21. THE WEEPING GOD

Behind Cicada—

Is Ren, followed by Tourmaline. Cicada, Ren, Tourmaline. They should be over a thousand l away. They should be leading the charge out of the South.

Not West.

Before my eyes, the three ride down into the inferno, one after another.

Cicada closes in first, and Crow's spirit stares on in horror as the Southlands lordess dismounts. My horror matches his as Ren again calls for Cloud. "Gao Yun! To me, now!"

And Cloud—her fists don't release me, but her gaze does. Her eyes jerk to Ren, then back to me, and I want to scream. Listen to Ren! Protect her, your—

Her grip hardens around my collar.

—swornsister—

Backward I'm shoved, bottom meeting dust. Cicada is instantly beside me; I barely register her presence. All I can see is Cloud as she makes her way to Ren.

Hurry. Get Ren out! I mentally urge Cloud as Ren calls for Cicada. "Come to us!"

The wind blows before Cicada can answer. Fire roars over the ledge that everyone rode down.

Our one escape, almost engulfed.

I pull Cicada to her feet. We can still make it. I tug her after me, toward Ren, Cloud, Tourmaline. Someone shouts. Something shatters on the ground. Clay shards, from a wine pot we launched. Fire must have dissolved the gorge-side shrub it was caught on. Wine jumps to flame, and I yank Cicada back, her body thudding into my bruised one, as a searing wall cuts us off from the others.

"Leave!" I shout at them. The air quivers, warped by heat. Choked by smoke. Crow's body won't survive this. So what? So long as it's also killing Plum. I cling to the thought as Cicada reaches for me; I pull her in, cloak lifted around her like a wing.

"Nov—" Cicada coughs. "—vember—" More coughing.

"Isn't here," I cough back. She's in the first bulge, and thank heavens for that. Cicada nods, coughing too hard for words. I soon join her. Ash and blood fill my mouth. I raise my eyes to the sky, smoke-black except for a single, clear circle. Is it the Masked Mother, watching my end? For even if the fire doesn't kill me, if I kill Plum—if I succeed—it might be time—to pay—

Only you?I can hear her voice in my mind. They'll pay first, with their lives.

They will die, in this fire of your making.

Cicada, yes, but Cloud, Tourmaline, and Ren are closer to the ledge. They still have a chance—

They won't take it. Remember who you serve.

Xin Ren.

My lordess. My queen. She saved Cicada.

She wouldn't abandon her in a time of need.

I sink to my knees.

I did everything.

Everything.

I was ready to pay the price.

But now?

My eyes slam shut.

Why?In the darkness, I see light. The pink, everlasting light of the heavens. Endless jugs of wine. A dare gone wrong. Why not? I'd thought then, as I flatulated over the edge of the sky. I was a god. But I never felt alive, until I came down to this world. Among the humans, every match mattered. I mattered. But now, because of the humans I serve—now, because Ren might die even if I kill Plum—

Why?I squeeze my eyes shut harder, tears pricking at the corners.

Why didn't any of you listen to me? Why must you all be so—human?

The tears spill, against my will. So many tears on my cheeks.

Too many.

My eyes open.

Rain thunders down, as if the heavens are weeping.

Or a god. Even without my powers, I'd know this qì anywhere. Nadir. She's all around me.

As her qì douses me, I become her.

We're young, like the mortal world below, a land of rolling mountains and raging rivers, empty of life, until we create it. We pinch the humans out of clay.

We fall in love with one of our creations, a scholar.

He plays us a song on the zither—and I'm jarred apart from Nadir. This ballad—I know it. I played it to Crow. It's the story of a deity—Nadir, I now realize—and a human. A love story—until their child grows up to be a demon who devours his father before shattering heaven, pieces of sky falling and rupturing the earth.

The ballad ends there, but Nadir's memory goes on—to her destroying her own child, patching the heavens, then facing the same choice I did: For her sins, she can be banished, reincarnated, and join the humans she longed to be with.

Or she can stay. I watch her as she walks the terraces around Aurora Nest, searching for a reason to remain. I'm not in her mind, but I can feel her heart, the cold, horrible certainty that she will never love as deeply again. Maybe she shouldgo. Dewdrop would miss her, but Dewdrop can take care of herself . . .

Nadir stops. A cloud glows in the lake by our home. She looks at the cloud, and a jolt goes through me as I recognize the qì. The cloud is me, in my primordial form.

The memories next blur—Nadir drinking the Elixir of Forgetting.

Every mortal memory of hers vanishing.

Nadir, I think, dumbfounded, blinking rapidly against the rain. No wonder the land here is so familiar. The falling heavens made this gorge, named after the divine tears a god shed for her child. Now she weeps for her sister, lost as well. Because by sending the rain, Nadir has saved Ren, Cloud, and my hopes by extension. They live. I can still avert the tragedy of their fates, kill Plum, help Ren free Xin Bao. But succeed, and I'll pay the ultimate price. Nadir surely knows. That's why she drugged the tea. She didn't want me to sacrifice everything for these humans like she almost did, even if she doesn't remember it.

The heavens continue to pour. I raise a hand, palm filling with water. The wall of fire recedes, and I see Cloud, Ren, Tourmaline. Coughing and downed with their mounts. Still in the gorge. In another minute, their bodies would have perished, leaving their souls to journey to the Obelisk before returning to the mortal world, reincarnated as different people. Not my people.

It really could have ended here in the gorge.

But we're alive.

Alive.

Not without a price.

I stagger to my feet, squinting through the rain, to the rubble behind me, fires still going but quickly dying. Through swaths of black smoke, I see broken wood and broken bodies—

A flash of plum robes. A badly burned figure, hauling onto an equally badly burned horse. Before I can shout, both take off—not toward Ku's troops, back at the entrance, but forward. Past Tourmaline, Cloud, and Ren.

Up the ledge and over the cliff.

We're in no shape to give chase, and Plum gets away.

We might still defeat Miasma, but Plum lives.

Her soldiers aren't so lucky. As the rain thins, their moans fill the gorge. A hundred, thousand mangled voices beg for deliverance from their suffering, and Ren answers each, hastening the inevitable with her sword while Cicada looks on, face sallow. She demolished the Fen pirates, but that must have felt like retribution. The Fen slaughtered civilians. They were the villains.

But rarely is war like a game of chess, divided into black and white, and as the tang of iron overwhelms the smoke and ash, Cicada turns her back to the scene. I start for her, stilling as she shouts, "You! Warrior!" to Cloud, who's helping Tourmaline up.

"Why did you attack my advisor?" Cicada demands, and I brace my bedraggled self as Cloud faces us. If she accuses me of being Crow, it'll put Ren on the spot—

"No reason. I just felt like it."

Did I hear right?

Did Cloud . . . lie?

Cloud's reply doesn't placate Cicada. Quite the opposite. She starts for the warrior, and I snatch her sleeve. "It's done. We won the battle."

"She attacked—"

"I'll punish Cloud myself." Ren walks over, sword slicked red.

"Punish me? Again?" Cloud scoffs. "I'm not the one who's thousands of l from where they should be." Well said. "You want an explanation?" she asks Cicada. "Then here's one: I mistook him"—she gestures brusquely at me—"for someone else. What are your explanations?"

Yes, what are their explanations?

"You, Cloud," Ren says. "I came for you."

"What—"

"I didn't want us to part on the note we did." Ren's gaze burns into Cloud's, a thousand words passing in the silence. "It was ill-advised. Forgive me." She doesn't look to me, the strategist whose plan she ruined, or toward Ku's troops as they join us. Her eyes implore Cloud, and just Cloud. It's a moment I'm not a part of. I look away, and find Cicada staring at me, her eyes preemptively defiant.

And you?I could ask. Why did you come?

But I don't. I already know.

She came for Crow, same as Ren came for Cloud.

Instead of following the objectives I gave them, they followed their hearts.

What they don't understand is that I designed this final match to protect their loved ones. Because in the time it took Ren and Cicada to travel here from the South, they could have already reached the capital and secured Xin Bao. Instead, they came west. What if Miasma detected their movements? What if she diverts her forces from the Marshlands?

Did any of you consider that?No. They didn't, and they still don't. No one comes to me, asking of our next play. Just as well, because I have no answers. It's one thing to change course midgame, another to move troops across the continent. What's more, I still don't have my powers. I can't use the weather against Miasma, should she come.

Today, Ren and everyone survived, but tomorrow their mistake might still cost them.

We ride out of the gorge and make camp.

Without taking my leave, I retire to my tent.

Exhaustion washes over me the second I sit.

I'm tired.

So tired.

I just want to sleep. Not here, in my stained bedroll, but in my cloud bed, where Nadir might stroke my hair and where I want for nothing . . .

And nothing is wanted from me . . .

My eyes fall shut.

When they next open, a bee is hovering before my nose.

"Dewdrop . . ." I swallow. "Nadir . . . when she chose to stay . . . was it really for me?"

The bee bobs up and down. A nod.

"I didn't know. I didn't know about her past."

You deservedto.Bee morphs into child, and Dewdrop sits next to me on the bedroll. I wanted you to know. But it was Nadir's to tell, even if she's forgotten it all.

"I understand." I say nothing else for a moment. We just sit. "Aren't you going to persuade me to stop fighting for them and come home?"

You're not just doing it for them, Zephyr. I see that now. You like being around the humans, because among them, you feel like a god. The games you win here must feel different from those above. But itwon't always be like that. Lose in heaven, and you can always win again. But lose here . . .

And it'll end on a loss for good, like it almost did today. The worst of it is that it wasn't even my fault. I'd set my pieces—

And then my pieces moved without me.

It's not too late to return, Dewdrop thinks to me. Nadir and I, we askedthe MaskedMother. She said you can annul your dealand come back to the heavens. All you need to do—

"Is drink the elixir and forget them."

Dewdrop nods. Yes. All you need to do is think of the humans and the deal you made, and drink. Drink, and you'll forget what is on your mind in that moment. She slides off the bed and sets a bottle on the table in the middle of my tent. I stand.

"You're leaving?"

Yes.Dewdrop smiles at me, her toddler face dimpling. This doesn't have to be goodbye forever. She turns into a bee.

"Wait. Don't—"

I wake with a gasp, hand outstretched.

—Go.

My hand closes.

Lowers.

Just a dream.

Or was it? I still have no powers, but my qì feels more replenished. A final gift, I can almost hear Dewdrop say, and though I know she's gone, I still search the tent. There's Crow, who's less faint, and on the table . . .

Is a green bottle.

My fingers close over it.

A soldier enters. "General Cloud requests a meeting."

"Send her in," I hear myself say, voice scratched by smoke, then pocket the bottle.

Moments later, my tent flaps burst open. Cloud befalls me like a storm. Her arms tackle mine to my sides, and I yelp. I'm being attacked. I'm being crushed. I'm being—

Hugged. By Cloud.

Her throat rumbles over my head. "Am I the last to know again, Zephyr?"

The name hits me like cold water.

"No," I manage. "Ren thinks I'm Crow."

"Tourmaline?"

"Also doesn't know."

"Then who does?" Her arms tighten, as if to squeeze out the answer.

"Sikou Hai," I gasp.

Cloud releases me.

Her fist connects with my stomach.

I bend over, now gasping and cursing. "What—what was that for?"

"For not telling me first."

"When could I have told you?"

"Plenty of times, starting in Taohui."

"I was in a coffin!"

"And I grabbed you! Your mouth was right by my ear! Did it not occur to you to whisper, Oh, it's me, Zephyr?"

"I needed you to act believable." I dust myself off and straighten—coming face-to-face with Blue Serpent.

"Using me, just like when you defected. What am I to you, a chess piece?"

"We're all chess pieces to the heavens."

Cloud lowers the blade, eyes narrowed. I know I sound defeated, but how else can I sound? How, when Plum lives? When everyone is still charging into their fated deaths?

"Why?" Cloud demands, and I stiffen.

"Why what?"

"Why did you try so hard to get beheaded by Miasma?"

"It would have been you otherwise."

To that, Cloud doesn't seem to know what to say.

Neither do I, for a second. "You're Ren's swornsister. You dying was not an option."

"Severing your neck—Lotus's—wasn't an option either."

"I know. I'm sorry." My words feel inadequate. "I know you wanted to look for her." An impossible task, but that's spilled wine. "But she's gone. You have to let her go, Cloud. And the rest of it. Let go of avenging me—"

"Avenge you? Don't make me barf."

There we go. That's the Cloud I know.

"What gave it away?" I ask after a pause.

"When Ren rode into the gorge." Cloud looks aside, as if returning to the memory. "I saw your gaze through the mask." Her eyes rise to mine. "I knew then that you'd come back for her."

I did. I came back for Ren. But Dewdrop was right; I also came back for myself. As a god, I could make Crow pay for what he did to us. But the moment I was kneeling by him in the steamer, I felt emptier than ever.

Is that what succeeding will be like?

No. Vengeance is the poison. If I hadn't been so hell-bent on vengeance, I'd have gotten rid of Plum instead of Crow. Today, we almost died for it. Ren was wise to forget the score with Cicada. Cloud should too. "Don't be angry at Ren," I say to her, and Cloud hmphs.

"Easier said than done."

Stubborn warrior. But Cloud's also had her share of brilliant moments, like the time she ordered Ren to live and lead at Lotus's bedside—the first time I realized Cloud wasn't the simple warrior I thought her. "You once told Ren to move on," I now say to her. You reminded her of the vow she made to the people."

I know you can see the bigger picture.

But Cloud doesn't look uplifted. "Well, I was wrong." She glances to her glaive, pointed to the ground. "I could only say those things because I didn't actually believe Lotus was gone."

Silence falls. For me, Lotus died with Qilin in Pumice Pass, but I know that's not so for Cloud. She sniffs, swipes roughly at her eyes, and I raise a hand, tentative, about to pat her on the back when she asks, "Do I want to know how you stole this body?" A clear change of subject.

I go with it. "It's gruesome."

"What do you think I haven't seen?"

"I steamed him."

"Gods, Zephyr."

"I warned you."

Cloud shakes her head. "The things we do for Ren," she says, and I grow solemn again.

"Don't tell her who I really am. Her, or any of them."

I brace for an argument, but Cloud sighs. "Fine. You tell her when you're ready to, then."

That's never, but for Cloud, I nod. "You should leave my tent before they think you're murdering me."

"You should be so lucky. I wouldn't stain Blue—"

"—Serpent with the blood of a rodent?" My turn to quirk a brow, and Cloud scowls.

"Peacock. Not a rodent. Peacock, or whatever it was that Lotus called you."

The air cools, as if there's a third presence here with us. And there is.

Only I know it's not Lotus's.

"It was Peacock," I finally say.

Cloud snorts. "Fitting." She picks up her glaive and makes to leave, halfway out the tent when she turns back to me. "Hey."

I look to her, the star-studded night just beyond her broad shoulders.

"I'm sorry you had to steam him. I know how you felt about him."

For a long time after she goes, I don't move. Sounds from outside permeate the tent. Conversations. Laughter—louder, as I push through the flaps.

I walk through the camp, see Ren. Tourmaline. She sits down beside Cloud by the bonfire, and I quell the urge to join them. I'm Crow in this game. If there's anyone I should be going to, it's Cicada. But I can't. For just one night, I don't want to pretend.

I walk quicker, to the very edge of camp.

The Mica River gleams ahead. It starts from the north, flowing through the hills here, then down south, carving out the Westlands eastern border. But it feels very far away, both Ren's base and Aurora Nest.

I can't choose both.

The bottle grows heavy in my pocket. My hand dips to it, a gesture that awakens another memory—of stealing the bottle from his pocket—and I pull myself together. I may be weary, but it's only fair that I address him.

"Speak. I'm listening."

My voice meets the night, dark and unresponsive.

"About what?" Crow finally says. "These supposed feelings of yours you did a terrible job of hiding?"

"No, Crow. About what happened in the gorge."

"There's nothing to say. I tried to kill you. I failed. I suppose you want to ask if I'm happy I failed." I wait for Crow to go on. "She was never supposed to be there."

His voice is quieter as he refers to Cicada. Everything he's done is for her, and as much as I want to rub salt into the wound that she almost died because of his actions, I can't. He's already been punished. We faced the same terror in the gorge—except Crow, unlike me, has already lost a lordess. How does one survive that sort of failure? How did Crow live on, however shabbily, without the luxury of forgetting?

"And what do you have to say, Zephyr? Or did you just want to listen to my voice?"

I inhale. Focus. "Ren wasn't supposed to be in the gorge either." But then my mind frays to the bottle again. What would you do, Crow, in my position?

If the people we serve are determined to lose, then isn't what we do meaningless?

"You failed and I failed," I say in the end. I face him, eyes tracing his form in the moonlight. "Let's call it a draw."

"A draw." Crow chuckles, no warmth to the sound. "Whatever gave you the impression I'd be content with a draw?"

"It's that or defeat. Take your pick," I say as someone approaches.

That someone would be Ku. "Xiaoqiu," I greet, too drained to be startled as she lifts my sleeve to her nose.

"You smell like smoke."

"It'll come out."

"You weren't in your tent."

"I needed some air. I'll come back soon."

Ku stares at me. Not moving. Waiting for me, I realize, to go with her.

Crow's chill follows us back to camp.

In the tent, I start to cough. Ugh. Even my restored qì is no match for Crow's consumption. Or is it the ash and smoke I inhaled?

Ku holds out a handkerchief. "Will you leave again?" she asks as I accept it.

"For the North? No."

"Will you leave, ever?"

"No."

"You lie. You're older."

Only by four years or so, which Ku makes sound like decades.

"I will live a long and healthy life," I say as glibly as Crow would, and Ku frowns.

"Cicada?"

"She won't die before you either."

"You didn't think about dying in the gorge." Ku's tone doesn't change, but I suddenly see the little girl lying beside Qilin's corpse, muttering come back to her spirit.

"No." The front of my tent ripples. "The thought of it never even crossed our minds. Right, Chanmei?" I ask Cicada as she enters. "I'm just telling Xiaoqiu here that we're all going to grow old together."

Cicada raises a brow. "You included?"

"Of—"

Cough.

"Come," Cicada says to Ku, taking her by the hand. "Senge needs his sleep." She glares at me as they leave, mouthing, Take your medicine!

I will!I mouth back.

I don't. I lie down, but don't sleep. Everyone else does. The camp goes quiet.

Quiet as death.

It was all I knew, as an orphan, and I never feared it. Not for myself. But today . . . My chest hurts, and not with consumption, as I think of Ku's questions, of Cloud's tight hug, of Ren's choice to come to Xianlei just to make amends with her swornsister, as if she might not get another chance.

Every chance could be the last for these humans.

It's different, I'd said to Nadir, when comparing our relationships.

Relationships are different when they're not meant to last forever.

But I could help them last a little longer.

They just need to listen to me.

My hand throbs around the bottle; I force myself to unclench it.

"Can I give you some advice, Crow?"

No reply.

"Don't kill yourself or anyone else in your effort to stop me. It's not worth the trouble, or the risk. I promise you this: I won't hurt Cicada if she doesn't hurt Ren."

"Give me one good reason I should trust you, Zephyr."

Because . . .

Because I like you, Crow had said to me first. A lie, like all his others.

In contrast, the words in my heart are true. Because I like you, but I suppose that's not a good reason. In this war, I know it wasn't enough to stop me. And now it's not enough to gain your trust. I dream of a life in which it was, but in this one—

Trust me, because I will succeed.

We make it all the way to the Mica before an empire legion finally intercepts us. They're fresh from the capital reserves, and not Miasma's Marshlands forces like I feared. Still, had Ren and Cicada followed my plans and marched out of the South, our soldiers wouldn't have encountered forces at all. Blood wouldn't pour like water when the fight breaks out.

Our victory wouldn't come at such a cost.

Miasma, true to my original predictions, pushes hard into the Marshlands, reversing course when she realizes Ren and Cicada are coming out of the Xianlei Gorge. Had Ren and Cicada gone North as I'd ordered, they'd have been in the perfect position to outflank. Instead the task is left to Sikou Hai, who does his best to attack the retreat.

We decimated most of their forces, he writes. But Miasma managed to escape back to the capital.

Where she'll be awaiting us. We'll have lost the element of surprise.

The message crumples in my fist.

"Any sighting of Plum?" I ask the soldier who delivered it.

"No."

"Keep searching. I don't care if you have to go as far as the Sanzuwu Sea. You have to find her."

"Yes, sir."

Our march eastward continues, our forces closing in on the capital. With Cicada's and Ren's troops united, we defeat each wave of palace reserves sent out to meet us. But our ranks of wounded also grow. Farmers lose their harvests to us and to the enemy.

This, I think at night when the coughing keeps me up, the taste of blood heavy in my mouth, is why our victory shouldn't have been dragged out. War is senseless. It's the cause of disease, famine, and the lone child awaiting us in one abandoned village.

"We have to bring her with us," Ren says, and Cicada, beside her, nods and dismounts. She goes to the child. "Where are your parents?"

Dead, I think before the child can say so. Orphans know fellow orphans. Orphans are who I once fought for—

But you are not one of them, whispers my heart.

In my pocket, the bottle seems to warm.

The next night, eighty l from the capital, an ultimatum arrives at our camp.

Surrender now, or Xin Bao will die.

A cheap, dirty trick, but not unexpected. That Miasma stoops to it must mean she can feel us closing in and doesn't like her chances.

"It's a bluff," says Sikou Hai, whose troops have joined up with ours.

"You don't know for certain," Ren challenges.

"Miasma wouldn't." Three of us say it at the same time—Sikou Hai, Cicada, and myself.

Ren doesn't reply. She touches the pendant on her throat, and I recall Miasma's dream. They know each other better than most, but proximity is also the enemy of perspective.

"If Miasma kills her," Cicada says, "then that's one more justification we offer the realm when we kill Miasma."

If Miasma kills Xin Bao, she will have done Cicada a favor—and perhaps me as well. Then I wouldn't have to hurt Ku and Crow's lordess.

I'm of Sikou Hai's mind, though. A puppet is only useful alive, and in the end, Ren takes our counsel to do nothing but press onward.

But the next night, when we're just forty l from the capital, another message arrives.

I see you did not respond to my previous offer.

Then I'll give you a new one.

Come to the throne hall, tomorrow.

Duel me, Ren. Just you and me.

Whoever wins inherits the empire and empress.

Ren folds this letter up after reading it. She turns to us, and I'm back in the gorge, watching her ride into the fire. I'm urging her to take the title of governor. I'm facing her disappointment for the coup against Xin Gong, and I'm on the mountain, trying to save our soldiers andthe commoners, convincing myself that I can do it, I'm the Rising Zephyr, practically a god—

But even I'm not limitless, and that awful bone-weariness sweeps back through me as Ren says, "I'm going at dawn."

"Ren!" the others cry.

"None of you are to follow."

"This is a trap," Sikou Hai protests.

"I agree," says Cicada, and points her dart shooter, prompting Tourmaline to step in front of Ren and Cloud to bark, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Darting her before she goes riding into her death."

Cloud raises her glaive, but Ren places a hand on her shoulder.

"Stand down, Cloud. You too, Tourmaline. She won't do it."

"Don't tempt me," mutters Cicada. But she doesn't shoot when Tourmaline and Cloud reluctantly part before Ren, who addresses the Southlands queen.

"We've gotten this far together. But from here on, I must go alone."

"Not alone," says Cloud. "We're coming with you."

Ren nods, but her eyes are shadowed.

Through it all, I stay silent.

"You have to stop Ren," Sikou Hai urges me later when we, as two allied advisors, are walking through the camp. He stumbles as the child we saved clings to his legs, having taken a liking to him. "Miasma would only ask for a duel if—Heavens, I think I stepped on her."

"Carry her."

"Carry—?"

I hoist the child up; Cicada wasn't lying about Crow's ulcers. "Quick—bend down." I plop her onto Sikou Hai's shoulders and grunt, "I can't stop Ren. I'm Crow."

"Then give me an idea on how to stop her," Sikou Hai grunts back.

"Weren't you the one who wanted to respect Ren's wishes on executing the messenger?"

"This is a mistake of even greater proportions! Miasma would only ask for a duel if she didn't think she could defeat us army to army. We ought to ride into the capital with all our forces."

"I know." Oh, I know.

We come to an overlook, an impromptu tournament taking place in the clearing below. Word hasn't yet reached our soldiers of what their queen plans to do—in part, I understand, to spare them of more bloodshed.

But no one wins if Ren perishes in Miasma's trap.

"A mentor once taught me chess," I say to Sikou Hai as Aster defeats her opponent and calls for another. "We played hundreds of games, until I won. ‘Good,' she said, ‘now remember that people are the same; everyone has a role, a place. But you can't push them around like chess pieces. You have to inspire trust. Only then can you use them.'

"But what about the people we do this for?" Down below, cheers rise as Cloud steps in. "We do this all for Ren, but sometimes . . ."

I trail off.

Sometimes, Ren doesn't know what's good for her.

The silence on our overlook grows; below, Cloud defeats Aster and everyone roars.

"Master . . ."

"Sorry. I know that's not an answer."

Sikou Hai hefts the child on his shoulders. "We've defeated nearly all Miasma's forces, because she aimed at the Marshlands like you predicted. Even if Ren rides in alone . . . Well, it's not ideal, but there can't be that many soldiers . . ."

If I'm bad at comforting people, Sikou Hai is worse. Like disciple like mentor, I suppose.

"I'm sorry," I say again, facing him. "I haven't been a good mentor."

His mouth works, not sure what to do with my apology. Then his jaw locks. "So teach me more. You have a lifetime to."

A lifetime.My smile feels like a grimace. I didn't have a lifetime with my mentors . . .

. . . And maybe Sikou Hai doesn't have a lifetime with me. Glass meets my fingertips; unwittingly, my hand has drifted to my pocket. If I choose to leave him—if I choose to leave all of them—"I should give you a sobriquet."

Let that be my parting gift if Ren refuses to win.

"I don't want one," Sikou Hai says to my surprise.

"You're that attached to your birth name?"

"Not attached. Just obliged." Sikou Hai looks to the arena, where Tourmaline has stepped in to challenge Cloud. "The people you saw that night we played the zither? They're not my birth parents either. I was left at their door."

"Sikou Dun?"

"Was their trueborn son, before Xin Gong adopted us both."

I blink, digesting this. "That doesn't excuse how they treated you. Why keep their name?"

"They did give me a roof and a bed," Sikou Hai says dryly. "For that, I owe it to them to take their name into the next generation."

You owe them nothing, I want to say. But I'm just a worse person.

Or not human.I turn away from the hill before I can see the outcome of Cloud and Tourmaline's match. "Get some rest."

"What about Ren?"

"Let me think of a plan."

But my mind doesn't even try, and when I reach my tent, I don't go in.

The bottle is still clenched in my hand.

Drink, and you'll forget what is on your mind in that moment.

I look across the tents, to Ren's.

Do I owe her? I thought I did. Maybe I was obliged by fate. I've done my best for her. I really have. But if I can't win for Ren because of Ren . . .

Then perhaps it is better to forget.

No. It's better for Ren to forget. Pass her the elixir in a cup of tea while she's thinking about Miasma's ultimatum, and she'll forget all about it and Xin Bao. Then she'd have no problem rushing the empire with the full force of her troops, and we'd defeat Miasma as planned.

Anything to secure our win.

The only risk is if Miasma actually kills Xin Bao. But that's a small loss. Ren would have ruled behind the scenes either way. Why not rule in name? It may not be what Ren wants, but it's what she must face. She just can't see it yet.

I can make her.

Lightning flashes in the night. The wind rises, smelling of ozone.

It wraps around me, ice-cold.

My gaze lifts from Ren's tent and meets Crow's.

He knows what I'm thinking.

He stares at me, and I stare back. You can't stop me.

I know, say his eyes.

You shouldn'twant to stop me. Your lordess wants Xin Bao dead.

I know. Together, we look to the bottle in my hand. As green as the tea he stopped me from drinking. Would he have stopped me again, knowing the consequences? Almost certainly not. But if there's the smallest chance—if I wasn't misreading the look in his eyes that night—then maybe. Maybe he would choose to save my memories, for the sake of our rivalry—

But not for someone who then turns around and drugs her lordess.

Slowly, I pop the bead stopper to the bottle. The bottle that I only have because of Dewdrop. All this time, she and Nadir have been trying to stop me. To save me. Now I finally know how they must have felt, watching me deal everything away for these humans. But that's my choice, and if I regret it, then so be it. I don't want to be saved from myself.

Ren wouldn't either.

I tip the bottle over; the elixir spills onto the dirt.

I watch it vanish without a trace.

Then I find a jug of wine from our supply wagons.

I saddle a horse and ride out alone, into the gathering storm.

I stop at the highest hill.

Thirty-five l farther is the capital.

If Ren must duel Miasma at the palace, the least I can do is scout it out in advance. Problem is, I wasn't able to see beyond ten l at my strongest.

I've only been able to cover more distance as a spirit.

"What are you doing now, Zephyr?" Crow murmurs as I dismount.

I grab the jug of wine. "Something inadvisable." Probably. Who knows? Who knows if this has even been done before? No god would be foolish enough to try. In principle, though, a spirit is nothing more than a nebula of qì, and a nebula can be split. With half my spirit, I can scout out the capital while the other half of me stays in Crow.

I uncork the wine and gulp.

Crow's alcohol tolerance is laughable compared to Lotus's, and in no time, I feel myself loosening. I let the sensation gather, then hold fast to a part of my spirit. Tear. Split. But the force isn't enough, and I don't know how to increase it. Tear! Split!

As I struggle, the night flashes white. Thunder immediately follows, the bolts close by.

So close, they are practically above me.

There's one more way to expel a spirit—the same method Nadir used to expel both my qì and Lotus's at the Obelisk.

I'm sorry, Crow, I think as I sit and hold my hands, palms open, atop my knees.

This will hurt.

I channel the atmosphere above myself, reducing the pressure in the lower clouds. Energy rises, a charge building in the friction until the heavens can no longer hold it.

Lightning cracks down.