Whether on Clear Water Mountain or Chang’an, the moon remained the same. Cold, impassive, and beautiful, she passed her judgment on commoner and noble alike. Lady Liuying often found reprieve watching the moon in the dark of night, a rare moment of peace from the constant politicking within the court. By moonlight she worked on her needlepoint, which was also a record of the changing alliances within the inner court. To outsiders, it was simply an intricate design of insects and flowers, but hidden within each stitch was a careful tally of favors and alliances.

A breeze stirred through the court, carrying with it the smell of burnt embers with none of the warmth. Lady Liuying set down her needle to check in on her daughter.

Little Liuruo slept peacefully under a mountain of blankets; like her mother, she ran cold. Liuying checked underneath the blankets and sighed as she saw a snake tail peak out. Liuruo was usually good about maintaining her two legs while awake, but in sleep her snake tail revealed itself.

She was getting better at walking with two legs, but her locomotion was still severely limited. Though she sometimes felt guilty watching her daughter hobble along with a servant supporting each arm, Liuying was certain that she had made the right choice to cut apart Liuruo’s legs. Given a few more years, her daughter would thrive in court.

Just in case a servant came in, Lady Liuying placed another blanket on top of the girl’s legs.

A stronger wind blew, causing the walls to shudder against each other. Liuying made her way to the garden; perhaps she had forgotten to shut the door. Just then, a large bird landed in the garden. For a brief moment Liuying was struck with primeval fear at the sight of a predator in the water, but she soon relaxed as she recognized the silhouette. A crane in the garden; her friend, Bixian.

The crane took a moment to preen its wings with its long neck, before walking towards the drawing room. As it did, the feathers fell away to new robes of grey, of a finely embroidered fabric that seemed to be made for war as much as polite society. She looked more haggard than usual, her hair loose on her shoulders, covering half of her face like a veil.

It had been years since Liuying had seen her friend. They had regretfully left before the crane came back from returning the knife; the convoy had been readied and the servants needed to be paid.

Liuying opened her arms to greet her friend. Bixian brushed past her and stepped into Liuruo’s chamber. From her sleeve she produced a knife, a curved handle that transitioned into the blade without a hilt,and at that familiar glint of gold Liuying screamed, though the sound only reached the ears of her husband and no one else.

“It is by Heaven’s will,” Bixian declares sadly. “All children of the Qiao must be stripped of their demonic heritage. Li Liuruo is the last one who remains.”

Without time to think about the betrayal, Liuying took a step back and transformed into her snake form, overturning the table in order as she lunged towards Bixian. The crane easily parried her strike, entangling her in a portion of her long grey sleeve.

Li Wenrong rushed into the room with a candle in one hand and a sword in the other. He was paralyzed in place by a flick of Bixian’s wrist. Liuruo started awake, more agile in her half-snake form, and scrambled behind her father.

Liuying lashed and spat, her fangs finding no purchase within the swathes of Bixian’s robe. As the binds around her body tightened and adrenaline coursed through her veins, her mind began to reach a sort of clarity beyond the panic of seeing her daughter in danger. Now she fought not out of fear but out of anger.

What a fool she was, to assume that Heaven would smile upon her family. That a crane devoted to serving a sage would consider a demon like her a friend.

She transformed back into her human form and clawed at the fabric. She was able to free one of her arms and grab a fistful of Bixian’s hair, but Bixian calmly raised the knife and cut free the strands.

Liuying stumbled backwards into a screen, her hand punching through the paper as she regained her balance. Bixian was between her and her family; there was a chance, if all three of them striked, that they could buy some time.

But time for what? She had no hope of besting Bixian, a celestial crane and former disciple of the Qilin Sage. Liuying was simply a garden snake that swam enough rivers to cultivate divinity. There was a reason they played go together instead of sparring. Furthermore, she was unarmed while Bixian held a knife that could literally rend the demonic form from her body.

Bixian took another step forward toward Ruoruo and Liuying threw her body in between them. The binds around her tightened, and she could feel her magic flowing out of her body, sapped away into the fabric. Her daughter was shaking, face red and covered with tears. Liuying was proud of her for not showing weakness past quiet whimpering. She herself was terrified. Prince Wenrong raised his sword to cover the bodies of his wife and child, but there was little comfort in that mortal steel. Not against the golden knife of the divine.

“I want to do this peacefully,” Bixian said softly. “However, Heaven’s forces are behind me if you choose to resist.”

Liuying gazed up at Bixian and saw the fine shimmer of divinity embroidered within the robes. At the same time she saw how gaunt Bixian had become, and the scar on the left side of her face.

Behind Bixian, the night sky turned red. As she took deep breaths in order to slow her heart, she could sense the presence of Heaven’s army just above the clouds. A battalion of twenty were positioned up there, likely with arrows already drawn and aimed at her. It was already over.

Liuying lowered her head, and the cloth binding around her loosened.

Poor Liuruo squirmed as Liuying brought her before Bixian. “Don’t worry, Ruoruo,” she cooed. “It will only hurt for a moment.”

“I like my tail,” the girl whined. “Mama, you promised you wouldn’t cut me up again!”

Lady Liuying’s heart broke, but she remained calm. Bixian asked to see Liuruo’s back, and she obliged, holding her squirming daughter close to her chest. Tears soaked her robe, and Liuying longed to have her husband beside her. She understood why Bixian did not undo the spell; she herself did not know what her husband would think of her giving up so easily.

Bixian made one deep vertical slash from between Liuruo’s scapulae to the small of her back, tracing the curvature of her spine. Instead of blood, golden light seeped from the wound. Bixian reached in and began to pull out a snakeskin coat, scales a translucent white like Liuruo’s tail. Her cries were near unbearable, but her demon skin was eventually removed completely, and the girl collapsed in her mother’s arms.

On any other night, soldiers would have been awoken and gathered at her screams. On this night, however, the world was silent. Heaven stood guard and mortals unknowingly averted their eyes as the penultimate child of the Qiao lost her demonhood.

The pelt was so small and inconsequential in Bixian’s hand. From the outside, it looked like the jeweled shed skin of a garden snake. So much pain inside a tiny thing.

“The Qiao are no more,” Bixian uttered dispassionately. “May your daughter find peace as a mortal human.” Tucking the pelt inside her sleeve, she turned to face Liuying and Wenrong, whom she released from her paralysis curse. “Heaven will not stand for a demon within palace walls. You are to leave Chang’an at once.”

She stepped back to avoid a swing of Prince Wenrong’s blade, raising her arms up to the heavens. When she brought them down, they were once more wings, and the celestial crane flew away from the palace grounds.

“Where is my bow,” Wenrong growled. “I’ll shoot her down from the sky.”

Liuying turned to see her husband falling apart in a way she had never seen him before. His eyes were bloodshot and filled with a crazed fury. He would mount his horse and chase down Bixian himself if she let him, curse Heaven and welcome their wrath.

She did not forgive Bixian, but she understood the sad futility of their resistance. Silently, she placed Liuruo into her husband’s arms and kissed him gently on the cheek.

“Take care of Ruoruo,” she whispered. “I must return to Clear Water Mountain.”

“Take me with you. We’ll go together.”

“I may already be too late. I cannot hope to carry you and make it in time. Please,” she kissed him once more. “Take care of our daughter, my love.”

Channeling all the magic she had cultivated in her two hundred years of life, Lady Liuying flew off into the clouds towards Clear Water Mountain. The night was growing old, the night so completely dark that the stars shone like daggers, cold watchers upon the tragedy unfolding.

An easterly wind brought tidings of war from the mountain range, but she kept a small hope in her heart that she did not hear the sound of drums. As she neared the Qiao village, however, she could already smell the smoke and acrid scent of blood and burning flesh. She was too late.

Before her was a massacre. Bodies of her demon brethren were strewn about the ground, some of the bodies human, others animals, and still more half transformed between the two. Most of the buildings were burnt and torn down: the pavilion facing the river, the smokehouse, the granary, all just piles of charred wood and stone. Quietly, she slithered down from the treetops in her snake form, making her way slowly between the rubble until she reached her herb garden. Like the rest of the village, barely anything survived. The plants that were not burnt were uprooted in the battle, and the soil itself was poisoned with spilled blood.

She saw Bixian standing near the stone bridge, golden knife in hand. A mixture of emotions swelled in Liuying’s chest: betrayal, anger, sorrow and love. She was about to rush through the grass and bite the treacherous crane’s feet, but footsteps made her freeze in place.

In the cool light of the rising sun, surviving members of the Qiao emerged. All adults; all demons. Overjoyed, Liuying moved once more in the shadows, waiting to aid the survivors as they made their last stand.

But it did not come. One by one, members of the exhausted Qiao knelt before Bixian and exposed their backs. With the same cruel steadiness in her hand the crane had when she took Liuruo’s pelt, Bixian extracted the demons’ pelts from the cut in their back. As the final link between pelt and body was cut, the mortal who remained kneeling was much duller than when they arrived. The last connections of the Qiao were being cut away.

Liuying transformed back into her human form, the edges of her robe growing wet by morning dew. She slowly walked towards Bixian, who was extracting the last pelt from Yuanpo. After the lingering fibers were cut, Yuanpo stood, leaning against a makeshift cane, and looked sadly at Liuying.

“You are too late,” the fox demon sighed. “Or are you here to acquiesce as well?” Not waiting for an answer, she walked past Liuying where two figures—Xiongmu and Jin Si Lang, Liuying realized—were waiting.

“I wish you peace, sister,” Liuying called after her.

“Our sisterhood died with our Lord and Lady. But I wish you peace as well, Lady Liuying.”

As the demons walked away, stripped of their pelts and newly mortal, Liuying turned to Bixian, too exhausted to hate her. All that was left was a dull ache, a longing for sleep at her husband’s side. The news of Tangyou and Ao Luming’s death was little more than another pinprick on her already broken heart. She could not look at Bixian, nor did Bixian seem capable of looking back at her. The two of them stared out at the eponymous clear lake for which the mountain was named, standing on the stone bridge they used to stroll across regularly, laughing as they made poems from word games.

“They would have razed the entire mountain,” Bixian murmured, her arms lax on her side. “I tried to negotiate the best I could.”

“How many dead?”

“Ten of our demon brethren. No humans. Heaven let the humans and children go to finish their short mortal lives.”

Liuying glanced at the Knife in Bixian’s hand. “And you’re giving those of us who survived the same option?”

Bixian pursed her lips and said nothing.

Bixian’s fine robes were suddenly heinous to Liuying. She should have seen it before; where else would the crane get such fine clothes aside from Heaven? “What other boons were you given?”

“Godhood,” Bixian said softly. “And immortality for my daughter.”

Liuying clicked her tongue. “Fine spoils.”

“I did not wish for this. They caught me on my way back after I stole the Knife of Sublimation.”

A detail remained unspoken. The knife had been stolen to pry apart little Liuruo’s tail. She looked down at the golden knife Bixian held at her side, her insides coiling with disgust. Disgust at the violence the knife had wrought, but also disgust at herself and her ambitions. Her foolish desire for power had ruined the Qiao. If Bixian had not stolen the knife for Liuruo’s sake, perhaps Heaven would have never come, at least in their lifetime.

Overwhelmed, Liuying fell onto her knees before her former sister and bowed deeply, her forehead resting on the cool stone of the bridge. “Take my pelt too, then,” she cried. “Let me return to my family.” She bit the edge of her sleeve, waiting for the knife to break skin.

The blow never came. “I can’t; not for you,” Bixian said sadly. “Heaven will not allow a demon, even a powerless one, into the Emperor’s halls. Should you return to the palace, you will be struck down by Heaven’s wrath.”

Liuying’s heart sank. She had not departed the day before knowing she would never see her husband and daughter again. The thought of leaving them as she did, her daughter scarred and her husband fuming, was unbearable. Once more she begged, taking Bixian’s hand and bringing the knife to her own throat, but Bixian did not relent.

“I’ve already bargained for as much as I could. I’m sorry, sister.”

“Just a goodbye,” Liuying pleaded. She clutched her former sister’s hand. She knew it was covered in blood—the blood of Qiao children, and those of their parents who fell at Heaven’s assault.

Bixian closed her eyes and sighed. “This is the last time. After this, you are not to set foot into Chang’an again. Neither the Prince nor your daughter may search for you.” She placed her other hand on Liuying’s hand to help her up. As she did, the crane pressed something into Liuying’s palm.

It was a scale from her daughter’s pelt, a pearlish milky white. For once, Liuying was grateful her daughter did not inherit her green and golden scales. She herself wished to scrub herself clean of the color; she would never wear gold again as long as she lived.

“I can send you home swiftly,” Bixian offered. “Though you will not have long inside the palace until Heaven notices.” She touched a finger to Liuying’s forehead, and the snake could feel her body fading slowly, melting from one place to another. It would have been so useful to have this power, Liuying contemplated sadly, and be able to commute between Chang’an and Qiao village with a blink of an eye. How wonderful it would have been for Bixian had obtained her godhood without the terrible price it cost to the Qiao clan.

Just before Bixian vanished fully from sight, the crane reached out a hand, a crack forming in her impassive exterior. The wind lifted the right side of her hair, revealing a deep gash where her eye once was.

“Would you have done the same?”

Lady Liuying swallowed all the love she used to hold for the crane, and lifted her head proudly. “They wouldn’t have needed to torture me.”

-

She found Wenrong pacing in the courtyard and Liuruo asleep in the drawing room, using the coded tapestry as a blanket. The prince startled as she appeared, but relaxed when he recognized her. An initially hopeful smile disappeared when he saw the expression of her face.

“You were too late,” he guessed sadly. Liuying nodded. He quickly breached the distance between them and hugged her tightly.

“All gone,” Liuying whispered. “The entirety of Qiao village. Tangyou and Luming, dead. All the demon pelts taken.” She traced her fingers along Wenrong’s arm, imprinting every detail of him into her mind. “All except mine.”

“Good,” he breathed, and Liuying wanted to laugh out of irony.

“She wouldn’t take mine,” she corrected. “I…am not allowed to stay, even if I give up my demon form.”

Wenrong’s hold on her tightened, then turned slack. “No,” he protested. “That’s unfair. Unjust. I’ll fight their decision. I’ll go to Heaven right now and demand they let you stay with me.” He began to walk past her as if he had the ability to step on clouds and demand an audience with the Jade Emperor himself.

As she slipped from his embrace, Liuying turned and walked towards her daughter. “Was she in pain for long?”

“Don’t ignore my question.” Not having the gift of flight, the human prince could only clench his fists and glare up at the sky.

“You are a minor mortal prince with not even a village to his name now. How are you going to get an audience with Heaven, Li Wenrong?”

The prince was silent. She had won the argument; a hollow victory after a night of defeats.

“And I ask again, how is Ruoruo?”

Li Wenrong walked over to the sleeping Liuruo and tucked her feet underneath the tapestry. “I gave her one of your sleeping draughts. It seemed to be the best thing to do.”

“You did well,” Liuying said, taking a seat on the opposite side of her daughter. The girl was sleeping peacefully on her stomach, her hair falling loose around her head. Only ten years old, but her face was already starting to change, her body set to grow taller and taller in the upcoming years. Liuying ran her fingers through her daughter’s thick hair, untangling knots before she split the hair into sections in order to braid. The charcoal oil she used to hide her daughter’s white hair stained Liuying’s fingertips.

“You be a good girl,” Liuying murmured. Liuruo stirred a bit as her hair was pulled but remained asleep. “Mind your father, he can be impulsive at times. I leave you with the cipher to this quilt’s code. May it help you in the future.” Liuying kissed her daughter gently on the forehead. She then reached into her hair and found the scale Bixian had given her. Digging beneath her robes, she pulled out one of her own scales as well, a shimmering emerald green. Placing the two scales side by side, she worked small magic to turn it into a hair ornament and tucked it in her daughter’s finished braid. “I will always be watching over you,” she concluded, running a finger along Liuruo’s cheek.

“I erased her memory,” she said to Wenrong. He opened his mouth to argue but then closed it again. He understood her logic. “It will also be easier for you if I—”

“No,” he interrupted. “You can’t, Liuying, I refuse.”

“Heaven will intercede if you search for me, and I know you will try.”

“I won’t chase after you,” Wenrong insisted. “I just want to hold you in my heart.”

“I was hoping to spare you the pain of mourning.”

Prince Wenrong took Lady Liuying’s hand and brought it to his lips. “You are worth the pain,” he said.

She looked at his intense, earnest eyes, and smiled sadly.

“You idiot prince. Why do you choose to live in pain?”

Prince Wenrong’s eyes went cloudy and then blank. The sun rose on his little garden, and he blinked as the rays hit his eyes, refracting against the tears that flowed freely down his cheeks. Behind him, his daughter stirred.

“Something wrong, Baba?” she mumbled, too early for formalities.

Prince Wenrong paused. “Nothing, Ruoruo,” he replied. “I thought I saw something in the garden.” His chest ached without knowing why. He should go see the doctor later; it was unbecoming of a prince in his position to weep for no reason.