Chapter Eighteen

I jolted back and nearly toppled all the way down, but the Empress grabbed the front of my dress and yanked me onto her branch,

like I weighed no more than a dream.

I shoved away from her and backed up against the trunk, clutching the bark to steady myself.

"Where's Hong?" I said. "What have you done to him?"

The Empress examined the rope in her hand, running a thin finger across the threads on the frayed end. The fog blurred her

features, her golden eyes the only thing that didn't wave and shiver in this colorless plane.

"You can't keep secrets from me, Scarlet," she said at last. "I would think, after all we've been through together, you could

at least tell me the truth. You owe me that much."

I closed my eyes, trying to think of Hong, hoping the river plane would deliver me to him, but the sky seemed to erase his

name as soon as my thoughts carved it overhead, like he didn't exist at all. I dug my fingers into the bark and tried harder,

but the landscape stayed stubbornly still. There was nowhere to go. He wasn't here.

"You can't kill him here," I said at last. "His soul lives here, not his body."

The Empress raised an eyebrow, looking up at me in surprise. "Can a soul not break just like a body?" she said. Then she dropped

the end of the rope into the spiraling darkness of the forest floor. "I'm not here because of Hong," she said. She closed

her eyes, her lips mouthing words that I couldn't decipher. After a moment, I realized she was counting. "Thirty-five thousand,

eight hundred and twenty-four," she said. "That's how many times my name is written on the skin of peasants in Guangzhou."

I tensed, already sensing where she was going with this, but not wanting to say it out loud, to make it real.

"You specialize in death, don't you, Scarlet? How many people do you think each of those peasants could kill before they're

subdued? I suppose it depends. The children probably can't kill as many as the adults."

"You don't have that many bodies," I said, shaking my head, not wanting it to be true. "There aren't storehouses full of corpses

in Guangzhou. And how long would it take you to resurrect them one by one? That's not a real threat, and you know it."

The Empress laughed, the sound echoing back cruelly a thousand times in the cage of the sky. "I know this is very hard for

a child to believe," she said, "but you don't know everything about alchemy."

She reached into her pocket and withdrew three red and white stones, presenting them to me in her palm.

"Recognize these?" she said.

Of course I did. It was chicken-blood stone, the kind my father had theorized was the key to resurrection, the kind I'd used to bring back the dead a hundred times over, the kind that had helped me win at my final alchemy trial where I'd become the Scarlet Alchemist.

"It's an incredibly powerful stone," the Empress said. "I was impressed the first time I saw you use it, but your methods

were primitive."

She pressed her palms together, grinding the stones between them. They crumbled apart easily, for they were firestones and

destruction was their natural state. She opened her palms, which were stained with pale red powder, then tilted her hand and

let it fall in a crimson snow over the forest floor.

"I think you know as well as I do that activated alchemy stones work well if ingested."

I tensed, thinking back to the first time I'd tried to kill the Empress. I'd tried putting one type of activated stone in

her morning tea and the second in her afternoon tea. When the stone types combined, they were supposed to kill her. But of

course, the Empress had seen through my plan easily, and the second dose had never arrived.

"What are you saying?" I said. "That you'll make all of Guangzhou eat chicken-blood stone?"

"Not at all," she said, grinning. "I'll make them drink it."

I shook my head, drawing back. "I don't—"

"I think the Pearl River is my favorite," she said, as if I hadn't spoken. "It's much cleaner than the Cháng, but of course,

some degree of filth is inevitable when it comes to peasants."

I clutched the branch, mind unspooling, sure I was going to fall all the way down. The Pearl River sliced through Guangzhou.

My cousins and I had waded into its muddy banks to collect clay. It was where people fished, bathed, and drank. If she poured

chicken-blood stone into it, then surely all of Guangzhou would be exposed at one point or another.

"You gave me the idea, Scarlet," the Empress said, grinning. "Activate the stone, and it works even if the alchemist isn't around."

"Those people aren't dead," I said. "You can't just cram two souls into a living body."

"Maybe you can't," the Empress said. "But if it comes down to me and a peasant, I always win."

Just like when Wenshu took his body back from Hong , I thought, cold horror rippling through my blood. Surely the people branded with the Empress's name would have no idea what

was going on. They wouldn't know they were supposed to fight for their own bodies. The Empress, with all her determination,

would simply rip their souls out of their bodies and cast them into the river plane.

"I've been playing a long game, Scarlet," the Empress went on. "Thirty-five thousand people are just waiting for my command.

I'll make sure they start with this one little míngqì store by the shore."

I lunged for the Empress, hoping to knock her clean out of the tree. Maybe it wouldn't hurt her permanently, but it would

still be satisfying.

But she caught my wrist and wrenched it to the side before I could reach her. I managed to grab another branch with my other

hand, barely catching myself. The Empress ground the heel of her gold shoe onto my fingers.

"If I were you, I'd start listening," she said.

I clenched my jaw and nodded. She lifted her heel from my fingers and I quickly hauled myself onto the closest branch, glaring

up at her.

"I know you're uneducated, so let me be abundantly clear," she said. "Guangzhou is not an important city to me anymore. There is nothing it has that another city cannot offer me, and I will sacrifice it a thousand times over to get what I want. I will wipe it off the map, and where it once stood, there will be a red sea filled with the blood of peasants like you."

I thought of my auntie and uncle, who wouldn't stand a chance if one of the Empress's undead soldiers burst into their shop.

So many people had died for me already, and now an entire city would be next.

"What do you want?" I said, my voice so small and pathetic, everything the Empress knew that I was beneath my title.

The Empress smiled. "Now, that's the kind of question you should be asking," she said. "First, you will return to the palace

in Chang'an."

"It's under siege," I said dully. "They'd imprison me before I made it to the front gate."

"You think I can wipe out an entire city but not a couple of peasant soldiers in my palace?" she said. "Chang'an is mine.

I will clear the way for you."

I tightened my grip on the bark. "You have so much power over Chang'an, yet you let a couple ‘peasant boys' hang your body?"

She clenched her teeth. "I was a bit preoccupied with an errant alchemist," she said. "And, as I'm sure you know, they did

not hang my body. But regardless, once in Chang'an, you will schedule a public execution for Hong."

" What? " I said. "On what grounds?"

"Treason," she said airily. "For turning his mother in to the private armies because he wanted to hold power alone. He was

always so shortsighted. But don't worry, you won't be around for that part."

"And why not?" I said, trying my best to keep my voice even.

"First," she went on, "you will meet with Gaozong, who will remove your soul and replace it with mine."

I clenched my teeth. I'd known that this was what the Empress wanted, but hearing her finally say it still made my breath

come short and sweat break out across my forehead. I imagined her wearing my skin like a dress, saying cruel words with my

lips.

"The Scarlet Alchemist—the new empress—will then order the hanging of her beloved prince, and become the sole emperor of China."

"Emperor?" I said.

"Yes," the Empress said, her eyes blazing. "Empresses must share power. Emperors do not. I will be the first and last female

emperor."

My grip tightened on the bark. I closed my eyes and took a steadying breath, feeling like I was going to tumble into the broken

black sky.

"Am I supposed to believe that you'll show mercy to Guangzhou if I obey?" I said.

The Empress made a dismissive gesture, like my words were flies to swat away. "Guangzhou's existence does not threaten me,

and its erasure does not benefit me. Its only value to me right now is that you value it. There is no reason to destroy parts of my empire to spite a dead girl."

She shifted, her shadow falling over me, an eclipse of black and gold.

"My husband will be waiting for you in my throne room at dusk in one week's time," she said. "If you haven't done everything

exactly as I've described by then, I will pour chicken-blood stone into the Pearl River, and you can say goodbye to Guangzhou

forever."

"But that's hardly enough time to make it back to Chang'an!" I said.

The Empress only smiled. "Then you'd better hurry."

I opened my eyes to the wood slats of the ceiling at the inn, halfway convinced that all of it had been a dream. But Zheng

Sili and Yufei were looking over me, both talking frantically.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, trying to make sense of their words.

"Where did you go?" Yufei demanded.

" Me? " I said, frowning. "You two are the ones who got sucked into the forest!"

"We ended up in some sort of cave," Zheng Sili said. "I don't know what happened, but eventually it spit us back out here,

only you wouldn't wake up."

"And neither will Wenshu Ge," Yufei said.

I glanced down at Wenshu, who was lying still on the ground. I shook his shoulder, but he didn't react at all.

I sank back against the wall and buried my face in my hands, trying to think as Durian pecked at my feet.

"Zilan?" Yufei said tentatively. "Did you at least find the ring?"

I shook my head and hugged my knees tighter, not wanting to look up because I already felt tears dampening my skirt. The ring

didn't matter anymore. We were never going to make it to Penglai, because Wenshu and I were going to die in Chang'an.

Yufei knelt in front of me, pushing my hands away and cleaning my face with her sleeve. She whispered words that I was sure

were meant to comfort me, but all I could see was the setting sun through the lattice window behind her, another day passing,

the sky a sharp and brilliant gold.