The Underworld.
The words hung in the air, heavy and absolute. My blood, which had just started to warm up again, turned to ice.
"The Underworld?" I repeated, my voice barely a whisper. "You mean… hell? With the fire and the screaming and the… well, demons?"
Di Jun let out a long-suffering sigh, the kind of sigh you give when a child asks a particularly stupid question. "Your imagination is so… limited. It is not a pit of eternal damnation for mortal sinners. It is a realm. A different plane of existence. It has mountains, and rivers, and cities. It just… operates on a different set of principles."
"Principles like 'eat or be eaten'?" I asked, getting to my feet, my legs still shaky.
"That is a guiding principle, yes," he said, a flicker of amusement in his eyes. "But mostly it's just… gloomy. And the food is terrible."
I stared at him. He was being serious. He was talking about taking me to his home, the capital of the demon realm, like he was suggesting we take a trip to a neighboring village.
"I can't go to the Underworld," I said, stating the obvious. "I'm a mortal. A healer. My entire being is… Yang. I'm like a walking, talking bonfire. Won't I, you know, explode? Or at the very least, cause a panic?"
"You will not explode," he said, his patience clearly wearing thin. "The Soul Binding protects you. My Yin energy acts as a shield, a cloak. To them, you will just seem… strange. An anomaly. Not a threat."
"An anomaly," I said, nodding slowly. "That's comforting."
"It is the only way," he said, his voice losing all trace of amusement. "Lianhua's power is celestial. She can see into the Mortal Realm, and most of the Underworld. But there is one place she cannot see. The palace. My throne room. It is warded with primordial magic so ancient even she cannot comprehend it. It is the only place you will be safe."
I looked around the small, comfortable kitchen. I thought of my village, my clinic, my simple, predictable life. It was gone. It had been gone the moment I made that deal. The realization hit me like a physical blow.
"So that's it," I said, my voice hollow. "I just… say goodbye to everything I've ever known and go live in a spooky castle in a land of monsters."
"You say goodbye to nothing," he said, his voice sharp. "Everything you have ever known is currently trying to kill you. Your village is not safe. The Mortal Realm is not safe. The only place in this entire existence where you have even a chance of survival is by my side. In my home."
He was right. I hated it, but he was right.
"How do we get there?" I asked, my voice small.
"There is a gateway," he said. "A natural tear between the realms. A few days' journey from here. In the mountains."
"Of course there is," I muttered. "A few days' journey. Because nothing can ever be easy."
He walked over to me, his expression softening slightly. "I will not let anything happen to you," he said, his voice low and serious. "You are my… project. I am not finished with you yet."
It was the closest he could get to saying "I care about you," and I knew it. I felt a surge of warmth, a tiny spark of the sun we had created together.
"Fine," I said, squaring my shoulders. "Let's go to your gloomy, terrible-food kingdom. But I'm packing my own herbs."
A small, genuine smile touched his lips. "I would expect nothing less."
Meanwhile, in the celestial realm, the atmosphere was serene.
Goddess Lianhua sat in her private chambers, the Soul-Whisper Bell in her hand. Her face was a mask of cold fury.
Her handmaiden stood before her, trembling. "My lady, the bell… it went silent. Did the mortal girl…?"
"She broke it," Lianhua said, her voice dangerously quiet. "She broke the connection. I don't know how. But he helped her. He was inside her mind."
She stood up and walked to her scrying pool. The image of the forest was gone. In its place was a swirling, chaotic vortex.
"They are going to the Underworld," she said, her eyes narrowing. "He is taking her to the one place I cannot follow."
"What will you do, my lady?" the handmaiden asked.
Lianhua's lips curved into a cruel, predatory smile. "He thinks he is taking her to safety. He is a fool. He is taking her to the lion's den. He may have warded his palace, but the rest of the Underworld is a nest of vipers. And I know just which serpent to whisper to."
She waved her hand over the pool, and the image resolved into the throne room of the Iron Tyrant, Lord Ying. He was laughing, celebrating his impending coup.
"Lord Ying," Lianhua's voice echoed in his mind, a whisper that only he could hear. "I have a gift for you. The location of your lost king. And the mortal witch who has him ensnared. Bring her to me, and the Underworld will be yours."
Lord Ying's laughter stopped. A slow, greedy smile spread across his face.
We left the city at dawn, slipping out through a hole in the wall Di Jun created with a flick of his wrist. We traveled light, with only a small pack of my essentials—herbs, a change of clothes, and the carved sparrow my brother had made.
The journey was… awkward.
We didn't talk much. The memory of the kiss, and the subsequent psychic attack, hung between us like a thick fog. Every time our hands brushed, we both flinched away. The bond was a constant, buzzing reminder of our shared intimacy and shared trauma.
After a few days, we reached the mountains. The air grew cold, and the landscape became rugged and unforgiving.
"The gateway is just ahead," Di Jun said, pointing to a dark, foreboding cave.
I took a deep breath, my heart pounding. This was it. The point of no return.
We walked into the cave. It was dark and damp, the air thick with the smell of ozone and something else… something ancient and wild.
At the back of the cave was a wall of solid rock. But in the center of the wall was a shimmering, distortion, like heat haze rising from asphalt. It was a tear in the fabric of reality.
"This is it," Di Jun said. "The gateway to the Underworld. Stay close to me. Do not let go of my hand."
I nodded, my throat too tight to speak. I took his hand. It was cold, as always, but this time, I squeezed it tight.
He looked down at our joined hands, then at me. A strange, unreadable emotion flickered in his eyes.
"Ready?" he asked.
"No," I said honestly. "But let's do it anyway."
He gave me a small, almost imperceptible smile. And then he pulled me through the gateway.
The world dissolved into a vortex of screaming color and deafening noise. It felt like being torn apart and put back together in a single, terrifying instant.
And then, we were standing on the other side.
The air was cold and thin, and smelled of rain and metal. The sky was a perpetual twilight of deep violet and crimson. Jagged mountains of black stone pierced the sky, and rivers of what looked like liquid starlight flowed through valleys of black sand.
It was the most beautiful and terrifying place I had ever seen.
"Welcome home," Di Jun said, his voice a low rumble.
And in the distance, I saw it. A city built into the side of the largest mountain, a sprawling fortress of black obsidian and bone. A city of monsters.
My new home.