An assassin slithering up from the ground like death itself, his blade glinting as it aimed straight for the general's thigh. But here's the thing about the Demon General: he doesn't move like ordinary men. Water flows around rocks, bends with the current, and finds the path of least resistance. That's exactly how he moved. His iron boot met the assassin's ribcage with a sound that made Xue's stomach lurch. You know that hollow crack when you step on dry branches in winter? It was like that, but wetter, more final.
The man launched backward through the air, his body folding unnaturally before slamming into an ancient oak tree. The impact painted a crimson smear down the rough bark as he slumped to the gnarled roots below, blood trickling from his slack mouth like spilled wine.
Two more killers charged from opposite sides, thinking they were clever. Fools don't learn, do they? They never do.
The general's laugh crawled up Xue's spine like ice water. Low and jagged, like someone dragging broken glass across stone in the dead of night. His sword whispered free from its sheath, and I tell you, this wasn't any ordinary blade. Black as the deepest part of a moonless lake, its edges rippled and danced with something that made your eyes water to look at directly. Not quite flame, not quite shadow, but hungry. Alive!
One sweep of that impossible weapon. Clean. Precise. Beautiful in its horror.
Both attackers crumpled like marionettes with cut strings, folding at the waist as if bowing to their executioner. Blood arced through the air in perfect crimson ribbons, painting the forest floor in patterns that would haunt your dreams. Above them, a murder of ravens cawed their displeasure, as if these rude humans had interrupted their evening meal preparations.
Xue pressed herself deeper into the shadows between two twisted pine trees, her heart hammering against her ribs like a caged bird desperate for freedom. The sound filled her ears so completely she was certain the entire forest could hear it. A wild thought flickered through her mind: maybe she was already dead, maybe ghosts could feel this bone-deep terror that made her fingers shake and her breath come in quick gasps.
Min crawled toward her across the blood-soaked earth, her silk robes dragging through mud and worse things. The girl's mouth opened and closed soundlessly, like a fish drowning in air, her eyes so wide with shock they seemed ready to fall from her skull. Somewhere in the chaos and screaming, Pei had simply vanished. Dead? Hidden? Fled like a smart person? Xue couldn't tell, and the fact that she couldn't bring herself to care more made guilt twist in her belly like a knife.
The Demon General wheeled his massive black stallion in a slow, deliberate circle, those silver slits in his mask fixed on her hiding spot with the patience of a hunting cat. The weight of his attention pressed against her chest, making it hard to breathe, making every instinct scream at her to run screaming into the deepest part of the woods where maybe, just maybe, the monsters couldn't follow.
Enough. The word rolled from his throat like thunder, promising a storm that would level mountains. Fall back.
Just like that, the remaining assassins melted away into the undergrowth like morning mist touched by sunlight. They abandoned their wounded comrades without looking back, stepping over broken bodies. Professional killers, then. The expensive kind who weighed profit against loyalty and found loyalty wanting every single time.
The general dismounted with the fluid grace of spilled mercury. No wasted motion, no theatrical flourishes, just lethal efficiency wrapped in black silk and polished steel. His boots squelched obscenely in the blood-soaked earth as he approached, each step deliberate as a funeral march.
He extended one gloved hand toward her.
Xue stared at those leather-clad fingers like they might burst into flames. Every survival instinct her tutors had beaten into her screamed warnings about accepting help from demons, about gifts that came with prices written in blood, about smiling devils who wore the faces of saviors. But Min was sobbing against her shoulder, her whole body shaking like fall leaves in a gale, and the surrounding forest suddenly felt populated with hungry, watching eyes.
When she finally took his hand, his grip burned through the leather like he had a fire in his veins instead of blood. Strange. She'd expected the touch of something cold and dead, not this fevered heat that made her skin tingle.
The scent follows you, he said, pulling her to her feet with a careful strength that could have crushed her bones if he'd chosen. We need to move. Now.
Scent? The word caught in her throat before she could voice it. What scent? Dragons could smell fear, couldn't they? Could taste desperation in the air like copper pennies? Or was it something else entirely, something about her bloodline that she didn't understand yet but that painted a target on her back visible from miles away?
Min collapsed against her like a broken doll, shaking so hard her teeth chattered audibly. The poor girl had witnessed enough death for ten lifetimes in minutes. Hell, they all had. The metallic taste of blood hung in the air so thick you could chew it.
Without another word, the general led them away from the road into the forest's green throat. Ancient trees pressed close on all sides, their branches interlocking overhead like arthritic fingers, blocking out all but scattered coins of dying sunlight. The air grew thick and humid, filled with the rich smell of decomposing leaves and hidden, growing things.
Xue felt like water had replaced her legs, but she forced them to keep moving. Behind them, she could hear wet, tearing sounds that she refused to think about too carefully. The ravens had found their dinner after all.
The deeper they went, the more the woods seemed to close around them like a living thing. Massive oaks and towering pines twisted together in impossible tangles, their bark scarred by centuries of storms and battles. Moss from every surface like funeral shrouds, and strange blue-white mushrooms glowed with their own inner light along the forest floor, marking their path like the wisps leading to their doom.
General moved through this maze of green shadows; he could see perfectly in absolute darkness, never stumbling over hidden roots, never walking into low-hanging branches, never hesitating at the countless forks in their makeshift trail. Xue struggled to match his pace while half-carrying Min, who seemed to grow smaller and more fragile with every shadow they passed through.
When they finally stopped in a small clearing ringed by silver birch trees, the silence hit them like a physical blow. No insects buzzing. Night birds are calling. No small creatures rustling through the underbrush. Just the sound of their own labored breathing and the distant whisper of wind through leaves that sounded almost like voices speaking in a language she didn't recognize.
The general stood motionless as a statue in the center of the clearing, one hand resting casually on his sword hilt. But Xue could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his head tilted slightly to catch sounds her merely human ears couldn't detect. He was listening. Hunting. Waiting for whatever was following them to make its move.
Min's voice cracked like thin ice when she finally spoke: Who are you?
The mask tilted toward her first, then swiveled to focus on Xue with the mechanical precision of a siege weapon aiming. For just a moment, she thought she glimpsed something human flickering behind those silver slits. Something that might have been regret, or longing, or perhaps just the reflection of starlight. Then it was gone, leaving only cold metal and mystery.
Someone who keeps promises, he said at last, and his voice carried the weight of iron oaths and blood debts.
Promises? What promises? Her mind raced through possibilities. The marriage contract her father had signed? Some ancient oath between their bloodlines? Or was it something deeper, more personal, connected to the strange heat she'd felt in his touch and the way her dragon soul seemed to recognize something familiar in his presence?
You'll follow me, he continued, and the words carried no trace of question or doubt. I'll keep you breathing.
Not safe, she noticed. Not protected or cherished or any of the pretty lies that marriage contracts usually promise. Just breathing. In a world where death presented many unfamiliar faces and enough silver could buy loyalty, survival was the most anyone could hope for.
The night journey that followed blurred into a waking nightmare of stumbling feet and grasping branches that seemed determined to tear the clothes from their backs. They followed deer paths and dried creek beds, always keeping to the difficult routes where pursuing cavalry would find the going slow and treacherous. Flickering torchlight marked the easier roads on distant hilltops, but the general led them away from anything that looked remotely comfortable or safe.
He stayed twenty paces ahead at all times, a moving shadow that never seemed to tire or need rest. His black cape flowed behind him like liquid darkness, and more than once Xue found herself thinking if he was entirely human or something else wearing human shape for convenience.
Min clung to Xue's sleeve like a drowning child clutching driftwood, dragging her feet and making small whimpering sounds that broke Xue's heart. The girl had been sheltered all her life and had been trained only to serve tea and arrange flowers. This world of blood and death was killing something innocent inside her with every step.
Several times during their march, Xue thought she heard extra footsteps echoing theirs. Steady, deliberate, just slightly out of rhythm with their own pace. Each time she looked back over her shoulder, straining her eyes to penetrate the darkness, she saw nothing but empty shadows and swaying branches. But the feeling of being watched, being hunted, never left her.
When the Demon General's palace finally rose from the earth before them, Xue's first thought was that they'd stumbled into a fever dream painted by a madman.
Towers of black stone twisted upward at impossible angles, connected by bridges and walkways that defied every law of architecture she'd ever learned. The walls bristled with iron spikes and cruel barbs, as if the entire structure were designed to keep the world out and its secrets in. Battlements crowned with razor wire caught moonlight and threw it back in sharp, cutting fragments. The main gates stood closed and barred, their metal teeth gleaming like the maw of some ancient, sleeping beast.
They reached the gatehouse just as the last torches along the walls guttered and died, leaving them in absolute darkness. No guards challenged them. No horns announced their arrival. Just silence so thick it seemed to have physical weight, pressing down on their shoulders like grave dirt.
Xue hammered her fist against the iron gate until her knuckles split and bled, the sound echoing into what felt like an endless void. Each impact sent shock waves up her arm, but the gate resisted her efforts as if it were carved from a mountain.
We'll freeze to death out here, Min whispered through chattering teeth, her breath forming pale clouds in the suddenly frigid air.
Like hell we will.
The words surprised Xue as much as they did Min. When had her voice taken on that edge of steel? When had she stopped being someone who waited for rescue and started being someone who made her own luck through sheer bloody-minded determination?
She studied the wall with calculating eyes, measuring height against reach, looking for handholds and weak points. Her silk slippers came off without ceremony. Better to climb barefoot anyway, with toes that could grip and feel their way up the rough stone. The iron was cold enough to freeze skin on contact, and rust flakes bit into her palms like tiny teeth, but she hauled herself upward anyway, muscles screaming protest with every inch gained.
At the top, inward-pointing spikes waited to gut anyone foolish enough to try climbing over. Each was as long as her forearm and sharp enough to shave with. Xue gathered her ruined skirts around her thighs, took a deep breath that tasted of iron and old blood, and rolled herself across the spikes with desperate precision. Silk tore like sighs. Skin parted like prayer. She landed hard in wet grass on the other side, jarring every bone in her body but miraculously still in one piece.
The inner courtyard spread before her like something from a dream of paradise and nightmare. Night-blooming jasmine filled the air with perfume so thick it was almost narcotic, competing with the darker scents of old secrets and fresh earth. Paths of white stone wound between flower beds where impossible blue blossoms glowed with their own inner light, pulsing in slow rhythm like sleeping heartbeats. Beautiful and wrong, like everything else about this cursed place that was supposed to be her new home.
She found her way inside through persistence, luck, and the desperate cleverness that comes when all other options have been exhausted. A low terrace provided access to a convenient trellis covered in climbing roses that left her arms ribboned with thorn cuts. An open window on the second floor beckoned like a mouth waiting to swallow unwary travelers.
The corridor beyond that window was colder than the night air outside; its floor was made entirely of broken mirror pieces set into the stone like a mosaic designed by a madman. Each shard caught fragments of her reflection and threw them back multiplied and distorted: here an eye, there a bleeding cheek, everywhere pieces of herself scattered and broken, watching her pass with accusing stares.
Torchlight flickered along the walls at irregular intervals, casting dancing shadows that seemed to move independently of their flames. The air tasted of copper and old magic, making her tongue feel thick and her head swim with vertigo.
Voices leaked through the crack beneath a heavy oak door ahead of her, low and urgent and careful in the way of conspirators sharing dangerous secrets.
She'll be here soon. The girl has more spine than anyone expected.
The first voice had a cultured tone, with hints of surprise and possibly begrudging respect.
Spine won't save her from what's coming, replied a second speaker, deeper and grimmer. Her sister's desperation grows by the day. Blood calls to blood, and dragons remember their debts.
A third voice cut through the others like silk sliding over steel: She's listening now.
Xue's blood turned to ice water in her veins, freezing her in a place like a rabbit caught in a hunter's torchlight. Before she could so much as twitch a muscle, iron-strong hands clamped over her mouth and seized her shoulder. She bit down hard on leather and salt, stamped backward with her bare heel, twisted like a snake trying to escape a hawk's talons. But whoever held her possessed strength that made physics seem like a polite suggestion rather than an immutable law.
The world spun around her like a child's top. Stars exploded behind her closed eyelids in patterns that spelled out words in languages she didn't recognize. When her vision finally cleared and the spinning stopped, she found herself staring into a face that belonged in paintings of angels and demons fighting for men's souls.
Skin pale as moonlight on fresh snow. Lips red as fresh-spilled blood, curved in what might have been a smile if smiles could be carved from winter itself. Midnight armor clung to his form like a second skin, each scale edged with crimson thread that seemed to move and pulse with its own inner life. A silver half-mask covered the right side of his face in elegant, flowing lines that suggested rather than concealed the features beneath.
What the mask revealed was almost worse than what it hid. One eye, dark as the space between stars but burning with intelligence that cut like a blade. A mouth that had never smiled at anything innocent, curved in lines that spoke of secrets and cruelties and hungers that decent people didn't name aloud.
Xue's heart tried to climb out of her throat and flee screaming into the night. This wasn't a simple capture by palace guards or even interrogation by suspicious allies.
This was checkmate, announced by a major player who had been thinking ten moves ahead while she was still learning the rules of the game.
And in the shadows behind those perfect, terrible features, she glimpsed something that stopped her breath entirely. Recognition. Her arrival seemed to have been planned in every detail, and those burning eyes waited for her specifically.
As if every single thing that had happened tonight, from the assassination attempt to her desperate climb over the palace walls, had been nothing more than moves in a game whose rules she was only now beginning to understand.