Sacrifice (31 page)

Skybright

Skybright watched Stone wrap his arms around her serpentine body and felt her cheeks burn. She was so rarely touched in her demonic form because it had made both Zhen Ni and Kai Sen nervous and afraid. And for the longest time, she did not know if she could trust herself around them as a serpent—would she be overcome by the compulsion to hurt those she loved?

But Stone had never been afraid of her, had always accepted her for who she was. Even after most of his power had been stripped and the Goddess of Accord had divulged that Skybright was free to kill him with her venom if she desired it, he had never once feared her. She knew he had the advantage of spending a few thousand years as a powerful intermediary to the gods, but he had trusted her long before she was able to trust herself.

It was an unexpected gift from an unlikely person. She would never tell him this though.

Instead, Skybright undulated her coil and lowered him gently as he clung to her. It was an oddly intimate moment to share, and she was glad when he let go, landing on both feet below.

A spike of jealousy that burst from Kai Sen was so strong, he might as well have shouted his feelings in words. He jumped down a moment later, his hairline damp with sweat. He hadn’t wanted to touch her. It wasn’t distrust, but a complicated mixture of feelings wound tight and held close. But she knew now that he wanted to keep her, at least in serpent form, at a distance. It saddened her, but his reaction seemed inevitable.
There were no love stories between monks and serpent demons
, she had told him so long ago in the forest.

She had been right.

Stone had conjured the giant axe again and nodded at them.

She slithered to the front without a word. The wide corridor was more like a cavern with natural gray rock composing its sides. It reminded her of the other cavern she had been in at hell’s breach. Kai Sen’s fireball didn’t cast light far, but her sight allowed her to see almost as clearly, as if it were broad daylight. No creatures stirred here, no insect or rodent. The smell of rotting flesh hung in the air, growing stronger as they walked.

“Undead?” Kai Sen asked, hefting his saber.

“No,” she replied. “These bodies have stayed dead … so far. I don’t sense any living thing down here.” She swallowed a deep hiss that threatened to rise. “But I can sense everyone above us. I can feel Zhen Ni.”

Zhen Ni was still alive, thank the goddess.

“Good,” Stone said. “How many demons?”

“Ten now. But I cannot say if one of them is Master Bei.”

They continued downward in the steep corridor, their movements almost silent, until the foul odor of rotting flesh became overwhelming. She resisted the urge to press a hand over her nose and mouth. A slight stir of air, and the corridor opened into a large cavern. Human corpses were strewn on the floor like rag dolls, most with their flesh stripped as if eaten, some picked more clean than others.

Kai Sen murmured something, and after a pause, a dozen globes of blue fire darted over her head, flying into the cavern. They couldn’t see what she saw in the dark, but Kai Sen’s magic illuminated the grisly sight.

“Goddess,” Kai Sen choked out.

“It seems Master Bei has been feeding something that enjoys the taste of dead human flesh,” Stone said.

She slithered between the corpses, eyes averted, yet her heightened senses forgave her nothing. The eyes had been gouged out from every skull; the tongues ripped from gaping mouths. Lips had been gnawed off like delicacies. If she had been in human form, she would have doubled over to retch. “There is an exit across the way,” she said. Kai Sen followed, his eagerness to leave this place as great as her own. Stone trailed behind them both, taking the whole scene in, his eyes sweeping over each corpse, as if one of them would divulge the answer to some great mystery.

The massive door was set into the wall, following the natural curve and rough rockwork of the cavern. The only indication that it led to another chamber was the rectangle lines marking the door. The faintest red glow seeped from its tight seams. “I can barely see an indication of a door this near, much less from afar,” Kai Sen said, sounding impressed.

“The red glow was what drew my attention.” She ran her fingertips along the door’s seam.

“I see no red glow,” Kai Sen said.

Skybright looked toward Stone, and he shook his head. She then pushed against the door’s rough stone surface. It didn’t budge.

“Is that the best idea?” Kai Sen asked.

Stone slanted his head. “You sense no life beyond?”

“Nothing.” She pressed her palm against the jagged rock. “But I can feel tremendous heat—like at the other breach.”

“Let’s see what we’re dealing with,” Stone said. His eyes took on that glazed look when he began working his magic. He would use the earth element to open the door.

“Show me,” Kai Sen interrupted.

Stone’s dark eyes focused again, his pupils constricting to pinpoints. He nodded once. “Link your magic to mine.”

Kai Sen thrust his chin up, but his shoulders relaxed as they began working together.

She had always sensed enchantment in nature, in the colors of the flowers and the leaves, even the speckled rocks that lay in the riverbed, and with the exhilarating renewal of each spring. She felt its powers in every sunrise and sunset, in the ever-changing faces of the moon. But it wasn’t until she manifested her serpentine side did she realize the extent of the magic around them. She couldn’t feel these elements that Stone and Kai Sen spoke of to wield their elemental power, but she was not surprised they existed. She had seen a goddess with her own eyes, after all, witnessed a flying dragon whelp shake the water from its beard.

Both Kai Sen and Stone were already tired, but each was as stubborn as the other. She smiled a small smile. At least in this instance, it was a benefit. The door gave a low groan and pushed back a few hands width. A fiery glow filled the doorway, spilling into the dark cavern.

“Yes!” Kai Sen was grinning, although he appeared ready to sway on his feet.

She touched his shoulder, then gripped it, steadying him. He jumped. “Well done,” she said.

He blushed, looking for the first time entirely like the boyish Kai Sen she had known, then smiled wider. “Thanks, Sky.”

A burst of hot air swept over them from the chamber beyond. Both men gripped their weapons tighter as she slid past, easing through the wide crack between the enormous door and cavern wall. Although her senses told her nothing alive or moving lay beyond, she was still cautious, ready to strike with her fangs or serpentine coil. The chamber was empty and much smaller than the one they had walked through; a corridor opened on the far end, emanating an intense red glow. The sickening stench of corpses had been replaced by that of fire and sulfur. “It’s empty,” she said. Kai Sen entered first with Stone bringing up the rear, both their eyes swept the chamber, their weapons at the ready.

She slanted her head toward the corridor.

“You still sense nothing?” Stone asked.

“No life,” she said, then slithered across the small cavern into the corridor. “But I can feel tremendous power and perhaps magic. Nothing I’ve come across before or can recognize.”

The air was hotter here, oppressive. But at least there was space enough, not like the tunnel they had made to crawl through. The passage veered steeply downward, and it felt as if they were walking into the depths of hell itself. For the first time, Skybright wondered if they would make it out of this alive. She’d do everything in her power to free Zhen Ni from the clutches of Master Bei and whatever insidious plans he had concocted for her. This transgression, to prey on her lifelong friend, angered Skybright as much as it frightened her.

Stone and Kai Sen trailed behind, alert but not speaking a word. The air grew so hot that sweat gathered at her hairline, then slid down her back. She swiped a hand behind her neck. The rockwork began taking on an ominous red glow around them, and the corridor narrowed as they went deeper. That combined with the rising heat made it feel like the walls were closing in, ready to swallow them whole. She couldn’t shake the notion that they were caught in a trap, and the net was tightening around them.

Finally, they emerged into another cavern. This one had a ceiling which arched overhead, so high she could barely see it. A deep, circular pit pulsed in its center, like a living thing. The air sweltered here, worse than the hottest, breezeless day. Bubbling magma swirling in the pit illuminated the vast chamber, their jagged walls glowing a deep red. Stone bounded to the nearest wall.

“No,” he said. “It can’t be.” Stone touched his fingertips against the rock, and the red glow from within wavered before the wall turned translucent. A pale form was curled within the rock, and though it had coarse features and sharp talons for nails, it looked human enough.

Skybright’s stomach clenched. She remembered now what this place reminded her of: the caverns that bred the demons in the underworld for the next Great Battle. The one that was overseen by the talking demon Ye Guai, who had reeked of hatred for Stone. Stone was running down the length of the wall now, which curved around the pit. The cavern walls became transparent where his hand touched but spread beyond, like a network of fissures until the entire cavern revealed what it hid behind its misshapen depths.

Human-like demons.

Hundreds of them.

“There’s more,” Kai Sen said.

She whipped toward him in horror. He pointed to four more tunnels glowing a sinister red, leading to other caverns growing more of these things. The glare from the hell pit could not disguise the pallor of his face.

“Are we in the underworld?” she asked.

Stone gave a humorless laugh. “Far from it. But Master Bei has managed to make his own hell. And if these more human demons are anything like the ones we’ve encountered, they’ll be able to talk and are smarter, stronger, and faster than those from the Great Battle.”

“Those were bad enough.” Kai Sen cursed. “I fought a talking demon made to look like a woman, though the results were monstrous. She almost killed me.”

Skybright shivered despite the raging heat around them. Kai Sen was one of the best fighters she had seen on the battlefield, one of the most agile. This gave a clear indication of what they were up against. The monks would lose, and every mortal slaughtered like cattle, if Master Bei wished it.

“He needs no breach to hell then,” she said. “He’s growing his own army right beneath the manor.”

Stone walked to the edge of the fiery pit in the middle of the cavern. “There is a breach. Right here.”

“But it’s filled with lava,” she said.

Stone replied, “The breach only needs to be a physical connection to the underworld: a deep crevasse or a magma pit. Both would serve that purpose.”

She slithered to Stone, who was gazing into the molten lava. Her eyes burned, and she blinked, looking away. “Why?” she asked.

Stone clasped her arm, then drew her away from the pit. For once, his touch felt cool against her skin. Kai Sen stood with his back to them, peering inside the translucent stone at the demons growing within. His saber was raised, and his feet staggered, as if ready for battle.

“Growing demons is a complex process,” Stone said. “You need hell’s essence, which can only be gathered in the underworld. I’m certain Master Bei has an ally there.”

They drew up to Kai Sen, who was staring at a woman with long black hair nestled within the rock. Her lithe legs were tucked beneath her chin, and her features were delicate, with a sensuous full mouth. A beautiful face. But a thick horn jutted from the top of each shoulder like a ram’s, tapering to lethal points. “What is the point of closing the breach,” Kai Sen said in a quiet voice, “if the monsters are already here?”

“I cannot sense them,” Skybright said. “They are not yet truly alive.”

Stone nodded. “They are still incubating. But many are close to taking on life; then they will emerge from the rockwork. It is best to strike when they are trapped in their wombs. They are vulnerable here.”

“How?” Skybright asked.

“We use earth magic and bring the walls down,” Stone said, and locked his dark gaze with Kai Sen’s. “It is the only way.”

Kai Sen’s jaw flexed. “Are we strong enough?”

“We’ll have to be,” Stone replied.

Kai Sen nodded, his expression grim. Skybright smelled his determination as if a large flame had been struck, acrid and intense.

“How much time do we have?” she asked.

“Some demons are already beginning to stir.” Stone pointed at a muscular demon with his thick arms wrapped around his knees. It was easy to miss in a glance, but the defined muscles of his biceps and calves were twitching. “They will not all emerge at once. But enough are on the brink. The sooner, the better.”

“I can raid Bei manor while you work these caverns below.” She wished she could help Stone and Kai Sen bring the caverns down. It seemed like a tremendous and impossible task for two people, no matter how powerful their magic. But she needed to find Zhen Ni.

“Yes. Lead the attack above ground, Skybright. And don’t underestimate yourself,” Stone said, as if he had looked into her mind. “Your venom is quite possibly the one thing that can kill Master Bei.”

Kai Sen made a low noise in the back of his throat, and Stone swung his heavy axe, planting it in the dirt ground beside him. “Even with our magic combined, we are nothing against Bei. He can counter whatever we might cast at him.”

“But he can kill Skybright before she gets close enough to strike,” Kai Sen said, his dark brows pulled together. He looked furious, yet she smelled fear. Fear for her well-being.

Stone didn’t refute him, but turned to her with one corner of his mouth tilted upward. “You will get close enough.”

Sometimes, life offered no choices.
We do what we must,
Lady Yuan used to say. “I attack above, and you destroy below.” She drew a long intake of breath that turned into a hiss. “Tonight?”

“I can’t,” Kai Sen said. “I have little magic left.”