Never trust a woman you meet on the road. Half the time, they’re luring you into a trap, and the other half, they’re a yokai trying to eat you.

  -Merchant Zhang Fu after three rounds of drinks.

  “He wakes from the dream,” the woman mused as Lin fought his way back to consciousness. “Like a tree bends in the wind, you rise from my trap.”

  It was hard. So hard. Lin’s eyes were leaden, and his limbs moved as if they were encased in honey. But, his qi flowed like a strong river. That’s what mattered. The rest would return to him, so long as his qi was strong.

  He forced himself, first to his elbows, then to his hands and knees. When he finally could open his eyes, he was met with the image of the woman kneeling before him. At this distance, he could see the delicate flower patterns of her kimono clearly, as well as the small details of her painted face.

  “Sorry to disappoint,” Lin grumbled.

  Nearby, he could see the shimmering form of Hua Zhen barely maintaining its shape as the shade lay still, cast deep into some pleasant dream. How quickly the two thieves had been brought low. Lin wondered if perhaps, he wasn’t really cut out for crime, after all. It seemed to suit Xinya and Yoru so much better than him.

  “Sleep surrounds so swiftly. Tell me, of whom do you dream? What stirs thy heart true?” The woman’s voice maintained its calm, almost lyrical tone, but Lin wasn’t fooled. She was a trap, a spider at the center of a web of sweet words and pretty flowers. He would not be fooled.

  “I’m not telling you anything,” he snapped. With great effort, he forced himself to his feet, and only staggered slightly as his adaptation fought to banish the last traces of weariness from his body.

  The woman raised her sleeve, her eyes curling into amusement as she laughed. “You are mistrusting. A wise trait for warriors. Let’s begin again. I am Tsubaki, the flower that falls too soon, never to wither.”

  Lin took a step back, eyes flicking around him in concern. He knew the meaning of her name. Tsubaki was the name of the camellia flower from the western continent. He studied her closer, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

  Though her face was painted pale as the moon, her sandals betrayed her. They were thick wood and added several inches to her height. However, unlike a human’s sandals, these were not solid. Instead, they were made of thick roots that dug into the earth, no doubt connecting her back to the rest of her body. After all, the flowers on her kimono were exactly the same shade of pink as the flowers around them.

  “You see what I am.” There was no question in her voice, only a simple statement of fact. “The roots grow hidden, but deep. You have a keen eye.”

  “I don’t grow camellias in my garden, or I’d have spotted it sooner,” he answered. “You’re an ancestral plant, old enough to have gathered enough qi to cultivate. Like a spirit beast, you manifested this form to converse with humans.”

  Her eyes grew cold at the mention of Lin’s gardening preferences, and he fought back a smirk. He always imagined camellias to be a rather jealous flower. They were bright, so vivid in their color that they demanded all the attention from other flowers. Then, when winter came, they did not wither or drop petal-by-petal. They kept their pristine blooms until they fell from the vine.

  Lin always thought that it was an unrealistic flower. Nothing could maintain its beauty forever, yet the camellia tried. Here, Tsubaki only proved what Lin already believed. Her first question was to ask Lin about he who walked in his dreams, then she grew cold at the mention of other flowers. Jealousy was inherent to her nature.

  “Qi born of vile death,” she said coldly. Behind her, crimson qi began stirring the camellia blossoms around the gazebo. “The sect brings carnage to her; she feasts on the blood.”

  “You don’t seem to like that.”

  “Flowers grown in blood, they have the brightest colors. Blooms chose not their soil.”

  Lin paused, considering her words. “I could take you away from here. Find a nicer place to plant your roots. I just need you to let me through to the artifact.”

  Tsubaki seemed to consider it. However, even as she did, Lin watched her qi surging through the camellias. The shrub-like plants began to close across the stairs behind him, creeping ever closer to Hua Zhen’s sleeping form.

  Finally, she spun her parasol over her shoulder. “The Heart is precious. I cannot let you take it. Only pain follows.”

  “Then you leave me no choice,” Lin answered with a heavy heart. Yoru needed that artifact in order to restore the defenses and bring prosperity back to the Black City. There was no other choice.

  “You’ve chosen your fate. Here I thought you might save me. Shame it won't be so.”

  The words stabbed like daggers into Lin’s heart, but he pulled a seed from his core, priming it with volatile wood qi. He readied himself to receive the hail of razor-sharp leaves he expected from a spiritual plant.

  He barely had a chance to see the parasol morph before a brutal blade lunged for his head. Lin twisted, narrowly avoiding the blade as it passed by his nose close enough that he could see the wood pattern along its finely honed edge.

  In an instant, Moon Rose was free of its sheath. Lin spun, ducking behind her blade arm and slicing at her exposed flank. He expected her to dodge, to hop away on nimble feet to avoid being cut in half. Instead, she didn’t even try to avoid it. When Moon Rose cut cleanly through her body, she burst into a cloud of pollen, leaving a single camellia blossom in her wake.

  “The sect raised me well,” she said from behind. “I watch, I learn, I copy. I become a blade.”

  The sharpened edge of wood cut across Lin’s shoulder, but he only grimaced. She was strong, but his techniques had tasted hers. He was adapting to her blood-tainted qi, just as she’d adapted to survive in the sect’s estates. With each attack she made against him, he became more and more aware of the holes within her techniques, and could fortify himself against them.

  He lowered his blade, touching the tip to the qi-soaked ground before drawing it in a quick circle around him. The stones caved easily beneath his attack, and pebbles were drawn up by his blade. By the time he was facing Tsubaki once more, a small flick was all it took to throw a hail of stones at her. Her blade morphed back into a parasol to block the attack, but that was ultimately her downfall. Lin twisted his blade around, infusing Moon Rose with Wood qi only moments before slicing through her parasol and planting a solid kick to her chest.

  Tsubaki stumbled backwards, but her body was still largely undamaged. Lin flung a handful of his own seeds from his pocket. Vines glowing with his qi sprang to life, wrapping around her rooted sandals to hold her in place. She thrashed as she tried to release herself from their choking grip.

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  They would hold her long enough for Lin to complete his task. He hurled his explosive Soul Seed into the crimson array. Stones flew in every direction, and the array flickered as qi flowed inconsistently.

  Thick tendrils of dark qi began to seep from the ground. The resentment from the artifact was potent enough to stagnate the air in an instant. Lin took off at a run, leaping cleanly up the stairs to the small shrine. At the center, a heart seemingly carved from crimson jade rested on a pedestal. It pulsed with qi the same way a flesh heart would.

  Screams echoed in Lin’s ears, but he pushed them away. While his Sworn Brother might be keen to listen where voices lingered, he was not. Whatever these were, they were dangerous creations of an object filled with hate and pain. In time, they would be cleansed, but he didn’t have the time to worry about such things now.

  With exceptional care, Lin released Moon Rose to hover beside him. He held open the box, guiding the sword to gently push the artifact off its rest and into his portable containment array without touching it.

  As soon as it settled into the box, the screams died away. The pulsing qi calmed itself, and the heart looked no different than a mundane object.

  Curious, he thought. It’s like it didn’t like being here.

  Perhaps the only things that enjoyed being in the Domain of Blood were the sect masters. Certainly, no one else was keen on remaining near.

  Lin snapped the box closed and secured the latch in place. He could hear Tsubaki’s frustration mounting, and he needed to get Hua Zhen and flee before she escaped her bonds. He sprinted across the shrine grounds to the shade. Kneeling for only a moment, he let qi spark through his fingers and into Hua Zhen’s shoulder.

  “Wha! Tiger! That moon artist…he just-”

  “It wasn’t real! Come on, we have to get out of here!” Lin hissed to the shade.

  Trained for combat as he was, it took only a moment for Hua Zhen to recover his senses. The next, he was on his feet and following Lin down the stairs. The last thing they heard before the shade’s technique melted them away, was the frustrated screams of Tsubaki as she finally escaped her bonds.

  “Your Highness! That was amazing!” Hei Shenshou praised me as we sprinted through the gates of the Domain of Blood into the streets of the Black City. “You knew exactly the path to take, even after the maze bloomed!”

  “Yeah, totally,” I answered half-heartedly, ignoring the fifteen new tallies bleeding from my arm. With a swift action, I drew an arrow back on the string of my bow and fired it at one of the two disciples guarding the gate. He fell in a heap in the same moment as I turned, hurling a disk of moonlight to sever the throat of the other.

  Two, three, four, five, six, I counted silently as each disciple of Fate’s Eclipse escaped the sect grounds. As they fled, I cast a weathered eye over each one, ensuring that each one was free of even the smallest of injuries that could become infected with the filth of the Blood Stalking Demon Sect.

  The escape had not been easy. Mere minutes after the masters took their spectacular fall down the stairs, Xue Bashi must have triggered another layer of the estate’s defenses. In a few breaths the whole domain was overgrown with a vicious maze of tsubaki flowers growing across paths, altering the landscape, and turning the entire grounds into a dangerous, albeit much more beautiful, death trap.

  Keeping the disciples alive remained at the top of my priority list. In one iteration, one of them turned a corner, only to run headfirst into one of the masters, having been turned around during our escape. In another, we’d run into a dead end, only to have the path close behind us. When Shenshou tried to slice through them with claw and flame, the plants exploded in a whirlwind of thorns tipped with some kind of mind-altering poison. I barely finished the technique for Flash Back before succumbing alongside those in my care.

  Fifteen separate times, I’d unraveled reality in order to keep the disciples alive and unharmed. Such was my duty as their senior.

  “There! The Sect Leader wants the leader alive!” The shout rang clear behind us.

  I ushered the disciples into the city. With Shenshou at their head, they ducked into an alleyway and began weaving through the streets, every so often casting glances to the north to ensure that the high cliffs of the Dark Palace were still ahead of them.

  Slowly, I began to relax. We were so close to freedom that I could taste it. It tasted like Shenshou’s noodles, and I couldn’t wait to get back to Half-Moon Harbor and the kitchens therein.

  “Highness?” Shenshou whispered after nearly fifteen minutes of walking. “I believe we are being followed and watched.”

  I sighed. Of course, they couldn’t just accept their defeat with grace and let us go.

  As we crossed the next street, Shenshou discretely pointed out several individuals dressed in crimson at either end of the street. They watched with predatory gaze, tracking our movements and waiting for the right chance to strike.

  “We could try to slip by them,” Shenshou offered. “Create illusions to seem like we’re being corralled?”

  Even though I nodded in agreement, my pride curled at the suggestion. Shenshou couldn’t handle an illusion that covered all seven of us on his own, which meant that I’d need to help.

  I hated illusions.

  They were the lesser application of the moon’s true might. Any half-rate busker on the side of the road could create an illusion to help their performance, and though Shenshou’s techniques were traditional kitsune arts filled with complex trickery, they were still illusions at their heart.

  But just because they were lesser to the reality alterations that were my specialty didn’t mean that I couldn’t create illusions myself. I was the Avatar of the Moon. I just hadn’t created anything so insubstantial in millennia.

  “Fine. On my mark, then,” I instructed.

  Shenshou nodded. He and two others stepped from the group as the more martially inclined huddled together. We wove the technique, letting the shimmering qi land on the heads of each disciple before they stepped away, leaving a perfect copy behind.

  When the technique was in place, I studied the copies. Visually, they were perfect. However, I doubted that they would move through a crowd with the same motions as a substantial being. Any person they touched or bumped would know the difference instantly.

  This is why I prefer reality doubles, I internally grumbled. Moon Moth’s Reality Dance is a much more sophisticated technique.

  But, I would need at least a Quartz artist’s qi in order to use the technique that created such a convincing double as the Chain-bound Fury had been, and even that had been a poor copy compared to my usual standards. If my work was good enough, and it most often was, the double would have been perfect, able to interact with the world exactly as I would have, right down to its qi signature and form. Not even Jinshi or Lin would have been able to tell the difference, even if it stood side-by-side with the original.

  For now, though, the illusions would have to do. I added a few injuries to the illusions, hoping that a weaker group would entice our pursuers to overlook the potential inconsistencies in the image. Once they were ready, Shenshou gave the command. The illusions turned and scurried out of the alleyway, copying us perfectly, right down to Illusory Yoru doing a quick headcount of his wayward disciples before turning into the crowded street beyond.

  “Good work,” I praised them. Each of the illusionists beamed with pride as they took the praise in stride.

  “You’re entirely too generous, your highness,” Shenshou protested, as was polite, but I could see his tails swishing happily behind him.

  After several minutes, Shenshou poked his head into the street. None of our pursuers remained in sight, and we carefully crept into the crowd and continued north. Our diversion almost worked.

  Too late did I notice a strand of Voidlight misfortune hovering around Shenshou’s ear. It streaked away only moments before we crossed through the silver veil between districts. I tried to follow its path as we walked, catching only the barest glimpse of something gold before stepping through the veil.

  Blood beasts waited for us on the other side, minded by a boar-like yokai whose robes I recognized as one of the Blood Stalking Demon masters. Three nekomata stood further off, bloody qi forming around them as they summoned more of the sanguine abominations that flanked their master.

  “Well, isn’t this quite the web you find yourself trapped in,” the master snorted. Nearby his beasts growled and snapped at one of my disciples.

  “Is it just you?” I asked coyly. “I guess I gave you too much credit for making wise decisions.”

  The master snarled, stomping a hoof and cutting his hand on one of his tusks. From the wound, he drew blood that quickly congealed into a heavy club. The Fate’s Eclipse disciples took a wary step back, forming defensive ranks with their own weapons drawn. I stepped to the front, resummoning my bow to fight the master directly.

  Just as the boar charged, a brilliant flash of golden light erupted between us. I threw up a hand as the light burned against my skin. Neither my disciples nor my enemies fared any better.

  “It’s been a long time, Tsuyuki,” said a voice from the center of the sunlight. “I hope you missed me.”