All around them, Clear Water Mountain and the Qiao were falling. Buildings blazed, lighted by holy fire, orange flames marking a second sunset upon the horizon. Felled brethren lay scattered on the ground. Human members were paralyzed in place, their eyes darting frantically back and forth through their frozen faces.

Tudigong had fled as Heaven’s forces approached, but Shuangtou stayed and fought with bladed antlers. Tangyou was not meant for war, but she and Ao Luming took what farm tools were at hand and imbued them with the oldest magic of their kind: magic made for survival.

Now she held him in her arms as he bled from a gash in his side. Her eyes were fixed on the archives where the children hid, the building stubbornly refusing to collapse into flames. Still, it wouldn’t be long before all of the registries and almanacs the prince had meticulously maintained were going up in smoke. She had laughed when he asked her to take over recordkeeping in his absence; she understood now why it mattered so much to him that the events of each year be written down.

As the records burned, so did the history of the Qiao. Tangyou only hoped the children would escape into the shadows.

General Li Jing nodded at the godling to his right, who unraveled a scroll and read:

“Heaven hereby declares the dragon prince Ao Luming and the phoenix Tangyou guilty of dereliction of duty, abandoning their posts, interfering with matters in the mortal realm, and conspiring with demons. By orders of the Jade Emperor, they are to be executed by heavenly fire, and the demons they consorted with shall be struck down, their children stripped of their demonic heritage and returned to live among mortals and mortals only.”

A child shouted in the distance. As if a string was cut, the humans still on the battlefield were released from their curse. One by one, children of the Qiao ran to find comfort in the arms of someone familiar, and they were taken in by shaking, grateful hands. Each child had a bright golden wound bleeding on their backs. As Bixian appeared behind the children carrying a golden knife, Tangyou understood.

She had seen the Knife of Sublimation work its cruel magic once before. She was there in the room when the knife had cut into little Liuruo, forcing her tail into halves and drawing out the memory of legs from her spine. Back then she had thought it a cruel but necessary action; she had been one of the people there to hold the little girl down.

She of all people knew of the sacrifices one made for the sake of ambition. When she was a young chick and slowly cultivating a human form, her own mother ripped out her feathers monthly in hopes that she would grow a coat with a more favorable palette, a suitable feng heir to . After her adult feathers settled in, she plucked her own body raw to convince her grandmother Siuran to grant her a huang body instead.

It wasn’t a secret that the Queen Mother once surrounded herself with fearsome wild birds. And even now, to the phoenixes of Heaven, the threat of the Knife was whispered at night, a nightmare and a premonition. Those who fell from favor with the Queen would be rendered mortal with the golden knife, their beautiful bird form taken to be made a coat for goddesses.

The fear still haunted Tangyou, though she never would have imagined the reality she was now facing. The traitor Bixian had stripped all the children of their pelts, stealing away half their heritage to make them only mortals like their human parents. As Bixian walked across the battlefield to join Heaven’s legions, her arms bearing the pelts of Qiao children, Tangyou screamed in anger.

“I mourned you, Bixian. I wept thinking you were dead. And now you return to us bringing destruction?”

She felt a hand over hers. Ao Luming shifted into a sitting position and spoke: “Were we not enough, Bixian? What was the price of your loyalty? We gave you all that we had; true, shelter and company cannot compare to the gold and glory of Heaven. But I have lived there for years and I can tell you it is impersonal and cold. Were you lonely here, Bixian?”

With every word, more blood spilled from his side and onto Tangyou’s fingers. She pressed against the wound as firm as she dared, resisting the urge to silence him. He needed to speak those words to Bixian; let them cut through her traitorous heart.

Tangyou longed to follow it up with a blade of steel.

Bixian’s face remained impassive as she replied, “I was not lonely here, Dragon Prince. I cannot hope to make you understand the reason behind my actions, just as I cannot hope to ask for forgiveness. Please know that the Qiao have only ever seen my true self. There was no deception in me joining your clan. Our camaraderie was real.”

Luming closed his eyes and contemplated Bixian’s words. The world was at a standstill, and even Heaven held its breath.

Tangyou, however, did not need time to make her vitriol heard. “I reject your sorry excuse for an apology,” she spat. “Know that if I burn, I burn with only hatred in my heart for you.”

The celestial crane breathed a sigh and glanced at the humans assembled near her. Adults were protectively holding onto their children, huddled close together like a terrifying herd. None of them met her eyes, and some even flinched and stepped back when they saw her looking. Resigned, she stepped back behind the phalanx and let the general conduct his business. Noticing the pause, Li Jing gestured to the flag bearer on his left, who straightened up and declared:

“Heaven’s will has been exacted. Mortals who were once under demons’ influence, you may now return to your own world with your children. Let this be a warning to never consort with demons again.”

Nobody moved. Tangyou blessed each and every one of them.

The flag bearer looked back and forth between the human crowd and Heaven’s army. “I said,” he continued with less confidence, “you are all free to go.”

Yildun, the eagle’s wife, stepped forward, holding onto the hands of her young son and Bixian’s own daughter. She held her head up with the same pride she had when she arrived at Clear Water Mountain, this daughter of the northern steppes. Her presence made Tangyou remember how Feiyi always insisted that Yildun was the descendent of a khan, though Yildun always scoffed and denied it. Whether descended from khans or goatherds, Yildun held her ground and challenged Heaven.

“Our wills are not as weak as you think. We will not leave our Lord and Lady,” she shouted, her voice ringing high and clear in the incoming night.

With great pain, Ao Luming shifted into a kneeling position and bowed his head towards his devotees. “Don’t waste your lives on us,” he choked out between pained gasps. “Save yourselves. Be with your families.”

Tangyou could not stand the sadness in the eyes of her clan. Only the love in the gaze, stronger even than the devastation witnessed tonight, kept her looking back at her people. The beautiful Qiao, who believed in love without consequence, who wanted their children to grow up as themselves, free from society’s judgment.

“Go,” she howled, standing up to face Heaven on her feet rather than her knees. Since the village’s inception they had looked to her as leader; this was the only command she would ever give. She had a trembling hand on Luming’s shoulder, her entire arm locked to hold his weight. “Go and take a part of us with you. The Qiao Clan will live on. Must live on. ”

Still no one moved, and then they began to move in twos and threes, children running to their parents’ arms and fading into the forest. Yildun was last to go, leading Xingbei and Qiping away with her. Qiping looked back for a moment at Bixian before disappearing into the darkness.

Tangyou shook with fury. “How dare you,” she whispered, and then repeated herself louder to the assembled legions. She felt anger burning white hot inside her, a heat that turned her body into pure fire. “You enter my village without permission. Burn our buildings with holy fire. Run your stallions through our crops.”

An arrow of fire flew towards her, but she simply raised her hand and a gust of wind cut through the flames, splitting it in half. “You call my clan blasphemous. You call my love profane. You will pay.”

More shards of fire were flung towards her, but with a piercing wail Tangyou diminished them all to embers with her wail, a piercing sound that traveled towards Heaven’s army with the full force of a winter squall. Li Jing looked down at his hand and started. The wind had cut his hand, and it was starting to bleed.

Emboldened, Tangyou took her hand off Luming gently and walked towards Heaven’s army with heavy steps. The ground itself shook with her rage, and the wind buffeted Heaven’s soldiers, cutting their skin like a thousand small knives. The phoenix took the fire flung at her and redirected it back to Heaven’s forces.

Li Jing raised his hand to signal a ceasefire. From his palm he conjured his Heavenly Pagoda, which he used once to trap his unruly son. No one but Sun Wukong himself had ever escaped from it, and with a gesture the pagoda flew up into the sky and landed atop Tangyou, expanding to its full size.

Ao Luming screamed with the last of his breath as his wife was crushed beneath the pagoda. Clutching the wound at his side, he made his way towards it, untouched by Heaven’s fire. Perhaps it was the cruel will of the gods, to let him speak to his wife one last time.

As he rested his cheek against the cool metal exterior of the pagoda, he heard Tangyou’s voice echo from inside:

“Don’t mourn for me yet, Luming. I am not yet dead.”

“Please,” he said, either to Tangyou or the pagoda itself. “Let me in. I want to die with you by my side.”

Even as he bled, close to death himself, the thought of living without Tangyou at his side was intolerable. He understood now why his father chose to preserve his mother inside a painting rather than let her fade away. He wondered if his father had ever considered the other option; to give up immortality, and life itself, to die beside the one he loved most.

The wall in front of him shifted, and as Luming stepped away a door opened in front of him. The inside of the pagoda was filled with a blinding white light, and he knew that the door was only a way in, not a way out.

Before he stepped through, Ao Luming reached into his robes and let the scroll containing his mother fall to the ground. Perhaps the river would carry her back to his father. She did not deserve to die alongside her son.

Then, the last of his earthly bounds cut, he stepped through into the pagoda.

The light did not dim as the door shut, but as Luming kept staring through shaded eyes he could see the body glowing at the center: the heart of the star. He knew the figure well; could trace its outline blindfolded.

“Tangyou?”

The figure reached out a hand and he grabbed it, not minding how it seemed to sear his flesh and melt his entire hand into the same blinding light.

“They will pay,” the figure sobbed. “I will cut each and every one of their souls from the cycle, until they are nothing.”

“Tangyou, stop…”

“They are all guilty. Every single one who stood by and watched as our dream was destroyed. They would destroy our clan to protect their precious mortal dynasties. Well, I will destroy what is precious to them: every single human life, all the souls entangled in their divine prophecies. I will scorch the earth until all that’s left is a corpse.”

There was no body left to hold, but still Ao Luming held her, his own body melting into iridescent blue and green. He was water and sky; a series of scales cast through infinity to hang in the air like stars.

“I swear to you my dear,” he said, his voice emanating from the core of his being, as he no longer had a mouth with which to speak, “we will not be buried into dust. Our love will be remembered. In a different time, our love will be made holy. Children born to the likes of us will carry their heritage with pride.”

Out from the light came a sob. “The children…we have failed them.”

“We did not surrender them to Heaven without a fight,” The remnants of the dragon prince replied. “We gave them so much, the children of the Qiao. They grew up loved for who they are. And they will remember us, even if Heaven wipes the memory of us from their minds. The love we gave them cannot be erased.”

“So much love was destroyed tonight. Forgive me, my darling, but I cannot simply die at peace.”

The pagoda split in half. From the schism, a sword flew through the air, splitting the wind itself. It had a blade of crude bronze and a hilt in the shape of a phoenix, its tail extending into the blade in delicate filigree. As if shot from a bow or flung by a giant’s hand, it flew from the ruins of the Heavenly Pagoda towards the assembled gods.

The Heavenly General raised a hand to shield his face, but the sword’s arc was directed not at him but at Bixian. The crane flinched, and in an instant the sword hung suspended in the air mere inches from her good eye. Azure strands held the sword in place, coalescing until it covered the blade in a scabbard of shimmering dragon hide.

Li Jing released a breath he did not know he was holding. With a wave of his hand, the two halves of his pagoda rose up and flew back into his palm, where they slotted back into one piece. “Grab the sword,” he ordered, not to Bixian but to the company in general.

With a shaking hand, Bixian reached out to touch the sword. Before she could, however, an eagle swooped down from the sky and grabbed the sword in its talons before flying away into the night.

General Li Jing surveyed the burning village before him. Satisfied, he raised his hand and stopped the archers firing at the bird. “Heaven’s will has been exacted tonight,” he said. “There will be a reward for anyone who can bring the sword to me, but otherwise we are to return to Heaven. Rest well knowing you have exacted justice tonight.”