SU TANG (素醣)

  Day 5, 5th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Taishan Province, Tian’an Sect

  My wrists and ankles were shackled in irons, the sort forged not just to bind, but to humiliate. The kind that said, You are not a person now. You are a problem we’re solving. The skin beneath had long since split and the flesh rubbed raw until it resembled wet parchment, too mangled for even my healing magic to patch without burning up what little energy I had left. My body was trussed down like a carcass on display.

  The only thing they left me was my mouth. How generous.

  Too bad my lips were cracked, thickened like hide, and caked in dried blood. My tongue was a lump of salt-stung leather.

  There would be no witty words coming from me.

  I didn’t have the strength to lean against the whipping pole. That same gnarled post used for murders, traitors, dissidents…anyone unfortunate enough to remind the mighty Taishan that justice was a performance, not a principle. The wood behind me stank of old blood and mould. And still my legs shook violently beneath me, as if dancing some pitiful jig to keep me upright.

  I breathed pain. It was the only thing left that still came naturally. I had become a vessel for it, a fragile clay pot stuffed full of agony and made to hold shape through sheer will.

  And beside me was her.

  Ze Lujin.

  Trussed up in the same fashion, and yet thrashing like she wasn’t. She convulsed, snarled, pulled at the ropes like a dog lost to the froth. Screams ripped from her throat, curses that scraped the marrow out of words like traitor and curse you all. Her voice rose and fell like a haunted bell, cracked from too much ringing, echoing only madness.

  So much fury in one gaunt little frame. It chilled me.

  I hated her.

  Not the way you hate an enemy.

  I was already destined to die. But she had made it worse.

  This woman.

  Crazy?

  Tortured?

  My mother?

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Whatever.

  And yet…

  Gods above and below, I envied her.

  She screamed. She raged. She felt. Even as her skin peeled under the rope, even as her voice cracked like scorched paper, she still fought. I was too tired to fight. All I could do was think and even that was its own torment.

  The cacophony cut off like a snapped string and a wet smack followed.

  “Shut it!” barked one of the Imperial Guards.

  I turned just in time to see the back of his hand collide with Ze Lujin’s face. Her head jerked to the side, but her eyes—those burning black coals—never blinked.

  He stepped forward to strike again.

  She bit him.

  Clamped down like a wolf, right on the soft webbing between his fingers.

  He screamed, oh how he screamed, and it was almost musical. Swore at her like she wasn’t even human. Then he kicked her. Right in the knees. A sickening crack echoed from the joint, but she didn’t fall. The ropes held her upright. Of course they did. They didn’t let anyone die that easily.

  “Good for nothing—!”

  BOOM.

  My head snapped up. The clouds—those angry, vengeful things—had twisted themselves into an angry spiral above us. Grey like the rot beneath old fingernails, flashing green like some deranged god had chosen envy as its palette of vengeance.

  The guard stepped back, suddenly devout. Coward. He backed off like he hadn’t just tried to kick a girl’s knees in. Like the Heavens might forget if he left quickly enough.

  Lightning flickered between the clouds. Too erratic. Too bright. The thunder didn’t match it.

  I recognised this. Heavenly Lightning.

  The ‘fairest punishment,’ they called it. Naturally impartial, as if the skies bore no grudge.

  Lies.

  I had read the ritual transcripts. I knew. I had seen it with my own eyes, back when I still believed truth had meaning.

  They enraged the heavens on purpose.

  Slaughtered infants—yes, infants—stolen from the Mortal Realm.

  Used them as bait to draw divine judgment down to Earth.

  And then they chained us up as scapegoats, so the lightning wouldn’t touch their pretty palaces.

  How righteous.

  The first bolt struck.

  It was beautiful. Terrifying. Spectacularly unfair.

  A burst of green-blue light carved a molten crater in the earth mere feet away from us. The smell of scorched soil hit my nose like poison.

  How many babies this time, I wondered, before I remembered that wondering didn’t help.

  Ze Lujin started to scream again. Not curses this time. Just panic. I would have joined her. But my voice had left me. Fear had hollowed me out.

  One bolt down.

  One hundred ninety-nine to go.

  Eunuch Sun had said it so kindly, as though he were offering tea. “Two hundred bolts. Endure, and you’ll be redeemed. You’ll keep your primordial spirit.”

  So reasonable. So gentle.

  So full of lies.

  I never believed redemption would be easy. But I never thought I would be destroyed by lightning and my primordial spirit dispersed to never exist.

  Another bolt rumbled. I smelled the storm in my bones.

  And then, like an artist arriving late to her own exhibit, she arrived.

  The Empress.

  Draped in silks that shimmered like river water. Her voluptuous figure wrapped in deliberate decadence. Her lips were red, not the fake lacquer of cosmetics, but something richer. Blood-like. Ancient.

  She waved a fan, so delicate, so lazy. Her scarlet eyes were two embers in a snow-white face. Makeup painted her like a divine courtesan from myth. Ethereal, cold, unreachable.

  She was beautiful.

  She was monstrous.

  And I think she wanted me to admire her for both.

  She looked at me like I was something pathetic stuck to her shoe.

  And her lips curled, just slightly. Not in malice. Not in joy.

  But in boredom.

  As if she were already wondering whether my soul would make a good paintbrush.