never seen any creature besiege these walls. Are we not supposed to be at our safest here?"
The shrieking woman had turned her head, noticing the two new arrivals. Eona felt the woman's eyes immediately skewer her. "It's her! That barbarian! This is her fault! CUT HER APART!" Eona recoiled and stepped back, but the Empress's hand tightened around her wrist.
"No no," the Amber Emperor held up his hands. "We will not fall to infighting."
"Killing her will not save you," the Empress said coolly. "Yes, it is true that the walls are under siege, and that he does seek her, but this has been planned for a long time."
The shrieking woman shook her head, "but getting rid of her will buy us more time, won't it? And what do you mean this was known? You've known about this and done nothing?"
"No, the Jade Prince had some foreknowledge of it, and kept it to himself until the situation spiraled out of his control... as he usually does," the Empress's voice was furious and yet absolutely cold.
As though summoned by the mere mention of his name, the grand doors at the end of the room opened up and the god came in, splattered in blood and holding one twisted creature that looked vaguely like an ox-like skinned human in his hand that he dragged with him. His eyes landed on Eona and he smiled with that face that looked so much like Liu Xie's, just without a single bit of warmth to his smile that never reached his eyes. Then he looked back to the rest of the assembled. "Blaming me, are we? Well, I am unfortunately quite partial to a beautiful face but I doubt I am the sole holder of responsibility."
"Brother, Sister," the Amber Emperor sighed, "now is not the time for argument. We need to work together."
"Work?" The Empress huffed, "there's nothing left you all can do besides hole up here. I should be back in Hell right now-"
One of the crowd cried out, "has he already spread his roots there too?"
"No," the Empress replied, "but since he'd be busy eating this place I figure I might have more time to prepare our own defenses."
"You would abandon us?" The shrieking woman screamed.
The Empress affected a look of shocked consternation, "of course I would bring everyone with me, except maybe you."
"Right now we're dependent on a soul stealer, an illiterate peasant, and a child." One person in the crowd sighed.
A child?
Eona straightened up, "Idony? Is Idony with them? These people?"
"Yes," the Amber Emperor said quickly. "She's safe, he can't get her. Do not worry about her."
The Jade Prince nodded, suddenly much closer to Eona. He leaned down slightly so his face was right in front of her, smiling faintly. "Miss Eona, you've changed little since I saw you last. Let me assure you that Idony is right now in the safest possible place she could be, I made sure of it."
Eona met his stare with his own, straightening her spine and saying firmly, "where?"
"Why," he smiled still although now she thought she caught a hint of guilt in his eyes. But it disappeared before she could be sure, and she told herself it was impossible for someone like the Jade Prince to feel remorse. "With Xie-jie of course."