My eyes flew open, blinking against the glare. All was curved where it should be straight, shuddering when it should be still, until everything appeared slick with flame. Deep cracks fractured the laurel’s silvery bark, from which smoke and sap gurgled forth—no longer bright gold but a coppery-red, as though churned with my blood. With a whoosh, its pale branches caught fire like a flaming crown.

“No!” Wugang’s roar was a far cry from his usual calm.

Nothing but silence greeted his outburst. His soldiers faced him, awaiting his command. Obedient. Alert. Unfeeling. Fear did not clutch their hearts—nor did loyalty, love, or honor. Such things Wugang had scoffed at, derided and scorned. Such things that might work wonders in times of desperate need.

A grinding wrenched the air as the cracks swelled across the laurel’s trunk, gaping wider, deeper—a moment before it broke apart. The glittering seeds above morphed into lumps of blackened coal, shriveling to ash that drifted with the wind like clouds of soot.

Wugang’s soldiers stilled. The light faded from their eyes, winking out until just the hollows remained. Clear liquid ran down in rivulets from their faces, across their necks, like ice thawing beneath the sun. Chunks of their limbs broke off with a clink, coming apart like ill-made works of clay. As they crumbled to the ground, gold dust coiled from their wracked forms, spiraling into the air. A rustling sprang up like a great sigh. Was there regret in it? Relief? How I prayed these spirits would regain their stolen peace. The shimmering specks vanished then, leaving nothing but an unearthly silence and a charred stump where the laurel had once towered, surrounded by dark swaths of damp earth.

It was over … Wugang’s army destroyed. This terrible devastation, this grave threat to our existence had ended. I inhaled a shaking breath, closing my eyes. Such terror had reigned over my mind and sunken my heart during these endless days—it was hard to believe it was no more. A sweet lightness swept through me, a moment’s respite from the pain. The realms would be safe, along with my loved ones. The battle by the Cloud Wall would have ended abruptly, with Wugang’s soldiers and monsters gone. Not dead, for they had never truly been alive.

Come dawn, the sun would rise unhindered over the Immortal Realm.

I would not see it.

Wugang loomed above me, his face crimson with rage, his aura thick with murderous fury. My fingers lifted to my face, brushing the cleft in my chin, the rounded curve of my cheek. I was myself again.

“How is this possible? Her aura, her voice—” Wugang’s grip tightened around the hilt of his axe. He would waste little time uttering pointless words of rage. Death was the only atonement for my offenses.