I looked down at the book as I noted my plans. The page already held neat rows of tasks and arrows connecting them. The ink had dried unevenly where my pen had paused over certain words. The Divine Tree’s leaves would naturally have to be mixed with the bombs. Bombs, lasers, and the Divine Tree leaves together?
Perhaps that combo could damage the evil god. Maybe even kill him.
I would need to look into that, get so references. Maybe even talk to Matriarch Shie more about it, I thought, though I wasn’t sure if she would know. The easy way would be to talk to my master and Granny Lang, but was I really willing to hurt them with this knowledge?
I noted the idea down anyway. I had to tell Yin to add those leaves in. After that, I had to try testing these leaves and see if I could use them as batteries. If I connected them to the Divine Tree, could they potentially restore Matriarch Shie’s and my master’s cultivation? Hell, if they can restore cultivation, can they grant cultivation to mortals? I couldn’t make that many leaves, of course, and give every mortal cultivation, but for the theoretical purpose of it, would it be possible? Because Shi Yan Yun’s theory had been sothing similar, right? That old debate—pool the world’s surplus and distribute it to all, hold the lever forever, keep everyone lifted by a steady hand. The argunt had been simple in its pitch and dangerous in its reach.
But tapping into the resources of heaven and distributing them to mortals. Could I do sothing similar to that? I wondered. Of course… even if it wasn’t for all of them, as long as I kept their cultivation, just allowed them to experience Chi and have longer lives…
That should be doable even for a large number of people. I noted that down in the book, too.
Inventory:
– existing warheads, large and small
– laser rigs and capacitors
– formation plates for focusing beams
– leaf infusion thod (to be tested)
– carriers and shielding
– failsafes
The word failsafes had a double underline and a box around it.
Contingencies:
– if the seal weakens early
– if he adapts to light-based damage
– if internal detonation fails
– if the leaves don’t hold charge
– if his minions flood the periter
– if command lines break
My pen hovered. The seal around the demon was holding because the tree was still intercepting part of the miasma and feeding it back into the earth, but the city could not live under that pressure forever.
Then I turned to the last line I’d left blank on purpose and wrote the question I did not want to write.
What if bombs don’t work?
The pen scratched hard enough to dent the paper. I made myself loosen my grip.
Then naturally there was no other option but sacrifice, right? And so I wrote that down, underlining those two lines. I did not want to sacrifice myself. I did not want to give up my life.
But if there was no other option. If the bombs were not enough to kill the demon god, if I could not think of any other thod, then I had to do it myself. Sacrificing myself would be better than feeling that worthlessness of failing my friends, after all.
I would never want to feel that again. If I could save everyone, take down the demon god, at least I could et the Emperor and Lord Zhou with my head raised high, having fulfilled my duties as soone responsible for the lives of the citizens, as a good friend. I nodded to myself and made a small mark to the side that ant decision recorded.
Right then, I heard a knock on the door.
It opened and, in walked Qiao Ying. He looked thinner than last season and more sure of himself at the sa ti. The cuff of his sleeve had been nded twice by the sa hand, and his boots were clean. His hair was tied back with a strip of standard runner’s blue, and he carried three rolled slips under one arm.
“It’s true—” he spluttered, even though he must’ve known by now. His eyes went wet and his back straightened, as if two different ssages had just reached his body at the sa ti. “I had heard the claims, but to see you in the flesh once again, my lord! It is an honor.”
I chuckled. “Always so dramatic, Qiao Ying.” Though if I were in his position and one of my friends rose from the dead, I’d have been just as surprised. But I couldn’t help poking fun at my poor retainer.
Qiao Ying laughed at my words, a short laugh that released sothing caught in his throat. “Yes, yes, you are soone truly amazing, it is only natural that you have been revived from death.” He walked up beside , reaching my shoulder and peeking toward the books, his eyes skimming over my notes. I snapped the book shut, rembering what I’d written on the last line, but it was too late.
Qiao Ying’s eyes widened. “Sacrifice? Master… what you’ve written, what does that an?” I could hear the horror in his voice. “I do not understand. If the demon god… those are clearly plans to take him down, yes? If traditional thods don’t work, what do you plan to do?”
For a second, the instinct to not hurt my friends roared forward… and then dulled. The desire not to lie to Qiao Ying, not to lie to my friends, took over. I sighed. “I t… Ki, I assu the others have told you about that part?”
“General Zhang did tell what you’d experienced, my lord, eting the Qilin and being acknowledged as the Divine Child chosen by the Tree of Life, but…” He glanced down at the book under my hand. His voice grew faint, almost choked. “You cannot an to…”
“Would you rather I stand by and watch the world be destroyed, the cycle locked to death’s whims?”
“Of course not, but surely you can find another way. You have so much knowledge, so much power! You are the most wise sage ever to be born. You have defied fate and the heavens so many tis. Surely you can find another way.”
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“I hope so too. Trust , I don’t want to…” I struggled to find a word, since I wouldn’t die, not exactly, but no longer be myself. Eventually settled on, “I have no desire to leave you all behind, which is why I’m trying to think of other thods. But if worse cos to worst, there is no one else who can do this. Even for , it will not be easy. If the Demon God is to be ended, it will require all that I have to give.”
“So you’ll need to sacrifice yourself,” Qiao Ying muttered, paling.
“Yes. Short of a miracle, I will have to sacrifice myself. For real this ti. But for now, I have long enough to be sure you’re all ready to face whatever cos after. I would spare you additional suffering, if it’s in my power to do so.”
Qiao Ying stuttered for a few seconds, then processed what he’d heard. He balled his fists, his expression turning blank. I could already tell what kind of thoughts were passing through his mind. Qiao Ying was an honorable person who truly understood the duty and responsibility that ca with leadership.
What was one life in front of all the lives that were lost, in front of all the lives that could be saved?
He bowed. His back stayed straight and his neck bent just enough to count as formal. “It is an honor serving soone like you.” I could hear the emotions he struggled to contain, the tears threatening to break through.
I did not comnt on that. I only put my hand on his shoulder and helped him rise. “And it is an honor having soone like you serve .”
Qiao Ying just nodded, and for a few seconds there was silence. The sounds outside reached in through the shutters, the clatter of a crate set down too hard on a cart. Then he said, “I understand why you might be unwilling to tell people about this, my lord. But even if it’s not my position, I would like to give you so advice.”
“Advice?”
“Please, do confide this in people you trust, people who deserve to know. It is better for them to hear it from you than to face your loss suddenly. I would know. I saw how your disappearance affected your loved ones, and it was not pretty. You have ti to prepare us, you said, but that doesn’t only an with war machines and pill recipes. Don’t disappear without saying goodbye this ti.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. Images stacked themselves without effort.
Labby on the cliff ledge with lightning running along her claws and tears drying on her cheeks.
Zhang reading a ssage with his spear across his back and his jaw locked until it hurt.
Liuxiang standing by a door with a bowl of soup that had gone cold because she would not leave the hallway until she knew whether to smile or prepare a room for mourning rites.
Yin asleep at a workbench with her hair caught in an inkstone and a cramp in her hand from copying procedures in triplicate for the new units.
The old man sitting very still because standing up too fast made his breath hitch.
Granny Lang setting down a kettle with steady hands even when her eyes had gone red.
The city that used to a village, now quiet and dominated by the distant tree that kept the worst thing from walking, while its lesser spawn still needed to be cut down every day.
“Knowing you, my lord, you probably don’t want to hurt them. But I assure you, not telling them would hurt them even more than if you were to just confess. And weren’t you the one who always says that it’s better for many people to think through a solution than for a single person to do so? Then wouldn’t it be better for you to co clean to your master, to Yin, to your loved ones? Many are great and knowledgeable people, surely you could try to co together with a solution with them? One that doesn’t rely on concealing the truth of what you face?”
I didn’t answer imdiately. I set the pen down across the top of the book and moved the inkwell two fingers to the left so I wouldn’t knock it over. “What would I say? If I gather them and tell them this, what do I say that doesn’t tear sothing open before we know if we even need to?”
“You say the truth. You say you are trying everything. You say you have a plan that does not end with that. You say you also understand what may be required if all else fails. You ask for their help in making the first plan work, so the second never needs to be used. Or if there is a way to modify the second so it does not cost so much.”
I watched him speak and thought about the words sitting in my throat that I had not let out. The room had a clean sll—li, spirit ink, tal filings from the shop next door. The shutters let in a strip of winter light. My own handwriting looked too neat for what it carried.
“I’ve not stopped trying,” I said. “But I do not know if they are viable.”
“And I know you will keep trying, my lord,” Qiao Ying said. He didn’t cut off to belittle . He cut off because the list would not run out. “But you also know sothing the rest of us do not. You t Ki. You heard what she asked. That is knowledge. Knowledge kept alone is a weight and a temptation. I do not want you to carry it alone and I do not want it to decide for you at the end because you could not speak it aloud before.”
He set his rolled slips on the desk and didn’t look at them. His hands were steady now.
“Qiao Ying,” I said, “if the worst happens, I don’t want their last mories of to be of a eting where I told them I intended to leave them.”
He nodded once, the way a soldier nods when he hears a sentence he has said to himself. “Then do not make that the last mory. Make it one of many. Speak now, then eat with them, then work with them. Argue with Yin about safety protocols until she threatens to chain you to your chair. Walk with Labby to the range. Ask Zhang to duel with you. Tell Liuxiang to visit her grandmother. Remind Lord Zhou he is not his father and does not need to carry himself as if he is, even though he is carrying a mountain of responsibilities we gave him. Sleep six hours. Then do it again tomorrow. If the worst cos, their last mory will be the day itself, not the talk.”
Outside, the bell rang again. The ss hall would begin serving in a few breaths. The line would form, and the youngest would try to stand too straight when the seniors walked past, and soone would trip because the benches were too close, and the stew would taste a little of ash when the wind shifted from the slter.
“Do you judge for even considering it?” I asked quietly.
“No. I would judge you if you didn’t consider every plan we had.”
I huffed a breath. “That’s not the sa as approving.”
“It is the sa as living in the world as it is. Approval is for when there is ti. There is no ti.” He glanced toward the window at the south, toward the city growing along the cliff where there had once been only terraces and a lazy stream. “We moved everything here because there was no ti. Azure City is not safe and will not be safe for a long ti. People know this now. They are still waking up each day and doing what must be done. I cannot ask you to not do the sa thing.”
He was right about the city. He was right about why my rooms were here and not there. He was right about why the line outside never stopped moving between dawn and dusk. He was right that the tree would not hold forever. He was right that many people thinking at a problem gives more chances to find an angle than one person carrying it in his head until the hour arrives. He was right that hiding it did not protect anyone. He was right that I had taught him half of these lines by my own example when I chose to teach boys who had never touched a spirit seal to march with rifles and hold the old road in winter. He was right that a clear sentence spoken in ti can change what the end looks like, even if it does not change the end.
My throat felt tight. I pressed two fingers between my eyes and let them stay there until the pressure eased.
“All right. I’ll talk to them.”
Qiao Ying’s expression beca just as grave as mine, because while we both knew this was sothing necessary… It was not sothing either of us liked doing.
“Who will you tell first?” he asked.
I looked at the closed book under my hand, then at the door. I could picture their faces without effort: Master setting his cup down and folding his hands; Granny Lang standing with her weight on one leg and her eyes sharper than usual; Yin with ink on her cheek and a tool still in her hand; Zhang not sitting at all; Liuxiang’s spine straight and her gaze steady; Labby on a stool she would not stay on; Sheldon with his upward mouth and Ash as a fluffy wolf. It felt wrong to stagger it, to repeat the sentence and watch it land again and again like a test I was running on them.
“No first. Together.”
Qiao Ying nodded once. “That is better.”
“But I will first discuss with Yin, Granny Lang and my master if there is any other solution at all.” I raised an eyebrow when he looked like he would argue, making him go quiet. “I will only confess to the rest if there isn’t.”
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