Running barefoot through a forest at night was nothing like the stories made it sound.
There were no graceful leaps between moonlit branches, no silent footfalls on beds of moss. There was only pain, sharp rocks tearing skin, thorns catching flesh, roots sending her sprawling face-first into mud that tasted of rot and copper.
Lianyin hauled herself up again, lungs burning worse than the smoke had. How long had she been running? Minutes? Hours? The golden light of pursuit flares kept bursting overhead, each one closer than the last. The Celestial Dawn Sect wasn't known for giving up.
Turn left.
She jerked at the voice, his voice, and nearly ran straight into a tree. "Get out of my head!"
Turn left, you stubborn child, unless you fancy being skewered by that tracking formation they're setting up.
"I don't take orders from demons." But she turned left anyway, crashing through a thicket that left bloody scratches along her arms. Better than whatever a tracking formation would do to her.
Demon King, the voice corrected with insufferable smugness. Well, a fragment of one. The distinction matters.
"Shut up."
A branch snapped behind her. Close. Too close. Lianyin's newfound shadow magic stirred under her skin like something alive, begging to be used. She clenched her fists until her nails drew blood, refusing to give in. She'd seen what those shadows had done to Yaoyao's hand. She wouldn't—couldn't—
The sword came out of nowhere.
One moment she was stumbling over a fallen log, the next she was flat on her back with cold steel pressed against her throat. The cultivator loomed above her, face hidden behind a pristine white mask marked with the Dawn Sect's sun emblem.
"Demon vessel Mo Lianyin," he intoned, as if reading from a script. "By order of the Celestial Dawn Sect, you are sentenced to—"
Something black and sleek slammed into him from the side. The cultivator went down with a startled cry, his sword spinning away into the underbrush. Lianyin scrambled backward, watching in stunned silence as a... panther cub? Yes, definitely a panther cub, no bigger than a house cat, sat on the cultivator's chest looking immensely pleased with itself.
"Mrow?" The cub tilted its head at her, golden eyes bright with mischief.
The cultivator groaned, trying to push himself up. The cub promptly bit his nose.
"OW! You little..." His words cut off in a gurgle as shadows suddenly erupted from beneath him, wrapping around his limbs like living chains. Not Lianyin's shadows, these were different. Older. They dragged him down into the earth itself, muffling his screams until only silence remained.
The panther cub licked its paw, utterly unconcerned with having just helped murder a man.
Ah, the Demon King mused. So that's where Mochi went.
"Mochi?" Lianyin stared at the cub, which was now rubbing against her leg like a common housecat. "This... this thing has a name?"
My throne guardian. Well, former throne guardian. Seems the seal breaking woke him up too. A pause. Don't let his size fool you. That's just his preferred form. Mochi once ate an entire battalion of heavenly soldiers.
The cub purred. It was disturbingly cute for something that apparently ate people.
"I can't, this is insane." Lianyin pressed her palms against her eyes, trying to think through the chaos of the last hour. The orphanage. The fire. Yaoyao's betrayal. The jade pendant shattering and releasing... whatever this was. "Why me? Why was that seal on me?"
Because your bloodline is special, little lotus. Only certain souls can contain a Demon King without immediately exploding into chunks. His tone was conversational, as if discussing the weather. Your parents knew this. That's why they—
"My parents are dead." The words came out sharper than intended.
Are they?
Before she could demand an answer, more flares burst overhead. The search net was tightening. Mochi made a low growling sound, tiny body tensing.
"We need to move," Lianyin muttered, forcing herself to her feet. Everything hurt. Her feet were shredded, her nightrobe torn and stained with blood and mud. She looked like exactly what she was, a desperate fugitive with nowhere to go.
Northeast, the Demon King suggested. There's something... interesting in that direction.
"I told you, I don't..."
Trust the demon who's kept you alive this long, or trust your own stellar sense of direction that had you running in circles?
He had a point. Damn him.
Lianyin limped northeast, Mochi padding silently beside her like a shadow given form. The forest grew denser, older, the trees twisted into shapes that hurt to look at directly. No pursuit flares lit this part of the sky. Even the moon seemed reluctant to shine here.
"What is this place?"
Somewhere even the righteous sects fear to tread. The Demon King's voice held something that might have been anticipation. Perfect for a young demon vessel on the run, wouldn't you say?
She wanted to argue that she wasn't a demon vessel, that this was all some horrible mistake. But the shadows still writhed beneath her skin, eager and hungry. The truth sat heavy in her chest, right where the jade pendant used to rest.
Mo Lianyin, orphan of Whitecrane, was gone.
What remained was something else entirely.
Something the world would learn to fear.