It was getting late; the sun had long set, and on moonless nights like these Marcus’ study grew dreadful. He had at his desk just one lamp—bright enough, perhaps, but his study was cavernous, rising tens of strides to shadowed corners of ceiling, stretching tens of strides behind labyrinthine shelves of books, looming one over another like distant mountain peaks. His desk was an island of light. All else was dark and unknowable.
Caius had suggested installing essence lamps on the ce...
2023-11-10 17:30:02 +0000 UTC
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The first week Aelia fought Ruyi, it was like fighting a child. Ruyi didn’t know how to move her legs, or her arms, and she pounced around clumsily in her demonform—a child in a big suit. Aelia felt bad for giggling. It was so easy to beat her! You just had to smack her on the nose and she’d get angry and sloppy, and Aelia would fly around her and slash her to shreds. Ruyi pouted like a child after she lost too, though she still saluted Aelia after the fight.
The second week it wa...
2023-11-09 17:30:01 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Cut out the last part of last chapter about seeing how the food’s made. Also added to last chapter:
“It was such an annoying screw-up, too. She thought she’d gotten over this kind of impulsiveness, that she’d learned to wrestle down her worse feelings, but that was before… lately it felt like all her feelings were inflamed. She was better than this, she knew she was.”
//
Livia took her to a stall serving cheeses wrapped in weird purple leave...
2023-11-08 17:30:01 +0000 UTC
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The Art was neatly written, but by hand; it had little splotches and loops you wouldn’t see in an issue of the Herald, and the lines didn’t run perfectly even. It took her less than ten minutes to soak in the whole thing. She stood there, letting the words and pictures swim around in her head, and breathed out.
“You’ve read all of it?” said Tyrus. Ruyi nodded.
He frowned at her, grunted, but said nothing. He didn’t believe her; he was just like all the rest. I...
2023-11-07 17:30:01 +0000 UTC
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It was late at night, and Ruyi was laying outside, staring at the moon, painfully sober. It took her a while to fall asleep these days; she couldn’t manage it, so now she was here. Ever since she’d become a demon, the cold couldn’t touch her anymore. The snows felt like another crunchier bed. She lay there, spread out against a mound, and stared.
She was thinking of Jin. It started in the tent, when she was trying to resist the quite strong urge to go over to Darius’s. She didn...
2023-11-06 17:30:01 +0000 UTC
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It was too quiet on the way to the palace. There was no-one on the road. Thick gray clouds hid the sky, sagging ominously. Jin kept expecting a squadron of the king’s guard to pop out of the sunflower fields, to come up from a patch of earth, spears blazing, but there was no-one.
The only sound was the boots on the muddy ground behind him. Not the uniform staccato of uniformed men—these were so uneven they sounded like a rumbling storm. When he glanced behind him he saw nothing bind...
2023-11-05 17:30:02 +0000 UTC
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It was getting late, and the hearth was nearly burnt out. The watery orange sun poured in through the great windows in Tingting’s bedroom, casting half the room in a flat rectangle of harsh light—her bed, her writing desk, her mirrors and glasses, a rocking-chair and a few closets. The other half lay in darkness.
Tingting was grateful for her room. Father had given her her Mother’s quarters, quarters worthy of a queen, but they were so vast she never felt she got to know them, and...
2023-11-04 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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The elite warriors held their morning practice at the break of dawn. Ruyi thought this was a most heinous practice, since she usually woke up around noon, or possibly later depending on how much she’d drunk.
“Lula.”
She groaned. “Stop…”
“Lula.”
She held on tighter. A sigh. “Lula, we must go.” Strong hands pried off her arms and she found herself hugging air. Blearily she cracked an eye open.
She was in Darius’s tent again. Why was s...
2023-11-03 16:30:02 +0000 UTC
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// slightly changed Claudia’s appearance at end of last chapter
“This is what we’ll do. Drusila wants you to do to our warriors what you did to your Lower City,” said Claudia. “I’ll give you our scrolls, you’ll take a look, and you’ll pitch me what you want to do.”
Her head was held high, arms crossed, and though she scarcely looked older than Ruyi. She bore herself like an imitation of Lorekeeper Tyrus’s self-assured confidence, but on her it looked stiff, an ...
2023-11-02 16:30:02 +0000 UTC
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A/N: To Demon Tier members: y'all get 13 chapters ahead now! I'm trying 2x/day chapters, which means this tier will expand proportionally
//
She woke up to the smell of smoke. She cracked an eye, groaned, got up to her elbows blearily. Where was she? Why was she so sore? What happened? It was such a blur… she remembered being angry, so angry. And thinking it was unfair someone so pretty outside could be so ugly inside. And then—
It all rushed back ...
2023-11-01 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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A/N: just a checkup—please give me your honest opinion on how the story’s going in comments!
Happy Halloween!
//
“Rufus?” said Sabina.
For a while the warrior was silent, brooding into the fire stony-faced. Then he said,
“After what you have said, I have been searching for something just as beautiful in me. There does not seem to be anything there.” He smiled bashfully, scratching his head. “This is all I can give you. I never back ...
2023-10-31 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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sorry for late chap! schoolwork ran over
//
Later that afternoon, she was woken up from her nap by the blast of a horn.
“Ahh!” She half-clawed, half-stumbled her way outside. There she saw warriors dashing through the streets, flooding in one direction.
Ruyi almost ran into the person standing outside her tent flap; she nearly fell over herself trying to avoid her. It was a short girl sucking on a sweet on a stick, and she had blue whiskers—Ruyi ha...
2023-10-30 16:47:57 +0000 UTC
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From her second cup on Ruyi was a different person. Her head felt tingly warm, and the tightness in her chest didn’t hurt as much anymore and breathing felt easy again. She laughed and said things she later wouldn’t remember, but they seemed to please the warriors, who laughed too. She would remember their faces, but not their names; they introduced themselves to her—the ones nearest her at the table, anyways—but the words slipped right out of her head.
“More!” cried Ruyi, g...
2023-10-28 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Ruyi wondered how bad he’d have to hurt her before Sabina stepped in. Was this how these folk treated a guest? Beating them up? She felt a little resentful. But she’d agreed to it, because of course she did, she just had to, didn’t she? So she supposed it was all her fault, again. She hugged herself as she stood there, feeling their expectant gazes on her.
Why was this Rufus so cheery? It would’ve been easier if he was angry at her, or if she hated him, but he seemed like an oka...
2023-10-27 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Ruyi thought as she chewed off another chunk of meat—a tough one, rough in her mouth, and stringy and turgid with blood; it didn’t go down easy. It was a part of the frost drake’s heart.
Did she like it here? Sure. She did—a lot… If she stayed here, what would it mean? Could this really be a new home? She blinked over the throng of laughing, chewing, back-slapping, chattering Demon Kings. They seemed so happy here. Could she really be one of them? And then… maybe come to lov...
2023-10-26 16:43:39 +0000 UTC
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When Livia came the next morning Ruyi was waiting for her. She’d been waiting outside her tent since before dawn, watching the sun creep up the horizon and the stale, dull snows come to life, flush with ruddy morning light.
She’d been woken up that morning by this sick gnawing feeling in her chest, and it helped standing out here, letting herself feel a part of this cold vastness. That was what she ought to be, she felt—huge and cold, and when her feelings burst up in her like lit...
2023-10-25 16:25:19 +0000 UTC
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So this was their version of a library!
It was cozy here; a single shaft of sunlight lit a cylinder down the middle, pouring sunlight on a cackling hearth heaped high with coal. A short, stick-thin, bald old man with a crown of feathers sat tending the hearth with a poker. His bushy brows shot up at the sight of them; his pupils were milky white. He frowned at the sight of them. It seemed to take him a second to see them. Then he broke into a big wrinkly smile.
“Is that Livy...
2023-10-24 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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To human tier members--y'all get 6 advance chapters instead of 4 now! I'm writing 2x chapters a day now, so as the backlog expands this tier's chapters will expand as well proportionally
//
It was over in an instant. Lynx leapt. The falcon sliced. The slice landed first. One bright cold edge shattered the ice on the lynx’s face. Then the other wing took the lynx over. In the same instant the lynx dug a claw into the falcon’s belly, dragging it to the snow, and they went over s...
2023-10-23 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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“You!” gasped Ruyi.
“Hello again,” said Livia. She smiled softly in a way that must’ve been genial, but the scars on her face twisted grotesquely and Ruyi only felt a little sickened.
“Are you feeling alright?”
“You followed me?”
“Not quite. You stumbled into our territory. You’re in in Frigus lands. My Mother claimed it from the Ignis tribe not two moons ago. That is, Octavius’ Tribe…though none of that means much to you, does it?”
Th...
2023-10-21 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Those were men’s voices. No-one she knew. She remembered the lights she saw twinkling at the bottom of the range as she went in—Father’s men, pursuing her…
They caught up.
Dread washed over her. She didn’t have it anymore; it was just too much, all too much, and it was like she’d had some invincible shield she’d always hid behind ripped violently away, and now she had nothing, no great well of anger or determination to draw on. She felt hollowed out. As she saw their...
2023-10-20 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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She demonformed in a panic and the claws were forced open. She fell all of a stride, lashing at air, tail thrashing, before the claws closed around her neck again. Harsh winds flushed down her face as the wings beat higher and higher. She bucked blindly—she couldn’t get free! She couldn’t even see what held her.
A hot pressure built in her face. She saw the things eyeing her from the cliffside nests. The lizard-things, wyverns, were they? She’d only seen them in reference texts....
2023-10-19 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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At first Ruyi thought she was just lucky. As she crept up the excuse for a road trickling between the mountains, she met no-one. No squadrons of angry men coming to fight her, no assassins, not even a scout.
Then she realized she wasn’t giving herself enough credit. She really was far better at sneaking around than even she’d thought. Moving slowly, deliberately—that was the trick of it. This way no one saw anything flash by. Even if there were scouts up there on the moun...
2023-10-18 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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“Where’re you going?” sniveled the girl. “Can you take me with you? Please? What’s your name?”
It was rather hard to think with the girl all over her, staring at her, pouring herself over her. Ruyi almost said “Ruyi.”
Instead Ruyi said, “What are you doing here?”
The girl blinked up at her stunned, and Ruyi got the distinct sense they were characters in a play and Ruyi had said something out of turn.
“What do you mean?” the girl said breathily. ...
2023-10-16 16:30:02 +0000 UTC
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“You look like you could use some help.”
She hugged herself tighter.
“Are you here to kill me?” she mumbled.
“Probably not,” said the boy, shrugging. He invited himself in, unslung a knapsack, and casually tossed a dark shape at her. Reflexively she snatched it. She felt rough cloth under her fingers.
“A tunic,” said the boy.
She hesitated. “What do you want?”
“For the tunic? Nothing. It’s a gift.” He smiled. “It’s human tradit...
2023-10-14 16:30:02 +0000 UTC
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She bounded through the forest, panting hard, straining to hear her pursuers. But there was only the soft chirping of insects, the shriek of the wind, the crackling as leaves and branches shattered underfoot. Had she lost them? She kept bounding, keeping off the road, not sure if the darkness that edged her vision came from outside or inside. It must’ve been both. Her head felt very light even as her body felt heavy, so heavy she was kept up more by momentum than anything. She couldn’t be...
2023-10-13 18:35:44 +0000 UTC
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Fighting felt like drowning. She threw back the tide of white cloaks but more rushed to take their place like so much water. They came at her in bunches, keeping swords between them. They drove spear tips into the ground and poured in earth-aspect qi, rupturing the icy tundra, making little islands of rucked-up soil for their fellows to hop between. Others held back, lobbing Techniques at her, pale gales carving at her and lashing tongues of white fire she had no choice but to take head-on. S...
2023-10-12 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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“Ready!”
Chen’s voice blew through the alley like a cold wind. Already Ruyi was running—running where she saw the cannon aiming, tracking the clump of stragglers rushing for the side streets. For Chrysanthemum Street. She dashed for them and found a knot of humanity clogged in the middle of the street. They tried shoving their way through the wards, but they got tangled up in the fluttering tarp, tripping over the rolling beds, the screaming patients and healers. They were block...
2023-10-11 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Jin threw open the front doors. “Rue!”
She was finishing up the last of her morning blood soup. “I’m right here,” she said mildly. “No need to yell.”
Then she saw the color of his face, saw the color of the letter he was holding. Cream, with a red wax seal so big it seemed a bloodstain on the letter. It had already been torn open.
“It’s from the Emperor,” said Jin, voice tight. “Sent out to all noble families. He says passage to the Lower City will be b...
2023-10-10 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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A/N: Sorry for late >.> traveling with fam
Will try to get a chapter out tomorrow as well but not 100% sure I'll be able to
May start taking 1 day/week off to plan and as a cushion, just in case
//
Father had to leave to man the border and make sure the demons weren’t coming back. She and Jin went to see him off. She waved, a little teary, until his carriage vanished beyond a bend of trees.
She saw the way Jin was looking at her on the wa...
2023-10-08 18:59:19 +0000 UTC
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Ruyi had rocked there on the rooftop all day, staring at the mountains so long she could see their outlines even when she closed her eyes. The last wink of the sunlight was passing beyond the peaks. Below, the Temple Monks had taken seats on a cleaner patch of grass. Half the army was on a knee. Was it a ploy to wear them out? If it was, it was working. Everywhere she looked she saw hung heads, hunched backs, folk leaning on their spears. You could only hold folk under high tension for so lon...
2023-10-07 16:30:01 +0000 UTC
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