A deadly silence filled the hall of the Lunar Palace.

Stirred only by the calm explanation Sister was giving before the unmoving mirror.

I stood with my back against the wall of the hallway, peering out by the corner of my eyes.

A set of three grim eyes frowned inside the mirror.

‘…That is what she says?’ Lord Yangjian asked after deep consideration.

‘It is’, Sister nodded.

‘…And you believe her?’ he added incredulously.

Sister‘s body shook.

‘How could you say that!’—

‘I am only stating a reasonable suspicion’, Lord Yangjian inclined his head forward slightly. ‘She has been within the enemy camp all this time’—

‘I trust Yu’er as you trust Xiaotianquan!’ Sister shouted in a tone of voice that I had never known from her. ‘If you can’t take my word for it then it will all have been too late!’

I clenched my chest.

Even Lord Yangjian was slightly caught off guard. ‘…I understand your point, but I need to be certain of things’—

‘What things—you won’t trust me!’—

‘It’s about more than trust!’

I stepped out into view before the mirror.

‘I am telling the truth, Lord Yangjian!’ I cried. ‘I swear upon my life!’

‘I told you to stand back, Yu’er!’

‘Well, well!’ The war god’s impassive expression shifted into an obvious scowl, and his tone became caustic.

‘Nice of you to show up by yourself!’ he jeered humourlessly, the gaze of his eyes, like the points of his words, as sharp as a spear’s, as they casually slit through my defenceless being. ‘Had enough of playing sandcastle as the fishwife of the fishlord, now have we?! I’d thought you had so much fun you forgot to invite anybody—or call home for that matter?’

‘Lord Yangjian!’ Sister tried to interrupt him, but his words continued to pierce through me.

‘Have you any idea how much trouble you’ve caused for everybody?!’ he shouted. ‘How much trouble you’ve caused your sister?!—do you care for how much you’ve worried her?!—She cried for you!!’—

‘Lord Yangjian!’—

‘After everything she has done for you—and this is how you repaid her!?’

‘That is enough!’

I collapsed onto the floor.

Tears flooded from my eyes, as I choked and found it hard to breath. I could taste blood within my own mouth.

‘…I’m sorry…’

I wouldn’t have been surprised if I tasted blood all over my body.

‘Yu’er!’ Sister cried as she knelt down beside me.

In the mirror, Lord Yangjian’s dark figure straightened itself, his voice once again returned to the emotionless manner it had at the start of the contact.

‘…I only said what needed to be said’, he said quietly.

‘But it was enough!’ she cried as she put glowing hands over my face and chest.

My breathing steadied.

‘…But now I know she’s not lying’—

‘A fact you could have gotten if you’d trusted me!—she was too weak!’

I saw the furious expression on her face past the blur of my tears as she proffered me up, before it blurred again and I instinctively grabbed hold of her to make sure she was there.

The black war god stood unmoving before us.

‘…You are the best healer we have, Heng’e’—

‘Go report it to all the warrior gods already!’ Sister said as she pressed her face close to mine.

‘No need’, came Lord Yangjian’s sardonic voice after turning himself slightly in the mirror. ‘I’ve had Xiaotian contact them as we were talking—but they have all been given mysterious deployments, or have engaged with and are being held up by unknown forces—some simply did not respond.’

‘That means Shaoyang’—

‘Has long and slimy tentacles', Lord Yangjian said without humour, adding with finality, 'There’s only me left now. It’s everything He had feared when He sent me to the moon.’

Sister turned toward the mirror. ‘...The Jade Emperor knew about this?’

Lord Yangjian neither confirmed nor denied her question. ‘I will come over as soon as I can.’

Before he turned his back to the mirror, I felt his strong gaze upon me again, with a softness I did not expect as I cowered.

‘…Xiaotian was always searching for you.’

With that last remark, his image faded from the surface of the mirror, replaced by a reflection of me inside Sister’s arms.

Red spots dotted the front of my person like the motley traces of disease upon sickly skin. I wasn’t aware I had coughed out so much blood.

Looking at the two of us beside one another like that, it was like a caricature had been set up beside the genuine article.

‘…I’m sorry… Sister…’ I sobbed.

‘No more of that now’, she hushed gently, and nudged a little pill into my mouth. ‘It’s bitter, but if you take it, you’ll be able to recover faster.’

‘…I shouldn’t… have left… the palace… you…’

Sister smiled. ‘If you have learnt that, then it all will have been worth it.’

Suddenly, her glow enveloped my entire body, and lifted it into the air and onto a bed that had appeared without my noticing.

Thin rolls of fabric rose from the bed to restrain me, as the whole construct began carrying me away down the hallway.

Sister went in the direction of the entrance.

‘Sister…! What are you’—I cried as I tried to struggle against my restraints.

‘Rest, Yu’er…’

She flashed me a radiant, assuring smile.

‘I need to go pound some rice cake first.’

The bed turned down the corner, and she disappeared from my sight.

‘…But pounding… was my job…’

As I was carried along the hallway windows, I saw the white canvas of the lunar landscapes.

Being torn open by a great rift the likes of which I had never seen.

A world of red and yellow appeared inside it.

Yet in spite of the radiant colours that appeared in the portal, the Lunar Realm was as dark as it ever could be.

The glowing snow had thinned into a silent nothingness, as the White Above itself seemed to darken.

An eclipse had taken place.

A mass of men and beasts flooded onto the lunar snowbed.

At the helm of them was a man in golden robes.

‘Shaoyang doesn’t bluff!’ Lord Hebo’s familiar voice cackled across the peaceful quiet of the Lunar Realm like thunder. ‘It really took no time at all!’

…I had to stop him!

‘Let go of me…you stupid thing!’ I writhed and kicked at the bed, trying to break free, but could hardly make it budge.

It was then that I could hear Sister’s voice ringing, resonating throughout the fabric of the Lunar Realm, like whispering from every snowflake itself.

‘I don’t believe we have had the pleasure of being acquainted.’

Her tone was icy cold.

I looked out the windows again, and spotted a glowing figure before the black mass descending upon the snowy landscape. Lord Hebo straightened his golden form.

‘I have not had the honour, but I have admired your person my entire life, Lady Goddess of Everconstant Light’, he said in an impassioned, ceremonial fashion.

‘State your business and tell me why I shouldn’t just administer punishment for your trespass of my lunar domain’, she said simply, unimpressed.

Lord Hebo flinched. ‘…We have come upon the orders of Lord Shaoyang, to deliver his message.’

‘Which is?’

‘…He asks that you steer your domain clear from interference between his Solar Realm’s affairs with the Earth.’

‘Or what?’

‘…If you do not wish to comply, we will have no choice but to take you into custody.’

‘…’

‘…’

As the two gods stood before one another in silence, a swarm of soldiers steadily thinned out to circle Sister’s position. It was not long before she was completely surrounded.

‘Well, then,’ she said at last, ‘I suppose I should show you what lunar hospitality is all about.’

Lord Hebo’s face brightened with cheer. ‘I’m glad you understand‘—

‘Our tea is famously bitter.’

A torrent of snow rose from under his feet, shooting him backwards into the air.

He braced against the attack, and stopped himself mid-flight, floating in the White Above.

His face was like a cooked crusty.

‘Restrain her!’ he commanded, and the soldiers all closed in upon her.

I have to go and help Sister!

‘Let go!’ I kicked as the bed carried me into the part of the storage room my sister had converted into an infirmary.

I grabbed blindly at the tools on a nearby table, hoping to get something—anything—that could help me break loose.

I stabbed into the bed with what turned out to be a spoon.

Pounded it with a pestle.

But neither would make it let go of me.

Then finally, I grabbed hold of something really familiar.

I never thought I would be glad to see it.

I plunged the blade of the Shaving Knife into the coils of fabric encircling me.

And the knife did the rest.

Moving by itself within the air, the knife cut a gaping tear along the white fabric. It moved at a frightening speed, and soon dispatched the bed into a pile of white strands, like shaved hair.

I grimaced for a second to look at it.

But soon I shook myself, and turned into a corner I knew well.