Chapter Eight

I just wanted dinner , I thought grimly, backing up against a wooden post as the man took another step forward. Was this the Empress and her pet

alchemist, or just some soldiers from a private army? The strangers' eyes glowed, but we were standing right beside a light,

and I couldn't tell if it was the reflection of candlelight or gold that burned from within.

I glanced over my shoulder at Wenshu, who had risen to his feet and was peering through the crowd to see what was going on,

then I slid my hand back toward my satchel. But before I could reach any stones, someone seized my wrist.

A young woman stood behind me, wedged between me and the wooden post, my wrist clamped firmly in her hand. I couldn't see

her well from this angle, but her long hair fell over my shoulder, the tip of her cold blade pressed delicately to my throat.

If this was the Empress, just how many people had she convinced to help her?

"Three against one isn't very fair," I said, edging away from the blade. "Neither is trying to poison me. You really can't

even capture me without all this fanfare? It's pretty embarrassing."

The first man shook his head. "We're not trying to capture you," he said. "We're trying to make you listen."

Listen to what? I thought.

"Zilan?"

Wenshu's voice cut through the crowd, and for a moment, both men turned toward him.

In their moment of distraction, I pressed my free hand to the wooden beam.

Alchemy rushed from my firestone rings into the post, bleeding through the wooden fibers. The beam crunched as the center

weakened, spraying wooden splinters. The woman flinched at the sound, her grip loosening enough for me to elbow her in the

stomach without letting her slice my throat open. I hurried toward Wenshu, grabbing another handful of firestones and praying

the ceiling didn't come down on us.

Before I could throw the firestones, someone yanked me back by the waist and twisted my arm until my stones clattered to the

ground. How many people in this pub want me dead? I thought as I tried to wrench my hands away. Everyone at the pub had gone quiet and turned to watch.

Wenshu called my name and rushed forward, but another man grabbed him by the collar and slammed him onto the table, overturning

the candles.

Shadows rushed across tables and corners as the cold night enclosed the room. Only a few candles on the far side of the room

remained, a thin breath of pale light in the pub that now felt more like a crypt. As the last two candles flickered, the eyes

of every person in the room glimmered in tandem, their irises a warm gold.

A wave of coldness rippled down my spine. Surely not all of these people could be the Empress.

I twisted back to face the man holding my wrist. The moment our eyes locked, a dark grin spread across his face. It didn't matter whose skin she wore—I would know that expression anywhere.

"I really can't believe you put your dirty southern blood in the body of royalty," said the man holding Wenshu, now in crisp

Chang'an dialect. "We'll definitely be leaving this part out of our history texts."

"I am not dirty !" Wenshu said, cheek pressed against the table.

I threw my weight forward, managing to free one arm, but another man grabbed it before I could reach for more stones. All

around me, the customers at every table watched with vacant gold eyes.

"I suppose I must shoulder some of the blame," said the man holding me, "for allowing you into my palace in the first place."

"And to think Hong would have made you empress," said the woman who'd held a knife to my throat.

Everyone in the pub laughed in unison—a cruel, hollow sound, with no joy in their eyes.

"Don't talk about him!" I said, managing to elbow the man behind me in the nose. But the moment I broke away, more hands seized

me.

"Oh, a sensitive subject?" the barman said, leaning on his elbow over the counter. "I suppose that's fair. I might be a bit

touchy too if my beloved had died because of my incompetence."

"Zilan—" Wenshu tried to speak, but the man slammed him once more against the table and he let out a winded cough.

I ground my teeth together, my pulse pounding in my ears as I scanned the room for some sort of exit. I was decent enough at sparring, but fighting off an entire room of full-grown men and women was something else entirely. How could I incapacitate all these people? I could turn the floor to a sheet of ice, or release a smoke bomb, or set the walls on fire, but none of that was a good idea when I was trapped in the pub along with them. What would the Moon Alchemist have done?

She wouldn't have been in this situation in the first place , I thought grimly.

The man adjusted his grip on my arm, his sleeve sliding down to reveal his soul tag, the bright red scar tissue that spelled

Wu Zhao . The same tight, precise script written on Junyi's arm.

Fighting off this many people at once was futile. I needed to take down the Empress, not her three dozen puppets.

But, luckily, I knew where I could find her.

I hesitated, glancing to Wenshu where he was trying to elbow a burly man back into the door.

"Can you carry me?" I shouted.

"What?" he said, wincing as a man bent his wrist back at a harsh angle.

"If you can't carry me, then drag me," I said. "I think I can give you about thirty seconds."

" What are you talking about? " he said, struggling against the barkeeper.

But if I said much more, then the Empress might start to understand as well.

I seized a knife from the table and raked it across the throat of the man behind me.

Hot blood sprayed across my face, salt stinging my lips. For a moment, I was in the throne room once more, clutching the Empress

in my pearl-white hands, her pulse racing beneath my teeth.

The man fell forward and crushed me into the table, bowls and bottles shattering beneath my spine, his blood spilling hot and fast across my chest.

A dozen other hands reached for me, but before they could tear me away, I grabbed the man's wrist and pressed three firestones

to the soul tag on his forearm.

His blood rushed faster at my touch, a river soaking through my dress, rising up to devour the floor, drowning me in salt

and crimson darkness. The table dissolved, the heavy weight lifted from my chest, and then I was falling into the silky night

of the river plane.

Before I could even land on my feet, the landscape shifted beneath me, the river ripped away, dry land flashing past me as

if I'd jumped out of a moving wagon. Desire guided you in this plane, and my desire was burning hot, lancing through my bones,

cracking me open like scorched clay.

Wu Zhao , I thought. Come find me.

I crashed into wet earth and rolled down a steep incline, falling deeper and deeper into the woods. I sank my fingers into

the freezing mud as I slid down, trying to slow my descent, but it parted like cream, and I only fell faster.

You want to find Wu Zhao? the world whispered through my bones. Then fall.

I crashed into flat ground, breath slammed from my lungs, mud on my lips. I rolled onto my back and gasped for air, the dark

cage of the sky the same shade as the sludge beneath me, the whole world made of night.

Wu Zhao , I thought, the words as clear in my mind as the bright white coin of the moon overhead, come out here and face me .

But the Empress never took orders from anyone.

I didn't know if she could control other people's bodies while her consciousness was busy in the river of souls, but at the very least, I hoped I was making it difficult for her. After all, she was not some omniscient god, but a mortal clinging to the living plane through alchemy. The longer I could distract her, the more time I gave Wenshu to get us both out of there.

That was, if I could find her. She was here, that was certain—I had killed one of her stolen corpses, so whatever part of

her soul had occupied him must have returned here.

I hadn't known souls could be fragmented in so many pieces. But of course, the Empress had never been scared to test the rules

of alchemy. Anything could be done if you sacrificed enough.

I rolled over, trying to extract myself from the freezing mud that was starting to solidify around me, as if dragging me into

a cold, wet grave. Who could have helped the Empress do something like this? What kind of powerful alchemist would have helped

her? None of the royal alchemists, and they had supposedly been the best in the country.

Something whispered through the trees, a flash of light like the golden tail of a comet across the dark ground.

I rose to my feet. The Empress should be here , I thought. Perhaps I hadn't cut deep enough, and the man was bleeding out too slowly. Or perhaps there had been a nearby

alchemist who had managed to heal him, and I was waiting for nothing while the Empress ripped my brother limb from limb.

The trees parted with a sigh of wind, as if welcoming me deeper. I stepped back, the ground now dry beneath my feet.

Fan Zilan , a voice whispered from the forest, a thousand miles away, yet somehow perfectly clear. It wasn't the Empress—the words were

too bright and airy, like morning birdsong that the wind would carry away.

I knew that voice.

As the echo faded and the night fell silent as if waiting for my answer, I remembered darkness and fire, my name tangled with

sparks and wet echoes and frantic heartbeats.

I blinked hard, rubbing my eyes as if I could scrub the images away. The last time I'd had vague recollections, it had been

memories of my own forgotten death bubbling to the surface. I didn't like that my memory was now a tattered cloth, holes large

enough for the night to whisper through.

I swallowed and backed up, away from the forest's edge, and thought of the Empress's name once more. This plane didn't want

me here, and it was trying with all its might to devour me because it knew my mind was a labyrinth with no way out.

I imagined myself carving the Empress's name into the sky, each brushstroke firm and deliberate. The dry ground slipped away

like a rug pulled out beneath me, and I fell to my hands in wet mud. Footsteps approached, and a pair of embroidered gold

slippers stood before me, impeccably clean.

Slowly, my gaze traced up the line of shimmering gold fabric, and at last, there she was. A bright star in the dead, barren

landscape. The first blade of sunlight that rips that night open. Wu Zhao, the eternal.

My Empress.

"Scarlet—" she said, but she would never finish her sentence.

I lunged forward and wrapped my hands around her throat.

We rolled across the riverbed, our clothes snagging on twigs, sharp stones tearing fabric, yanking our hair. She reached for

my eyes, her honed fingernails only a breath away, but I bit down hard on her hand until I tasted blood. Her scream scraped

through my eardrums, echoing forever into the dark sky. I had never before heard the Empress's scream, even when she'd died.

Her fist crashed into my face. My teeth ached at the impact, blood filling my mouth. Her fingers scraped lines into my cheeks as I ripped her hair back, forcing her face away. She managed to shove me back just long enough to stand up, her foot planted on my chest. I grabbed at her ankle to topple her, but she stomped down on my face, and my vision exploded into red.

The real Empress was not a fighter, but the river plane was a game of minds, not physical strength. And the Empress had always

been one step ahead of me.

"Let me tell you a story," the Empress said, and in the moonlight, looking down on me, her bright eyes glowed like those of

a wolf stalking through the woods at night. "Once upon a time, the Crown Prince Li Hong was caught fleeing his country like

a coward after his loyal citizens rebelled against his unjust laws. He was caught by a private army on the Mongolian border,

and his corpse was dragged back to Chang'an, where the people hung his body from the city gates, along with his treacherous

concubine."

"How imaginative," I said, the words coming out too weak and breathless, the way I had always felt around the Empress, now

amplified in this in-between world.

"With no one else in the House of Li," the Empress continued, as if I hadn't spoken at all, "the kingdom then belonged wholly

to his grieving mother, the Perpetual Empress Wu." At last, she looked down at me, shifting out of the moonlight, the glimmer

dropping from her eyes, suddenly flat and black.

"This is the story that scholars will write down," she said, her voice low. "This is the only version that history will remember.

This is the story you will help me create, Scarlet."

I clenched my jaw. "Why don't you ask your alchemist friend to help you?" I snapped. "Or do you expect me to believe you've

been resurrecting yourself?"

The Empress stilled. It was only a moment, almost indiscernible, but quickly the cold smile curled across her face again. " You are my alchemist, Scarlet. You always were."

Her words curled tight in my chest. I felt as if she'd branded me just like the peasants whose bodies she stole. She'd made

me the Scarlet Alchemist, so in a way, we were forever intertwined.

"Wu Zhao," I said, using her common name instead of her title because I knew she would hate it, "I am not yours. I never was."

The smile dropped from her face. Slowly, she sat back, turning her gaze toward the moon. Its white light spilled pale across

her throat, and I remembered tearing it open with my teeth.

This had gone on long enough. I didn't come here to let the Empress push me around. I came here to distract her, break her

mind in two.

I reached out and took the Empress's hand, lacing her fingers through mine, mud slick between our palms. She hesitated, frowning

down at our entwined fingers.

"Scarlet—" she said warningly.

I tightened my grip around her hand as hard as I could manage. Then I closed my eyes and carved a new name into the sky.

The River Alchemist.

The ground flashed away, black mud sliding off the surface of the earth, replaced by needle-sharp grass. A thousand dark trees

flew past us on either side, a great whoosh of air blowing over us as the world unfolded.

I dragged the Empress behind me, forcing her to cross the landscape with me or have her shoulder torn out of its socket. Her

sharp nails sank into my wrist, drawing blood, but I only gripped her tighter.

We fell to the soft ground before a pale riverbed that had nearly dried up, a small clearing of silver grass that stole the moon's pale light, casting the clearing in ghostly white.

And there, pallid and wide-eyed in the grass, was the River Alchemist, her tattoos etched in gold across her skin, glowing

like starlight around her face.

"Scarlet?" she whispered, the sound echoing as if whispered up from the bottom of a well. Her gaze fell to the Empress, and

she took a startled step back.

Out of all the royal alchemists who had died, I'd felt the worst about the River Alchemist.

She'd helped me figure out how to poison the Empress when none of the other alchemists would dare discuss something so treasonous.

She'd stolen my shoes to get me out of studying with the Moon Alchemist, brought berries and bugs for Durian to eat...

and had died fixing my mistake.

I'd only visited her once in this plane, to tell her to hold on while I found the elixir, and to spread the word to the other

alchemists, who I couldn't bear to face. She was the only one I knew wouldn't blame me for what had happened. When I'd told

her my plan, she'd stretched back in the silver grass and looked up at the sky.

Take your time finding Penglai , she'd said. I needed a vacation anyway.

And now I had brought the Empress right to her. Once again, I was endangering other people with my impulsive decisions. But

this time, it wouldn't be in vain. I would make sure of it.

The Empress tried to yank her arm away, pulling me to the ground.

"Help me!" I said to the River Alchemist.

The River Alchemist rushed forward and grabbed the Empress's free arm, bent it behind her, and used it to pin her to the ground by her shoulder. She turned to me, eyebrow raised. I hated how she hadn't even hesitated to trust me. I didn't deserve that kind of faith.

"Scarlet—"

"I don't have time to explain right now," I said. "Hold on tight and bring her far away."

"Where?" the River Alchemist said, frowning.

"Anywhere."

She shook her head. "If you and I aren't thinking of the same place, we'll be pulled—"

"In two different directions," I said, nodding.

The River Alchemist's eyes brightened with understanding, catching the light of the moon as the trees shifted overhead. A

smile spread across her face. "Death by quartering," she said. "I like it."

"More like halving," I said, shrugging.

"Good enough," the River Alchemist said, turning toward the moon. "Hold on tight."

With her next breath, she was gone.

All at once, the Empress was dragging me across the sky, my shoulder tugging painfully at its socket as roots and stones scraped

beneath my feet, the land flashing by so quickly that it blurred into a haze of gray. I had no destination in mind, so I was

being tugged across the world along with the Empress.

I needed to choose somewhere else, but I couldn't decide where to go. I didn't want to bring the Empress to any of the other royal alchemists, and certainly not to Hong. It had to be someone I strongly desired to see, someone that would tug me in the opposite direction of the River Alchemist with just as much speed and force. What other dead people did I know, who the Empress could no longer hurt?

My father , I thought.

Before I had even fully decided, I'd slammed to a stop against the trunk of a tree, nearly losing my grip on the Empress in

my surprise.

The River Alchemist stood on the other side of the tree, fighting to drag the Empress onward, her robes soaked in sweat. The

Empress was struggling to break free of our hold, but with both her arms held apart, she couldn't do much more than kick at

the dirt. We were no longer moving, suspended in place by the two opposing desires.

The River Alchemist's arm trembled, and then we were slowly moving in her direction once more, as if trudging through quicksand.

I turned away from her, trying to concentrate. This wouldn't work if it was only the River Alchemist dragging us across the

world. I didn't want to simply carry the Empress, but tear her in two.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember what I could of my father.

Laisrén, the name I had only recently learned, that somehow felt like I had always known. I thought of his notes that I'd

pored over by candlelight, the dream he'd ignited in me, first with my hate, then with my determination.

If there is an elixir of eternal life, I will find it.

I will never stop until I can return to them.

And if I found this elixir, if I completed his dream, maybe I could bring him back as well.

The ground began to shift, rushing faster beneath my feet. My grip trembled on the Empress's wrist, her joints clicking and loosening as I fought to move forward, the dry grass turning to golden sand under my feet. The Empress was screaming, but I could hardly hear the sound over the rush of sand, the loudness of the world cracking apart, trees collapsing and sky unfolding.

My feet sank into sand, and I fell to my knees, still holding tight to the Empress's hand.

I remembered my father's low voice, the language I had lost.

Get up, Zilan , he'd said. Please.

I trudged onward, even when I could hardly feel my shoulder at all, my nails piercing the Empress's sleeve.

I was in the desert once more, but this time the sands were gray, the trees lying in parched pieces around me. And in the

distance, backlit by the sun, was a dark silhouette, robes fluttering in the wind.

I ran toward him.

I could no longer feel the River Alchemist pulling in the opposite direction, so my desire was probably pulling all three

of us across the river plane, but I didn't care. The sands parted for me as I ran across the desert, the white sun swelling

across the horizon, devouring the sky.

I was only a breath away, reaching out my free hand toward him.

I crashed down into hard dirt, my back slamming into crooked roots and jagged rocks. The sun overhead was only the distant

moon, and my father was gone.

The Empress was on top of me, her face so drenched in sweat that her makeup was running in black streaks down her face, her perfect red lips now a bloody maw that dripped down her chin. Her face looked translucent, her whole body trembling, flickering in and out of existence. Both of her hands were free, which meant she must have broken away from the River Alchemist.

"You think you're clever," the Empress said, and even her voice sounded exhausted, far away and weak.

I turned toward the sky, as if my father might reappear on the horizon, but the world was dark once more.

The Empress grabbed my face with a trembling hand, forcing me to look at her.

"Do you remember what happened the last time you tried to play games with me?" she said.

Everyone died , I thought, her words pinning me to the cold ground.

"You have much more to lose than I do, Scarlet," the Empress said, her hand sliding down to my throat. "Wherever you go, I

will always find you. You and I are tethered, and death can never sever that thread."

I tried to turn my head away from both her words and her burning gold eyes, but her other hand held my jaw tight.

Legends spoke of a red thread of fate, an invisible tether between souls who were destined to meet. I had once thought that

Hong held the other end of my thread—the boy who had crossed the country and found me by the well in my broken city, only

to meet me once again when I crossed the world myself.

But maybe the Empress was tethered to me in a different way, clawing against death to come back to me. Maybe we were always

destined to destroy each other, for hate and love were equally sharp. She reached down to caress my face, and for a brief

moment, I could almost see the scarlet thread tangled between her fingers—a curse, a promise.

I reached for her face to push her away, but my fingers tangled in her pearl necklace, only yanking her closer to me.

A blunt pain clanged through my head.

My vision burst with light, split halfway between the darkness of the river plane and a flash of candlelight. Something stung my cheek, and I heard Wenshu's voice far away, calling my name.

Wenshu.

I'd almost forgotten about him, left alone in the restaurant full of the Empress's puppets. That sharp spike of desire—to

find him, protect him—ripped me from the river plane, still clutching the Empress's necklace.

I crashed onto my back on hard ground, Wenshu poised above me to slap me in the face. I shoved his arm aside before the blow

could connect, gasping down a breath of night air. I was sitting on the ground outside the tavern, which Wenshu had barricaded

with barrels. Inside, the people were yelling, tearing at the lattice windows.

I rubbed my forehead where I could feel a bruise forming and realized I was still clutching the Empress's pearls, coated in

blood.

Nothing in the river plane was real except souls, so I shouldn't have been able to take it back with me. And yet I held four

bloody pearls in my hand.

My head throbbed and I let out a groan, pocketing the pearls.

"Did you hit my head against something?" I said.

"Not intentionally," Wenshu said, looking away guiltily. "You're heavy, okay? I was in a bit of a hurry."

I forced myself to my feet and examined the barrier, then used some woodstones to reinforce the lattice windows with a solid

pane of pine, blocking out the sound of yelling. I was tempted to just burn the whole place down, but that would draw attention

to the restaurant and there was a chance someone would let everyone out.

"So much for getting some rest," I said, rolling my shoulder. "This city obviously isn't safe. Let's grab Durian and get out of here."

"I thought we could at least get dinner before someone tried to kill us again," Wenshu said, already hurrying down the road.

I started to follow after him but hesitated after a few steps. "Where's Zheng Sili?"

"How would I know?" Wenshu said. "He's not a child. He can look after himself."

I glanced over my shoulder toward the city center. If the Empress had taken over a whole restaurant full of people, it was

safe to say she had a tight grip on this town. She would probably recognize Zheng Sili, or at least would have noticed that

we were traveling together. She might be pulling his organs out to make into sausages as we spoke.

I shouldn't have cared. But there was a difference between brushing someone off for rudeness and abandoning them to the Empress's

whims.

"We have to find him," I said. Wenshu looked like I'd suggested we eat garbage, but he grumbled and followed me all the same.

We ran back to the main road in the city center, where the crowd grew dense once more. As we brushed past startled merchants

and drunken men, I wondered if all of them were no more than actors in the Empress's charade, just background art for the

stage she was setting to destroy me at her leisure. I prayed that whatever alchemy she'd managed to get her hands on hadn't

allowed her to decimate this entire city.

I was about to run past a temple when Wenshu grabbed me by the sleeve, forcing me to a stop.

The Empress had found Zheng Sili first.

He was splayed across the steps of what looked like an abandoned Buddhist temple, cheek crushed to the dirt.

I hesitated a few feet away, unsure of what to do. I'd never liked him, but I hadn't meant for the Empress to actually kill

him. I shared an uneasy look with Wenshu.

Then Zheng Sili coughed, sliding down another step and groaning.

I stomped forward, yanking him up by the collar. His hair and clothes reeked of ale. "Are you drunk ?" I said. "We've hardly been gone an hour!"

"It's none of your business," he said, words slurred, trying to pry my hands off but only managing to slap his wet fingers

across my face.

I sighed and tossed him back to the stairs, where he lay down heavily, blinking as if just recognizing his surroundings.

"Hùnxiě?" he said, rubbing his eyes.

"Stop calling her that," Wenshu said.

Maybe it was the alcohol, or just the fact that it was another man scolding him instead of me, but he looked mildly ashamed.

"Sorry," he said, "forgot your name."

I pressed a hand to my eyes. "The Empress is running around, and you're drunk."

"The Empress?" he said, eyes wide. He straightened up, but lurched unsteadily to one side and braced himself on the stairs.

"It's okay, this isn't my first drink, there's alchemy that can help me sober up. Do you have any amethyst?"

"That's so expensive!" I said. "You use that to sober up ?"

"Okay, never mind," he said, rising to his feet. "I have a faster way." Then he turned around and vomited behind the stairs.

Wenshu and I grimaced, looking away. When Zheng Sili turned back to us, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, his face looked papery white but his eyes looked slightly more focused. "Okay, what's the plan?" he said, looking between me and Wenshu.

I looked toward the horizon, where no other towns were visible as far as I could see.

"I think we're going to need a couple horses."