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A rule is absolute.
They do not bend. They do not break.
The one who declares them shouldn’t, either.
That’s what Liu Yuwei tells herself—what she reminds herself—as she sets the edge of the knife against her forearm.
Golden light spreads out beneath her in a perfect, blinding circle.
“Don’t bleed.”
The knife presses down—and keeps pressing—and pressing—the serrated edge sharp, sharp enough to sever flesh from bone, because she did her research, her due diligence. A ruler can’t afford to make mistakes or sacrifice efficiency for the sake of being frugal.
Her hand is steady. The knife slides cleanly across skin, sawing back and forth in even, rhythmic strokes.
It saws, but doesn’t cut. It hurts, but she doesn’t bleed.
She can do this. She can overcome even the limits of the human body so long as she commands herself to do so.
To become X, to shake the very foundation of this society and rebuild it in her image, this is the bare minimum of what she needs to do. Bowa taught her that. She can’t rest on her laurels. She can’t settle for good enough. There will always, always be someone stronger she needs to bring down, someone who bypasses every rule she lays out, who strikes for her weak points.
So what she needs to do is eliminate those weaknesses altogether.
I can’t let him get the better of me. Not again. Never again.
The light around her pulses—guttering like a candle in the wind—and then suddenly the knife splits skin and Liu Yuwei bites her lip raw to stifle her gasp of pain.
Her fingers spasm around the knife hilt, and she pulls it away slowly to inspect the damage.
The cut is clean. A straight line diagonally across her forearm, halfway between her elbow and wrist. She can see the blood pooling in the gash, but nothing spills out.
Don’t bleed.
She clicks her tongue, frustrated. Was the command too literal? Is her own Trust Value so high that it dilutes the effects of her Rules?
“Damn it. Goddamn it.”
She releases the Rule and as the light disappears the cut on her arm bleeds freely, like the aftermath of a dam giving way. She smothers it with an unused hand towel, ruthlessly applying pressure despite the shock of pain that shoots up the length of her arm.
Bleeding out over something this trivial would make her the laughing stock of the hero world. Not that it’s much of a risk; she knows where and how deep to cut to avoid anything lethal. Studying anatomy was necessary when she was first testing the limits of how far she could go with commanding another person’s actions. It’s only natural to apply that knowledge to her own limits, as well.
She sits cross-legged in the wreckage of the training room. Broken weapons lay in pieces around her. Targets reduced to nothing more than fragments. The fruits of her labor—the remnants of her failures.
Overlaid on top of it all of it is the scene she walked into that night with Cyan. High ranked heroes fighting one another, out for blood; Big Johnny gone berserk, threatening a rampage that might’ve taken more innocent lives; bodies strewn among the ruins, broken, bloody.
A young girl in a high-tech suit of armor, sobbing into her dead father’s chest.
Another hero, holding the unconscious body of a girl in his arms. The expressionless face Liu Yuwei knew so well cracked down the middle, revealing a grief-stricken heart.
Failure.
Failure.
FAILURE.
For all Queen preached about a world in which heroes did their duty and protected those who couldn’t protect themselves, in that moment, she wasn’t enough.
Not good enough. Not strong enough. Not fast enough.
She’d gone on vacation—as though she had the right to take a break from being Queen. It was pure chance that she and Cyan were even nearby to intervene. If they’d reached their destination, if they’d done as planned and turned off their phones, blocked out the outside world for a few days, who knows who else might’ve died that night.
Her selfishness might’ve led to an even greater massacre.
Gritting her teeth, Liu Yuwei throws aside the hand towel; it lands somewhere to the right of her with a wet splat. The gash has stopped bleeding, already starting to scab over. The tissue won’t start knitting itself back together for a few hours at least, but it’s enough for now.
She used to have to make it a Rule that she’d heal faster. Now the public expects it of her. They Trust she’ll be able to survive blows that would fell lesser heroes; they Trust she’ll be back on her feet in seconds instead of hours.
A hero—a queen—should only hold onto their power through proving those expectations right.
Liu Yuwei grabs the knife.
She summons her domain again.
“Don’t break.”
Don’t break. Don’t break. Don’t break. Don’t breakdon’tbreakdon’tbreakdon’tbreak—
The knife stabs down into her thigh.
She feels the resistance this time, the push and pull of her Rule against the Trust that surges within her. It’s her Rule, her will, and the Trust people have in those Rules means it should be obeyed. But that Trust is also what allows others to break free from her control—belief in one’s own abilities, belief in the idea of free will. And she’s trying with all her Trust-given strength to force the knife through skin and muscle and bone.
“Don’t break.”
The skin beneath the knife tip dents, but doesn’t give.
“Don’t break.”
There’s pain, but it’s distant. A bruise she’s absently pressing on.
“Don’t break.”
Sweat beads at her temples. Heat sears her sinuses before the blood begins to drip from her nose, licking a white-hot path over her mouth and chin.
“Don’t break. Do not fucking break.”
She presses down—and down—and down—her hands gripping the knife hilt so hard her fingers ache, her arms tremble, muscles straining, and the light around her burns like the sun.
You are not allowed to break, you pathetic—idealistic—bitch.
The blade suddenly snaps.
Liu Yuwei gasps, and the light dies, and there’s two shards of metal on the floor now and the hilt still held in a death grip in her hands.
Chest heaving, her heart jackrabbiting in her chest, she drops the hilt and runs shaky fingers across her skin, probing. There’s a tear in the hem of her workout shorts, and the area where the blade was jabbed into her skin is red from the abuse. But it’s still intact. No cuts, no blood.
Unbroken.
Liu Yuwei squeezes her eyes shut, threading her fingers into her sweat-damp hair and tugging until her scalp burns. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. She did it. The Rule held. She held.
She is bleeding. The effort must’ve torn open the wound on her arm. It’s a sluggish stream of red right now, nothing to be concerned over. What matters is that she didn’t break.
Exhaling a ragged breath, she slowly, carefully unfolds herself, getting to her feet. She steps over the broken knife, and the broken weapons, and the broken targets. A rack of spare lances is nestled in the far corner of the training room, and she walks towards it, her gait smooth, steady. Purposeful.
It worked. She didn’t break.
But she can’t stop here. She needs consistency. She needs to do it again, do it over, do more, until it’s instinctive, muscle memory. She can’t be caught off guard, she can’t let herself slip.
She won’t be Achilles—impervious to everything but for the weak point on his heel.
She’ll be a queen. She’ll be a god, if that’s what the world demands of her.
Lie Yuwei grabs a lance, and prepares herself to go to war.