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Mo Xuanyu’s daemon, a shy little viper, coiled and coiled around Jianjue who cradled her in his paws as if made of glass. The man himself sobbed into Nie Huaisang’s robes, curled halfway into his lap. It was a novel thing to hold someone that acted so much smaller than him, who made himself curl even smaller until even Nie Huaisang’s spine and lungs ached in sympathy.
“I’m sorry,” Nie Huaisang said, gently undoing Mo Xuanyu’s hair so he could card his fingers through it, rubbing his fingertips into the man’s scalp soothingly. Jianjue pet Mo Xuanyu’s daemon once more before tugging her close and nosing her angular face with his snout. “People can be so cruel.”
Yet he was about to be even crueler by what he was going to suggest to a young man in an altered state.
“I hate them,” Mo Xuanyu sobbed. “I don’t want to go back, they’ll kill me!”
Jianjue didn’t have to pretend to feel sympathy for the young man and his daemon. He began to clean Mo Xuanyu’s little viper daemon in earnest, making little grumbles in his throat as if he tried to purr like a cat. The viper curled ever closer, constricting Jianjue as if she intended to fuse into a single daemon with him.
If there weren’t other things on his mind, Nie Huaisang was certain that he’d have tried to bring Mo Xuanyu home with him. If a lot of things hadn’t happened, he thought that da-ge might have enjoyed how clever and sweet the young man could be.
The thought of his brother—dead, murdered, mutilated—made Nie Huaisang’s hands briefly clench. How many years had it been? And he was no closer.
Which was where Mo Xuanyu came into the picture.
In the past few months, Nie Huaisang had watched his mental state spiral out of control. He’d seen the young man in Lanling, yet another bastard of Jin Guangshan, and watched Jin Guangyao take him in and just as easily cast him out. When he returned to his home village, he fractured further. There had already been cracks but beneath their thumb he had shattered.
It broke Nie Huaisang’s heart, or would have if it hadn’t already also been shattered by Jin Guangyao and Jin Daxia.
“Oh, A-Yu,” Nie Huaisang purred and cradled Mo Xuanyu closer. “If only I could take you with me.”
Despite his words, the young man didn’t want to leave, which worked well for Nie Huaisang. It would have been much harder to convince Mo Xuanyu to do what Nie Huaisang and Jianjue needed him to do if he had been desperate to escape. But hate had taken root in his heart and pinned him in place like a butterfly to a board.
A part of him, a distant, buried part of him that was all that remained of the Nie Huaisang that his da-ge had known, wished that he could afford to uproot Mo Xuanyu and take him back to Qinghe and show him the life that his kind heart deserved.
But like a rabid animal, there was little that could be done for Mo Xuanyu now. Hate like what he had learned to feel was a different kind of poison—the most destructive kind, like a torch lying in bales of hay, that burned everything around it. He’d burn Qinghe down around him and that was something that he could not afford.
“I don’t want to,” Mo Xuanyu hissed into his chest, as angry as a viper.
His daemon lay complacently in Jianjue’s arms, soothed by the scent of cedarwood incense. Jianjue was affected, of course, but he was well used to its effects and shrugged it off for the moment, instead focusing on easing Mo Xuanyu’s viper daemon further into a tonic state.
She was a plain daemon despite her form, but Jianjue and Nie Huaisang had long since learned to read the meaning of daemons. Mo Xuanyu and his daemon must never learn that they had been chosen specifically because she settled as a viper, because they had seen the cracks forming in their psyche. Because they knew that if they were struck too hard, they would splinter and shatter and lash out. Vipers were deadly but first they were shy; only when there was no choice left did they strike with the intent to destroy.
Which was what they needed, and they didn’t need the viper daemon to realize this.
“What do you want, then?” Nie Huaisang asked.
When Mo Xuanyu pulled away, his eyes were red-rimmed and wild, his lips spread in a terrifying grin. Mo Xuanyu and his viper daemon were dangerous, a lit torch in a room full of paper dolls, but Nie Huaisang didn’t quite fear that he’d be burned by their proximity.
Not yet.
Not unless they figured it out.
“I want to kill them all,” he hissed, as sibilant as his daemon.
Nie Huaisang cupped his cheek and touched the smeared remains of rouge and makeup still ground into his skin. He’d brought such things for Mo Xuanyu as a way to boost his spirits in any little way that he could, but applied inexpertly, they made him look like a hanged ghost. A reminder of what he would become at the end of Nie Huaisang’s machinations.
There was something heartbreaking in the way that Mo Xuanyu’s wild eyes fluttered, his lashes clumped with tears and his teeth bared in a feral snarl as he tilted his head into Nie Huaisang’s hand. Touch-starved. Desperate for any soft touch.
So easily manipulated for this most simple desire and craving for human contact that wasn’t from his mother’s family beating him. Desperate for a gentle word, a most basic kind of human comfort that he no longer received.
It was heartbreaking, if Nie Huaisang had any heart left to break.
“What if you get hurt?” Nie Huaisang whispered.
“If it kills me, I’ll end them,” Mo Xuanyu promised.
Nie Huaisang rubbed his thumb over the sharp jut of the boy’s cheekbone. The haphazard rouge on his face hid a fading bruise and made his thin cheeks look even more gaunt. Starved and beaten, Mo Xuanyu was nearly a wraith himself.
“What if you don’t get all of them?” Nie Huaisang asked. “Let me help you.”
As he had expected him to, Mo Xuanyu recoiled back as if Nie Huaisang had slapped him. “No!” he cried, loud and desperate enough that his viper daemon stirred.
Jianjue grumbled in the back of his throat and she subsided, once more falling into that near-tonic state as Jianjue gently groomed her, curled her body close to his, and warmed them both in the heat of the hearth.
“No,” Mo Xuanyu said, pressing his face into Nie Huaisang’s robes again. “No, I can’t let you get hurt. Your hands are too soft to be dirtied by them.” A thin thread of manic laughter trailed up from Nie Huaisang’s chest.
So desperate for validation, for a hint of humanity, the mad Mo Xuanyu would sooner kill himself than see Nie Huaisang hurt.
He let Mo Xuanyu touch his hands, cradling one of them to his cheek. Mo Xuanyu looked hesitantly up at Nie Huaisang through his lashes and he smiled at the young man. There was utter devotion in his eyes. It wasn’t to be confused with romantic regard, but it was the kind of force that would lead nations—or a single madman—to war.
Mo Xuanyu would set the world on fire for even the slightest smile from Nie Huaisang.
And that was exactly what he wanted.
“A-Yu,” Nie Huaisang whispered as if frightened for him. And he was, just not for the reason that he implied—he was more afraid that his plan would fail than he was afraid of Mo Xuanyu failing to get his revenge. “A-Yu, what if you get hurt? What if you die?”
“I’m not afraid of death,” Mo Xuanyu vowed, his eyes lit by the fire of madness. The first time that Nie Huaisang had met him, it had only been a tiny spark; with the cruel care of beatings and the false-Intercision of his village “forgetting” his daemon, it had sparked a wildfire. “If I had to sacrifice myself to kill them I would! If I have to die to make sure that they’re all dead as well, I would wield the knife.”
Nie Huaisang kissed Mo Xuanyu’s forehead to hide the way he smiled. “A-Yu, what if they kill you before you get rid of them?”
The young man trembled. “I’ll have to be quick,” he decided.
“What happens if you fail? Don’t you need help?”
Mo Xuanyu made a high, thin noise that was like a whine. Like a dog learning that hands don’t mean beatings, that they could be soft and loving too. He clung to Nie Huaisang. “You can’t help,” he whispered. “You can’t be dirtied with their filth.”
Leaning down, Nie Huaisang kissed each of Mo Xuanyu’s eyelids and tipped his face to look into Nie Huasiang’s. “I have an idea,” he said. “Someone that can help you.”
Tears welled up in Mo Xuanyu’s eyes. “Who?” he whispered.
“There will be a price,” Nie Huaisang told him, voice just as quiet as if afraid that the very shadows would hear him. “It’s a very high price. A-Yu, it would be terrible…” he trailed off.
“I’d pay any price,” Mo Xuanyu vowed. “I want them dead, gege . I’d do anything. I hate them.”
Nie Huaisang gently stroked his hair, over his back, and felt the young man tremble. It was a heady thing, to have such control over someone. Fear was one thing, but this…whatever this was, was another thing. No one feared The Headshaker, but Mo Xuanyu worshipped him as if he was a god simply because he was kind to him.
“Tell me,” Mo Xuanyu begged. “ Gege , please.”
“I saw a spell once,” Nie Huaisang whispered. “But to use it…”
Mo Xuanyu’s face crumbled. “My core,” he whispered, his voice strangled with tears of disappointment. “I was barely able to form a golden core before…before…” he broke off and shook his head. “If it’s a spell, I don’t think I can use it.”
“No,” Nie Huaisang murmured. “It requires very little spiritual energy to use.”
Hope filled Mo Xuanyu’s face. “ Gege , tell me. I’ll pay any price.” He slid off Nie Huaisang’s lap and knelt before him. His thin frame filled the space between Nie Huaisang’s knees and he laid his head on Nie Huaisang’s thigh like a child looking for a bedtime story. Hope was beautiful on his face, as was his open adoration.
He looked at Nie Huaisang like he hung the stars.
For once he looked truly joyful, and his smile widened as Nie Huaisang told him about the Sacrificial Ritual.
A shadow peeled away from the wall as Nie Huaisang left the little cottage where he met Mo Xuanyu. The young man was long gone, having run back to the hovel he called a home, at the edge of a village that hated him.
Nie Leiting sneezed at the scent of cedarwood incense still clinging to Nie Huaisang’s robes. “Young master is cruel,” she murmured, but there was no judgment in her rumbling voice.
“I am,” Nie Huaisang said. “We need help and I’m not inclined to sacrifice anyone I care about to get what we need.”
The wolf daemon sneezed again and led the way through the darkness to the camp that Nie Zonghui had set up for them. “Do you regret it?” she wondered as they walked into the golden circle of light cast by the campfire.
“No,” Nie Huaisang decided, slipping through the tent flap that Nie Zonghui held open for him. “It’s needed. But yes, because he’s so…” he shrugged and set Jianjue down. He had succumbed to the cedarwood incense after Mo Xuanyu left and Nie Huaisang felt no reason to force him to remain awake.
“Young master has a kind heart,” Nie Zonghui said as Nie Huaisang began to peel his outer robes off.
Nie Huaisang didn’t answer, shrugging out of the rougher cotton robes he wore to meet Mo Xuanyu—to hide that he was really meeting with a sect leader, even one as apparently useless as The Headshaker—and back into the finer stuff he was used to. Mo Xuanyu was mad, not stupid, and it was likely that he knew exactly who Nie Huaisang was, but there was no sense reminding him.
With a tired sigh, Nie Huaisang sat down at the table, gestured for Nie Zonghui and Nie Leiting to join him, and began to eat.
“Now what?” Nie Leiting asked. She rested her chin on the table between Nie Huaisang and Nie Zonghui. Her blue eyes closed, pleased, as Nie Huaisang offered her a piece of pork from his chopsticks.
“We give him a few days,” Nie Huaisang said. “No more than three, then we go and check on him. On the third day, we release the Arm into the village.”
Nie Zonghui looked at him with a deep frown on his face. “It will kill people,” he said.
“Mo Xuanyu wants his family dead,” Nie Huaisang reminded him. “And is willing to sacrifice his soul to do it. If he successfully completes the ritual, Wei Wuxian will return.”
Nie Leiting huffed as she licked pork fat from the wiry whiskers around her snout. “Why him?”
“He’s curious by nature and brilliant in his deductions,” Nie Huaisang replied. He ate quickly but neatly, occasionally sharing pieces with Nie Leiting who seemed pleased each time. Her tail wagged and Nie Zonghui cast her amused looks every time it brushed his hip. “A ‘demonic’ Arm will intrigue him. If Mo Xuanyu fails, then we will have also ensured the death of his family.”
Nie Zonghui huffed. “It was hard enough to subdue it the first time,” he muttered, and Nie Huaisang could still remember the battered, bloody, bruised look on Nie Zonghui when he had first sealed it. It had fallen still, at last, when Nie Huaisang had joined the fray, had stilled beneath his touch and words—a part of his brother’s resentful spirit still recognized him at least.
At least the Arm hadn’t been able to wield a sword or worse, Baxia.
“We don’t stand to lose much if we fail,” Nie Huaisang said. “And stand to gain so much more if we succeed.” He looked at Nie Zonghui. “It’s a stain on my soul, not yours,” he said. “And, like Mo Xuanyu, I am willing to pay the price.”
Nie Zonghui carefully put down his chopsticks. “A-Sang,” he said softly. “Will you at least promise me that you won’t pay a price as steep as Mo Xuanyu?”
“I like myself alive,” Nie Huaisang murmured almost thoughtfully. “I cannot promise what I will or will not do, but I can assure you that I refuse to die while that traitor still draws breath.”
Lifting her head, Nie Leiting looked into Nie Huaisang’s eyes. “That’s the best we can ask for,” she said softly.
Nie Huaisang smiled, but even he knew that it didn’t quite reach his eyes. But then, he never wanted to lie to Nie Zonghui or Nie Leiting. “It’s the best I can promise.” He stood, took his bowl, and walked over to Nie Zonghui who shifted to make room for Nie Huaisang to sit beside him, tucked against his side.
They leaned against each other in mutual comfort, tucked in the privacy of their tent as several li away, a young man and his viper daemon—a daemon known to be shy until provoked—prepared for their own sacrifice.
“I’m surprised that you’d come to see me separately,” Wei Wuxian said.
Jianjue walked sedately out of the trees. “Why?” he asked, sounding amused. “No one looks at The Headshaker or checks to see if his lazy daemon is with him. Especially not in the Cloud Recesses.”
Thoughtfully, Wei Wuxian sat down on the bench and didn’t offer Jianjue a seat. He watched the daemon climb up on top of the fallen log on the other side of the path. “You’re not afraid that I might kill you?”
Jianjue shrugged. “We got what we wanted. We have no interest in dying, but if that’s all that’s left for us, then I suppose we lived a good life.”
“How can you be so blasé about death?”
Again, Nie Huaisang’s daemon shrugged. “We’ve made death our life for so long,” he said. “It’s hard to be afraid of it at this point. Though I do caution you, that we are not particularly inclined to die anytime soon. So if you try to kill us, I would be obliged to make it difficult for you.”
Sighing, Wei Wuxian relaxed. “Ah, Jianjue, why would we want to kill you?”
“I don’t know,” the daemon replied. “ You are the one that brought up death.” Then he made a face. “That’s a lie. I can imagine there are a few reasons for you to want to kill us.”
“Well, I don’t want to kill you.”
Jianjue cocked his head to the side. “That’s good,” he said. “Because we don’t want to die.”
They fell silent for a bit and Wei Wuxian was surprised that Jianjue didn’t seem particularly inclined to speak. For all intents and purposes, it seemed that he just wanted to soak in the quiet of the forest around them.
“Are you happy with what you’ve done?” Wei Wuxian asked.
“Not particularly,” Jianjue replied. “But I am pleased that I was able to ensure that da-ge got his justice.”
Wei Wuxian thought of his distant memories of the Nie Clan Leader and his fearsome rhinoceros daemon. But his daemon—whose name he couldn’t remember—had gentle eyes and a soft voice that seemed at complete odds with Chifeng-zun himself. “He deserved better.”
Jianjue signed wistfully. “He did. Oh, we learned that those that cultivate with Nie sabers all die early from qi -deviation, and da-ge was stubborn enough to continue that tradition until his death, but in theory, we should have had much longer to convince him otherwise. He didn’t deserve to die at the hand of that traitor.”
Surprised, Wei Wuxian watched Jianjue’s lips peel back in a snarl—it was only the second time that Wei Wuxian had ever seen such an expression cross the usually-lazy daemon’s face. The other time, of course, had occurred in Guanyin Temple.
“Did you really hate him so much?”
Jianjue turned to Wei Wuxian. There was something cold in his eyes, and Wei Wuxian realized that his form was likely yet another trick. No one would respect a cat-bear daemon, as they were known to be lazy and sluggish. Perhaps Nie Huaisang and Jianjue were truly lazy at heart, but there had always been something cool and calculated in their eyes, as if they hid behind many faceted layers to hide their true nature.
He didn’t say any of this out loud, though. If Jianjue was aware of his realization, he said nothing of it. But he did answer Wei Wuxian’s question by simply saying, “Yes.”
“Ah,” Wei Wuxian said. “Let’s not talk about such dark thoughts. How have you been?”
Jianjue gave him an incredulous look that made Wei Wuxian’s grin widen. Then he shook his head as if laughing as well. “Awful,” Jianjue said, to his surprise. “But life wasn’t all bad.”
Just mostly , he didn’t say, but Wei Wuxian heard anyway.
Rearing back on his hind legs, Jianjue scratched his neck in an almost human gesture. “For what it’s worth, we are happy to have you back,” he said almost shyly. “We did miss you. And we mourned your death. Lit incense for you. We needed you, yes, but we were happy that we could bring you back—and upset that we had to drag you back to suffer in the world of the living.” Then he got a sly look on his face and he gave Wei Wuxian a cat’s smile. “And we’re happy that you finally got with Lan Wangji. We used to have a bet going about when you two would get together, so congratulations on your wedding.”
Wei Wuxian sputtered. “Excuse me?”
“Everyone knew, except maybe you and Lan Wangji. And your brother.”
Wei Wuxian turned and found Nie Huaisang walking down the forest path toward them. His closed fan tapped the tip of his chin and he wore the same cat-sly smile that his daemon did. Jianjue walked along the fallen log to the Nie Sect Leader and hopped toward him; without looking away from Wei Wuxian, Nie Huaisang scooped his daemon into his arms and perched him on his hip like a child.
“I’m here as myself, not as a sect leader,” Nie Huaisang said as Wei Wuxian stood and made to bow. “And I don’t think you ever bowed to me, Wei- xiong .”
“And who would that be?” Wei Wuxian asked cautiously. “Who are you?”
“We ask ourselves that every day,” Nie Huaisang said breezily. Notably, he did not take out his fan to hide his face. He sat down on the log that Jianjue had perched on, as if unbothered that his nice robes might get dirty. Jianjue slid down to sit in his lap.
A moment later, Xianya glided down through the trees and landed beside Wei Wuxian. Neither Nie Huaisang nor Jianjue seemed surprised to see her so far away from Lan Wangji.
“Wei Ying?” Xianya asked, looking at Nie Huaisang and then back at Wei Wuxian.
“Ah, Xianya,” Wei Wuxian said with a forced smile. “You and Lan Zhan didn’t have to worry.”
Smiling, Nie Huaisang got to his feet and lifted Jianjue to his back, where he slipped into a special little sling like a child. “It’s about time that we leave as well,” he said. “It’s a long trip back to Qinghe.” He bowed to Xianya and then Wei Wuxian. “I will take my leave, then.” As he walked away, he flicked his fan open and lazily fanned himself.
“I had a realization,” Wei Wuxian said when he thought that Nie Huaisang and Jianjue were well out of earshot. “I think his fan is made of cedar.”
Xianya looked at him. “Oh?” she asked. “What makes you say that?”
“He always has it with him,” Wei Wuxian said. “And I have the feeling that it was one of the reasons that he was able to manipulate so many people’s daemons. Cedarwood has an effect on daemons, you know.”
Lan Wangji’s heron daemon looked after Nie Huaisang. “Hm,” she said thoughtfully. Then she turned back to Wei Wuxian. “Wei Ying, will you return? Or will you stay out here?”
Reaching out, he stroked over the arch of Xianya’s neck and the slope of her back, enjoying the sheer pleasure of touch. Xianya looked up at him with affection that he could feel was echoed in Lan Wangji.
“Let’s go home,” Wei Wuxian decided and Xianya gently nudged her beak against his arm.
“There is something on your mind,” Xianya observed.
Wei Wuxian gently stroked her back, for once content to walk the sedate pace of the Lan disciples if only to accommodate Xianya’s preferred pace. They got a few strange looks but no one stopped them or said anything about Wei Wuxian walking with his hand resting on the back of Lan Wangji’s daemon.
“Ah, Xianya,” Wei Wuxian said when they turned off the main paths toward the Jingshi. “Have you ever given thought to the form you would settle in?”
“I knew I would settle as a bird,” Xianya replied. “As was expected of me.”
Wei Wuxian sighed. “It just made me wonder…I had never had a doubt that…that my daemon—”
“Shenme,” Xianya said with a sidelong look at him. “You can say her name, Wei Ying. It’s not wrong, and it’s not wrong to miss her.”
“Ah,” Wei Wuxian said. “Xianya, you’re too kind.”
Xianya trilled. In a human, it would be a snort. “I am stating the facts. Shenme and Wei Ying are Shenme and Wei Ying. And there is nothing wrong with missing what was lost.”
As if waving away smoke, Wei Wuxian flapped a hand in front of his face. “Ah, Xianya, you can’t say things like that.”
With a low chuckle, Xianya clicked her beak. “You were talking about Shenme,” she reminded him. “Did you never doubt the form she’d settle as?”
“Never,” Wei Wuxian said thoughtfully. “Well, I should say that we knew she’d be some kind of cat. Or maybe it would be better just to say that when she settled, we weren’t surprised. It was like we had known all along, even though if someone was to ask, I wouldn’t have been able to say it.”
“I didn’t expect to be so big,” Xianya offered quietly as they climbed up the stairs to the Jingshi.
Smiling, Wei Wuxian opened the door and gestured for Xianya to walk through first. He was unsurprised to find that Lan Wangji had made tea and was sitting at the table as if waiting for them.
“Why do you ask?” Xianya asked as she walked to her spot beside Lan Wangji and sat down.
Wei Wuxian gently closed the door behind him and took off his shoes to settle himself across the table from his husband. “I was just thinking,” he said. “I think that Huaisang and Jianjue…”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji said understandingly.
Xianya glanced at him and then at Wei Wuxian. “Nie -zongzhu once told us that he was stressed by the shape that Jianjue was to settle in,” she said. “The Nie Clan are known for their ‘strong’ daemons, but he didn’t think that Jianjue- zongzhu would settle as something that fit that association.”
“You spoke to him often?” Wei Wuxian asked, surprised.
“ Xiongzhang was friends with Chifeng-zun,” Xianya said, sounding amused. “We saw them often, as they tried to make sure their little brothers were friends as well.”
Unable to help it, Wei Wuxian laughed. “I can imagine how that went.”
“It went,” Lan Wangji said.
Xianya clicked her beak. “Oh, we enjoyed it,” she said with a little laugh. “But it was always a bit much. Nie- zongzhu eventually figured out how not to stress us out. It was easier after that.” She clicked her beak. “You think they deliberately had Jianjue settle as a cat-bear?”
“I was thinking,” Wei Wuxian said, his smile fading as he thought back to his earlier conversations with Nie Huaisang and his daemon. “Clearly they’re separated—Jianjue was speaking with me for a while before Huaisang—ah, Nie- zongzhu arrived. But there’s something about the way they interact…I think they made him settle as something innocuous deliberately, so that he would be overlooked.”
Lan Wangji sipped his tea thoughtfully. Xianya turned her head to preen one of her wings.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Wei Wuxian mused and smiled at his husband and Xianya. “He also apologized for bringing me back to…ah…’suffer the living’, I believe he said. And congratulated us on our marriage.”
His husband hummed thoughtfully and cast a glance at Xianya. “For what it’s worth,” Xianya said gently as she stood and walked around to sit and lean against Wei Wuxian. Smiling, he rested a hand on her back and toyed with the lacy feathers on her neck. “We’re sorry too. You deserved your rest.”
“But we are also selfish,” Lan Wangji said as he put his teacup down. He also got up and knelt on the other side, bracketing Wei Wuxian between him and his daemon. “And now that we have you, we aren’t about to let you go.”
Wei Wuxian’s hand clenched on Xianya’s back. “Aiya, Lan Zhan, Xianya,” he breathed. “You can’t say things like that.”
“Not without warning you,” Xianya finished for him, amusement evident in her voice. “Will our husband accept our apologies?”
Knowing just what that meant, Wei Wuxian grinned and turned his face to accept Lan Wangji’s soft kiss.
