Chapter 2

He slit the window gauze, blew in a cloud of sleeping fumes, and waited patiently before pushing open the door.

Inside, there was only the soft, even sound of Yihe’s breathing.

By the moonlight, the masked man made out the bed. He raised his blade and hacked at the mound beneath the quilt.

There was no blood.

He flung back the quilt. A paper effigy lay on the bed, grinning up at him.

He knew at once that something was wrong. But it was too late.

With her legs hooked around a ceiling beam, Yihe dropped upside down. The sword in her hand slid soundlessly into his back and out through his chest, killing him with a single thrust.

It was a fine weapon her father had left her, sharp enough to sever a hair blown against its edge.

Yihe climbed down from the beam and pulled away the cloth covering the man’s face. Just as she had expected, he was the messenger.

After a moment’s thought, she cut off his head as well.

There were many sorcerers in the world. The more powerful among them could command corpses to kill.

She had only won through a trick. In a direct fight, she would have stood no chance. She had to be careful.

Yihe dragged him into the vegetable patch behind the house, dug a hole, and buried him.

After shoveling in the last spadeful of earth, she wiped the sweat from her forehead and slipped out through the back gate, into the long-abandoned courtyard next door.

The man had been staying there to watch her. His belongings lay scattered everywhere.

Yihe found the paper his people used for their messages. Imitating his handwriting, she wrote, “Target executed,” and slipped it into the bamboo tube tied to the carrier pigeon’s leg.

She released the pigeon. There was no time to wonder how long her deception would hold. Without daring to waste another moment, she packed her things and fled that very night.

Yihe reached an abandoned temple in the mountains and curled up in a corner to rest.

As night fell, wild beasts began to roar in the hills.

She had no time to be afraid. Taking the bronze mirror from her bundle, she stood beside the road and murmured an incantation.

Pale moonlight fell around her. The souls passing along the road flickered in and out of sight, shaking their heads one after another.

She waited a long time before a soul that knew the whole story finally slipped into the mirror.

Its face was blue-green, its eyes crimson. For a while it wept and laughed, crying out against the injustice it had suffered. Then it spoke.

“The Son of Heaven is lighting the Everlasting Lamp.

“Human bones are its wick. Human flesh is its oil.

“While the lamp burns without end, its master cannot die.

“Thus may the Son of Heaven live forever.

“Your father has already been rendered into lamp oil. As for your mother…

“She is to be the emperor’s new empress.”

Yihe fell silent. The incantation broke off, and the wandering soul vanished from the mirror without a trace.

She felt as though she could not understand its words.

What did it mean, rendered into lamp oil?

She turned it over and over in her mind, tangling her thoughts into knot after knot. Before she could make sense of it, tears were falling.

She did not really understand why she was crying.

Surely this could not be called crying? Her chest merely felt heavy. She remembered her father taking her up onto the roof to look at the stars when she was little.

The stars shaped like a ladle were the Northern Dipper. The ones that fell with tails behind them were called broom stars.

“Broom stars are ill omens. Nobody likes them.”

“Do you dislike them too, Father?”

“I can’t say I like or dislike them.”

“Why not?”

“They rise and fall because that is their way. People think they’re condemning the stars, but really, they’re passing judgment on their own hearts.”

Yihe looked up. There was not a cloud in the sky. The stars shone on, unconcerned.

They were beautiful. But she would never love them again.

She bit her lip until her mouth filled with blood, holding back the sobs.

Scrubbing roughly at her tears, Yihe returned to the ruined temple. She clutched the short sword to her chest so tightly that her flesh and bones ached.

From tomorrow onward, she would have no time to grieve.