Chapter Text
If Zhao Yunlan was a braver man, a stronger man, a courageous stoic warrior, he wouldn't have said it hurt at all. In fact it hurt like hell, a needle that big puncturing his chest, even through the pain of broken skin and bones already wracking him. And the chemical inside felt like acid entering his veins, when he pushed the plunger down.
Da Qing was shouting at him, and Zhao Yunlan answered without knowing what he said, unable to remember it a moment later, when the first wave of agony hit. Da Qing kept yelling, but Zhao Yunlan was on the ground, curled around himself, teeth gritted as fire blazed through him, hotter than the magma flowing in the trench beside him—no, not fire; dark energy, as he'd felt before. Except this time it wasn't an external force buffeting him, nor an insidious shadow cast over his consciousness or his vision.
This time—this time it was in him, in his flesh, in his blood, in every cell. In his genes, unwinding his DNA strand by strand and coiling it back up again, remaking his very being into something else, something new. He'd known what Dr. Ouyang was doing was unethical, was dangerous; but to feel this change, in all its excruciating wrongness—
It was the worst pain he'd ever felt, in his body. Yet even as he struggled to breathe through it, his lungs burning like he was inhaling boiling gas, his muscles locked in rigid spasms, it might have been nothing. No worse than a paper cut, than a stubbed toe, next to the pain in his heart.
Even as he gasped, as he struggled to get his shaking limbs under control enough to get up onto his knees, Zhao Yunlan couldn't stop remembering. Remembering Shen Wei's white face, and his bloody teeth as he smiled.
And then he was swallowed, was gone, and there was only his monster of a brother remaining. His brother, who was still here, his golden mask shattered by the anti-Dixing bullet, and behind it a face that Zhao Yunlan knew every feature of, could have drawn each exact angle with his eyes closed. The face of a total stranger, of a demon, unrecognizable.
Ye Zun's power dragged him up, and Zhao Yunlan hung there before him, a wingless fly suspended in a dark energy web. The energy throbbed through him in waves of heat and chill, resonating with the transformation in him, accelerating it. Zhao Yunlan squinted open his eyes enough to see through those flowing shadows, past Ye Zun and the Hallows, to make out the fuzzy figures scattered around them—on the ground, but moving, everyone he could see; his team were tenacious bastards, all of them, and he was grateful beyond reckoning for that.
It was for their sake more than his own that he forced out words. Asked Ye Zun why, not because he cared about the answer, but with Ye Zun distracted, maybe some of them would have time to get up, to flee. When Ye Zun momentarily released his power, Zhao Yunlan wavered, needing all his effort to make his legs support him, so he could keep his eyes locked on Ye Zun. Keep watching that face he didn't know, and hating him, like he'd never felt before, that fury and loathing as alien to him as the dark energy winding now into his veins, his marrow.
Zhao Yunlan's own pulse was thundering in his ears, drowning out Ye Zun's too-familiar, too-strange voice. He tried to read his lips instead, as Ye Zun ranted about the better world he would create—and Zhao Yunlan laughed, not even to deliberately piss him off, but because of course Ye Zun was that kind of coward. The opposite of his brother in every possible way. Shen Wei was...had been...strong enough to hold onto an ideal, and strive for it. To fight to bring to everyone the light he himself could see, the light that always shone in him, even under the black cloak and mask.
But Ye Zun had nothing he wanted to hold, only things he wanted to throw away—betrayal, abandonment, the filthy realities of life. He saw only darkness, knew of nothing worth wanting, and so could strive for nothing, could make nothing, only tear everything down. It was so pathetic it might have been pitiable, if not for his rage, and his power, enough to shake the foundations of the world. Zhao Yunlan could feel the ground trembling under his own unsteady feet.
And he knew he needed to do more, needed to stop that shaking, save the world; he was the Guardian, after all. Yet when Ye Zun's face twisted with fury, when he reached out his hand to take Zhao Yunlan's essence from him, there was a part of Zhao Yunlan that wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and let him. To let go and be drawn in; to be where Shen Wei was, with him again one final time before the end.
Except—he wasn't. Zhao Yunlan remembered what it had felt like before, in Lin Jing's lab before the wormhole had opened, when Ye Zun had begun to devour him. Pulling like a vacuum drawing the air from his lungs, only not his breath but his whole self, folding and crumpling, inverting and collapsing in. Zhao Yunlan was braced for it now, was ready to fight with all he had, and maybe take Ye Zun off-guard—
—But nothing happened. Ye Zun's hand was raised before his face, and Zhao Yunlan could see the dark energy gathered around it. His heart was still pounding and his breath was held in his chest—and there it stayed; there he stayed, swaying where he stood, but untouched.
Ye Zun's eyes flared, reflecting the increasing glow of the Hallows floating behind him. "How?" he gasped, and then screamed it, "How are you doing that?!"
Zhao Yunlan felt flecks of spittle hit his cheeks. "Doing what?" he asked dumbly, and then, because whatever the hell was happening he had to work with it, he forced his mouth to curve. Made himself smirk into Ye Zun's contorted face. "What's the matter—performance problems?"
Ye Zun snarled, reached out and grabbed Zhao Yunlan's head, palms to his temples, pressing his skull between his hands. Zhao Yunlan could see his dark energy, static-shot smoke clouding his vision; could feel the roiling massless force of it.
He could feel it surge against his skin, and then vanish. Like drops of water instantly evaporating when hitting a red-hot pan, until all the dark energy flowing from Ye Zun's hands was simply...gone.
Ye Zun had turned as pale as his immaculately spotless robes, so the bullet wound on his forehead stood out all the more starkly crimson. His lips were pulled back from his teeth, bared like a rabid dog. He staggered and clutched at Zhao Yunlan, hands fisting in his jacket. "Stop it!" he snarled. "You don't—you're only human, only a Haixingren—!"
"Yeah," Zhao Yunlan said, feeling his own lips draw back. The taste of blood filled his mouth. "About that..." and he wrapped his own hands around Ye Zun's wrists.
He had no idea what he was doing, what was even happening. His heartbeat throbbed through his body, loud as a bass drum, resonating in every cell—in every changed, mutated cell. He almost felt like he could feel each of them, every one of those trillions now revised, power worked into every nucleus. And that energy was activated now, flaring up in him.
Ye Zun's power pushed against him, and the power in Zhao Yunlan pushed back. Countering—cancelling, nullifying. Zhao Yunlan could feel it, not controlling it but aware of it flowing through him, out of him. Smashing against Ye Zun—and against the Hallows; they lost their glow, dropped to the floor in a clanking clatter.
"No!" Ye Zun howled. "No, you can't—I will—!" and he tore free from Zhao Yunlan's grip. Lurched back and spread wide his arms, and unleashed the full force of his power. A hurricane of darkness rose around him—the event horizon of his black hole, hungrily sucking everything in. The Hallows flared back to brilliant life, as the flames in the braziers flickered and then went out, all their heat and light drawn up into that cyclone. Even the glowing magma in the gutters dimmed, as everyone lying on the ground cried out, writhing as their life itself was yanked from them.
But Zhao Yunlan felt barely a breeze, no more than the draft from the suddenly extinguished fires. That little gust made his knees wobble, but he kept standing. Turned back to Ye Zun.
"All!" Ye Zun cried. "I'll end it all now, I'll—"
"No," Zhao Yunlan told him. "You won't. You're not ending anything, not today," and he extended his shaky hand, and touched Ye Zun's forehead, one finger to the bloody mark left by the anti-Dixing bullet—the wound that was already disrupting the flow of Ye Zun's energy. Zhao Yunlan could feel it, destabilized, fracturing—and the touch of Zhao Yunlan's own uncertain power was the final blow, the critical mass to start a chain reaction.
Ye Zun's power split like an atom. The shockwave that exploded out of him was not shadow-dark but ultraviolet, invisible and yet blinding. It sent the Hallows flying and flattened everyone trying to stand, while the ground itself heaved up like a waking beast, knocking Zhao Yunlan down.
When he struggled back to his knees, Ye Zun was on the ground, convulsing, his body casting out ebbing energy in pulsing waves. Surrounding him were not just the scattered Hallows but many more glimmering shadows, that took on more solid forms with every surge of power spilling from Ye Zun.
Even as Zhao Yunlan stared, Ye Zun collapsed, to lay supine on the stone. Unconscious but breathing steadily, by the motion of his chest.
All around him, silhouetted in the Hallows' fading glow, were many more people than just the SID team now, scattered prone and groaning across the palace floor. The nearest figure Zhao Yunlan could recognize by her elaborate hair—Sha Ya, and her guitar beside her, unlikely enough. Beside her were the Regent and An Bai, still in his regal robes, but blinking with a confusion more like a person than a bureaucratic automaton.
Behind them, holding hands still even as they struggled to sit up, were Wang Zheng and Sang Zan. There were others, Dixingren by their threadbare clothes, and maybe a few Haixingren; Zhao Yunlan took in all of them in an instant and kept looking, for—
And crumpled beside the pillar, almost right where he had fallen before, his white face still streaked with blood that looked black in the dimming light—Zhao Yunlan couldn't stand, with the ground still quaking underfoot; he scrambled over on hands and knees, gasping, "Shen Wei!"
Lin Jing was crouched beside Shen Wei, had one hand raised over him like he was trying to help somehow. He looked up at Zhao Yunlan—looking shocky and terrified, for reasons Zhao Yunlan couldn't guess at. Then he shook his head and lowered his hand, scooted out of the way to let Zhao Yunlan in.
Shen Wei lay on his back on the stone. The icicle dagger Ye Zun had formed from the air was still plunged into his chest, though there was hardly any blood around the wound. Zhao Yunlan grabbed Shen Wei's hand—it was freezing cold, but when Zhao Yunlan squeezed his fingers, they twitched a little. Shen Wei's eyes opened; his white lips moved. "Zh-Zhao Yunlan," he wheezed, "what—what did you do?"
"I have no idea," Zhao Yunlan said with complete honesty, and grinned. Everything hurt as much as ever, but that didn't matter anymore. "But it stopped Ye Zun, and it got all of you back, so it was worth it."
"You—" Shen Wei choked, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth; when he coughed, his whole body seized with pain.
"Shit—shit!" Zhao Yunlan said. "Shen Wei, your chest—you have to heal yourself—"
"C-can't," Shen Wei said. He was trembling—shivering hard. Though the hand Zhao Yunlan clutched was slowly warming, when Zhao Yunlan touched his bloody face, his cheek was like ice.
"Just a little," Zhao Yunlan said, coaxingly. "Even if you're weakened—" and he knew why now. Remembered all too clearly Ye Zun's fury that Shen Wei would have sacrificed his incredible power, let it be mixed with a Haixingren's, diluted. "Just a little healing, just enough..."
Shen Wei shook his head, turning it against the stone. "Ye Zun," he forced out, "where's—"
"Over there, unconscious," Zhao Yunlan said. "I told you, he's stopped, for now, anyway; we can figure out what to do with him later. And the Hallows have mostly shut off, and—"
Shen Wei gasped, jerked up his head off the floor. "The Hallows—"
Whatever reassurance Zhao Yunlan could've offered was interrupted by the ground shaking again, harder than before, a rumbling tremor that kept going. Around them the murmur of confused voices rose in fear, then cries of terror, as with a thunderous crack, one of the massive statues looming over the throne room tilted and came crashing down right behind them.
Zhao Yunlan threw himself over Shen Wei, sand and stone fragments raining onto his shoulders as he braced against the shaking floor.
Finally the quake stopped. He rocked back onto his heels, glanced down at Shen Wei long enough to verify that he was still awake and breathing, then looked around the throne room, scanning the crowd to pick out his team.
He raised his hoarse voice, called out, "Everyone okay? Anyone badly hurt?" As everybody was checking themselves and those next to them, he caught Lin Jing's and Da Qing's eyes. While Zhu Hong and Xiao-Guo made an effort at crowd control and Lao-Chu and the spirits stood guard over the Hallows, the other two headed over.
"What's going on?" Zhao Yunlan demanded as they approached. "Isn't Dixing supposed to be too deep for earthquakes anyway?"
"No," Shen Wei choked out, and Zhao Yunlan turned back to find that Shen Wei had managed to sit himself up.
It wasn't any sign that he was doing better—he was so pale his face almost seemed translucent even in the dimness, and shivering still, and the damn icicle was still stuck in his chest. But he met Zhao Yunlan's eyes, even as he slumped back against the broken pillar of the fallen statue. "Ye Zun," he said, "the Hallows..."
"It's okay," Zhao Yunlan said, "that's all taken care of." He crouched to put his arm around Shen Wei's shoulders, carefully favoring both his own cracked ribs and Shen Wei's wound, to try to warm those shivers racking him. "We've got to warm you up, then you can—"
"N-no," Shen Wei said through chattering teeth. "Just a little longer—the Hallows...Zhao Yunlan." He grasped at Zhao Yunlan's arm, no strength in his shaking fingers, but Zhao Yunlan took his hand, squeezed tight. Shen Wei's eyes met his, fogged with pain, but still aware. "Activating the Hallows...destabilized the energy. The structure..."
"The structure—which structure?" Zhao Yunlan demanded. "What energy? In you?" His internal energy had been damaged before, Shen Wei had said—
But Shen Wei shook his head now. "Here," he said. "All the energy, everywhere, under..."
He sounded delirious to Zhao Yunlan, in shock from blood loss and pain—but behind him, Lin Jing inhaled sharply. "Here?" the scientist gasped. "In Dixing?"
Shen Wei nodded.
"The gateway, too?" Lin Jing asked, and when Shen Wei nodded again, he swore—not his usual excited panic when some expensive piece of equipment had just gotten fried; this low, flat mutter wasn't something Zhao Yunlan had heard from him before.
Still squeezing Shen Wei's cold hand, he glanced back at his scientist, demanded, "What?"
Lin Jing wasn't even clutching his hair; his hands were opening and closing in useless fists as he knelt beside them. "Dixing—if Dixing is really—"
Crouching next to him, Da Qing snarled, grabbed Lin Jing's arm and dug his nails in. "Really what?"
Lin Jing swallowed and started to speak, even faster than normal. "This place," he said, "Dixing—it shouldn't be able to exist. Not at this depth—the pressure alone, not to mention the heat of the mantle—that's why it's so difficult for us to be down here. And Dixingren are better adapted to it, but—for anybody to survive here at all, to make things even this livable, requires shielding. I'm not even sure exactly how it works—geothermal power converted into dark energy, maybe? I've been hoping to discuss that, Professor Shen, especially now that I've seen the—"
"Lin Jing," Zhao Yunlan said, warningly.
Lin Jing gulped. "Right—yeah, anyway, it takes a lot of energy. A lot. Contained and controlled and directed, ever since Dixing was first set up down here. But now, after Ye Zun used the Hallows—whatever he was trying, it's screwed things up. Destabilized Dixing itself—damaged the structure or the source or something, I guess...?"
"In effect," Shen Wei said hoarsely, and coughed, a harsh, wet rattle in his throat.
As if in answer, the ground underfoot vibrated again. A chorused refrain of anxious cries arose from the crowd around them, with the counterpoint of Zhu Hong's strident reprimands and Xiao-Guo's nervous reassurances rising over them.
"So," Zhao Yunlan said grimly, when the rumbling subsided, "if this energy structure or whatever fails, then Dixing—"
"—Is no longer shielded," Shen Wei said. "No longer protected from the surrounding earth."
"But that's..." Zhao Yunlan glanced back at the lava flow in the nearest gutter. Its dull glow was brightening again now that Ye Zun's storm was ended, though he couldn't feel any heat off it. "Everything would be..."
"Annihilated," Shen Wei said. "Utterly." He drew in a pained breath. "But, Zhao Yunlan, that's not—not the greater concern."
"Not the..." Zhao Yunlan gave a strangled sound that wasn't a chuckle by any definition. "Everyone in Dixing is going to be crushed under a billion tons of molten rock, and that's not what you're worried about?"
"—He's right, boss," Lin Jing said. His voice was shakier than Xiao-Guo's when giving a public presentation. "If this happens—the gateway to Dragon City is still up, and Ye Zun opened it wider. Plus there's the backdoor you opened with the Hallows, and any other portals people have used to sneak up to Haixing. And with this kind of energy flooding them—the best-case scenario is that they collapse. And release all the power in them, all at once."
"Explosively," Zhao Yunlan guessed.
Lin Jing nodded. "On par with a hydrogen bomb, give or take."
In downtown Dragon City. And deep in Yashou territory, and wherever else. Da Qing hissed, his pupils shrunk to lines in his not-quite-human eyes. Zhao Yunlan stared at Lin Jing. "What's the worst-case scenario?"
"The gateways don't collapse but open all the way," Lin Jing said. "A direct conduit from the mantle to the surface, which would widen even further under all the pressure, become a permanent channel...umm, have you ever heard of a supervolcano?"
Zhao Yunlan hadn't, and was positive he didn't want to hear about it now. He looked back at Shen Wei, whose dark eyes were fixed on him, his lips pressed colorless, but for the blood staining them. "Like before," Shen Wei rasped. "Like after the meteor, across all of Haixing—the air, the sky." As Zhao Yunlan had seen for himself—the ash choking the air decades later. Those brilliant sunsets and stunted trees, and a chilling film always over the stars, the sun. "And Dragon City..."
Would be a mountain—buried under a kilometer or more of rock and ash. Too deep to ever be found again, not even in ten thousand years.
Zhao Yunlan breathed out and in again, deep enough to feel the sharp stab of pain from his cracked ribs. "So how do we stop it? Save Dixing, and Haixing, too—there's got to be a way."
Lin Jing just stared at him, slowly shaking his head in despair as he sank back on his rear. Da Qing's shoulders were hunched, his fingers raking the ground, nails sharpened enough to leave scratches on the stone.
But Shen Wei smiled, or tried to, as he folded his icy fingers around Zhao Yunlan's. "There is," he said. "Bring me the Hallows."
No one said anything, only gaped, until Zhao Yunlan waved his hand. "You heard him—go get them! Now!" and Lin Jing and Da Qing scrambled away.
Shen Wei sagged back against the pillar. He was shivering again, violent tremors that made his shoulders jerk. Zhao Yunlan slid back to wrap his arm around him again, and Shen Wei leaned his head against Zhao Yunlan's.
"Are you sure you're up for this?" Zhao Yunlan asked him quietly. "Using the Hallows is hard enough anyway, and now..."
But Shen Wei nodded his head, hair brushing against Zhao Yunlan's temple. "This much," he said, "I should have the energy for."
"But not enough to heal yourself." Shen Wei's teeth were chattering audibly; Zhao Yunlan brought up his other arm to Shen Wei's chest to hold him closer—then hissed at the freezing chill against his skin. Ice was crystallizing on Shen Wei's shirt, his coat rimed in frost that crackled under Zhao Yunlan's hand. "This damn icicle," Zhao Yunlan cursed. "It's spreading, we've got to get it out of you—"
"No." Shen Wei touched Zhao Yunlan's wrist, cold fingers weakly wrapping around it. "Not that—it's my power."
"Your power...?"
"Not strong enough to heal now," Shen Wei said, struggling for breath. "Just this...to slow the blood...and stop it melting."
Keep the icicle whole—because it had pierced deep, deep enough that with it gone, he could bleed out. "You're doing this on purpose. Freezing yourself." Zhao Yunlan swallowed. Astonished and terrified and aching all over again, at yet another reminder of Shen Wei's will, his strength to do what only he could.
"Just a little longer," Shen Wei breathed out. "I must..."
"Yeah," Zhao Yunlan said, "yeah, Xiao-Wei, as soon as we fix this, we'll get out of here, get you help..." Though even now, where his hand was resting on Shen Wei's chest, the ice was melting, wet under his hand—and Shen Wei's shivers weren't so severe—not just his body heat, Zhao Yunlan realized with shock. Droplets of water were beading on the icicle, dripping down to mix with crimson, and Zhao Yunlan pulled back his hand—pulled from Shen Wei, yanking away his supporting arm to crawl back from him.
"Zhao Yunlan?" Shen Wei said, confused.
"It's okay," Zhao Yunlan said, trying to smile reassuringly. "Just, I can't..." He couldn't explain it, not when he still didn't understand what it even was—but he could feel it in himself, that power flowing outward. Like it had pushed against Ye Zun, and now against Shen Wei. But with that little space between them, the beads of water on the icicle were freezing again, the trickle of red blood staining his coat once more stopped.
Shen Wei struggled to lift his head, to look at Zhao Yunlan. His face was drawn with pain but still he raised a trembling hand. "Zhao Yunlan," he panted, hitching himself a little straighter against the pillar at his back. "Your injuries—what Ye Zun did to you—
"It's all right," Zhao Yunlan said. He caught Shen Wei's hand—surely that at least he could risk. Lifted that chilly hand to press his cheek against the cold skin. "The worst thing he did to me is better now—you're back."
Shen Wei shivered, his breath catching. "Zhao Yunlan, I..." Whatever he would have said he didn't get to finish, because Da Qing came bounding back, Lin Jing panting behind him.
"We've got them," the cat said, brandishing the Awl and the Sundial. "So what do we do?"
As if to remind them of the urgency, the ground gave another heave, brief but hard, like grabbing someone by the shoulder to shake them awake. Lin Jing stumbled, went down to his knees; Da Qing kept his balance.
Shen Wei shut his eyes at that jarring blow, clenched his teeth, then forced open his eyes again. "The Guardian Lantern," he said. "It has enough power to stabilize Dixing."
"Really?" Lin Jing frowned at the Lantern he'd managed to keep ahold of, even tripping. "I know it resonates with the other Hallows, but on its own it didn't even have enough energy for my instruments to detect it..."
"Not now," Shen Wei said. "But it could be strong enough, and far more besides—a light to illuminate all of Dixing."
"A light..." Zhao Yunlan set his jaw so hard his teeth clicked. "You mean with a wick."
Lin Jing and Da Qing both looked from them to the Lantern. "But didn't you try to light it already?" Da Qing asked. "Using a bullet as the wick."
"Wasn't enough," Zhao Yunlan said. "Not nearly." He glanced at Shen Wei. "Dad told me what it actually takes, to light this Lantern."
Shen Wei met his eyes—pale and shivering, but unflinching. "Yes," he said simply.
"And that would really do it?" Zhao Yunlan demanded. "Light the Lantern, save Dixing and Haixing?"
"It would," Shen Wei said. "The reaction of the Lantern's dark energy, with the wick's light, will be power enough to hold back both the darkness and the stone."
"A light energy wick?" Lin Jing muttered, then snapped his fingers. "Of course! If the Lantern can contain the reaction—dark and light energy directly interacting—not even nuclear, more like matter and antimatter..."
"So we really can do this?" Da Qing said. "Save everyone?"
The cat sounded like he was grinning. Zhao Yunlan didn't glance at him to check. Didn't look away from Shen Wei. If this was going to be his last chance, then he'd take every second he could.
The emptiness he'd felt facing Ye Zun before, the hollowness like his chest might cave in, was gone. The calm he felt now was entirely different, if just as inevitable.
"Suppress the heart of evil," he murmured.
Shen Wei almost smiled, his lips bloody but his gaze not breaking from Zhao Yunlan's. "Spread the virtue of the kind," he answered.
"Lin Jing," Zhao Yunlan said, without turning his head, "give me the—"
"No," Shen Wei said, squeezing his fingers. "Give the Lantern to me."
"You?" Zhao Yunlan said. And for a moment he was back there, tied and bound, watching Ye Zun's fist come down with that frozen dagger, and unable to do anything but scream.
Then reason returned, and understanding, heavy enough his heart might break under it. "Shen Wei," he said, "Ah, Shen Wei, it can't be you. Even if you'd put yourself in my place," and he knew Shen Wei would, knew it as surely as Zhao Yunlan would have swapped places with Shen Wei when Ye Zun attacked—in a heartbeat, not an instant of thought required. But he couldn't have then, and this, now..."It has to be me. The wick needs to be light energy, not dark."
"Yes," Shen Wei said. His voice was hoarse, thready with pain but resolute. "Your light energy—that I have in me now."
Zhao Yunlan stared at him. Link your life force with a human's, Ye Zun had said. But Zhao Yunlan had known it already—suspected it. Feared it. That Shen Wei, exchanging their energies with the Dial, had done more than just interrupt the flow of his own dark energy. That he'd become contaminated with Zhao Yunlan's Haixing light energy, and that was why he'd been weaker—and steadily weakening, even after the measures he'd taken; getting worse, instead of better...
"No," Zhao Yunlan denied, shaking his head. "No, you can't—you couldn't have enough. Not just from what we did with the Sundial—you took barely any of my energy then, I wasn't even tired afterwards—"
"No," Shen Wei agreed between shallow breaths, "not all then. But enough. So that I learned how to contain it safely. ...After a fashion," and his blanched lips quirked in a smile. "And once I knew how...I took what else I could, when I could. What you gave me—whatever in you that was stained by dark energy, I took before it could harm you. I absorbed the dark, and the light—I kept. So now...now there is enough. There must be enough, that I can stand in place of you, and light this Lantern."
Zhao Yunlan felt as cold as if that frost was creeping over his own chest—as if that spike of ice were plunged into his own heart. "You can't," he said. Knew he was lying—knew he really meant I can't. He couldn't again watch this happen, right before him—couldn't watch Shen Wei die another death meant for him.
And Shen Wei was smiling now as he had then—satisfied, the selfish contentment of being the one watched and not the one watching. Zhao Yunlan almost might have hated him for it, except for how he knew with piercing, undeniable certainty that he would do the same. That there was no choice to make here, not really. Not for Shen Wei; not for him, either.
If a time comes when I have to use my injuries in exchange for everyone's lives...I believe at that time you will have your answer.
Haixing and Dixing both in the balance. He'd scoffed at what his father had told him, but even as he said it he'd known the truth. Knew just what kind of idiot would make that sacrifice—for the sake of two worlds, and everyone in them.
"Lin Jing," Zhao Yunlan said, "the Lantern—give it to me."
Shen Wei pushed himself up—gasped as he moved, but didn't stop, dropping Zhao Yunlan's hand to reach for his shoulder. "Zhao Yunlan, no—you can't. They're my people—"
"And mine; Haixing's at stake, too."
"And I can save both—"
"Lin Jing!" Zhao Yunlan snapped, and the scientist, looking wildly between them like he was trying to keep up with a too-fast tennis match, jumped and crouched by Zhao Yunlan, held out the slightly glowing Lantern.
"Zhao Yunlan!" Shen Wei cried, and the pain in his voice wasn't due to his injuries; Zhao Yunlan recognized it all too well. It hurt to hear, and he would have hesitated if he could have—but he didn't dare to. Not with the ground still quivering under them, dust and ash rattling down. Not with Shen Wei reaching out to him so desperately, and if he were any stronger he would stop Zhao Yunlan by force—but he was too badly injured. Too weakened, not just by Ye Zun, but by Zhao Yunlan's own life force, hurting him for how long now.
Bastard, Zhao Yunlan cursed himself, but then, he didn't have time now for that resentment, either.
He reached out and took the Guardian Lantern from Lin Jing.
It went out. The glow of power infusing the Hallow, familiar from the Sundial and the others, more muted now than when Ye Zun had been trying to use them but still brighter than anything else in this throne room—that glimmering went dark. Not even like a doused flame but like a lightbulb being switched off.
So that Zhao Yunlan held in his hands a cold metal object, not buzzing with power but inert. No different than some battered, dented antique, not even worth the brass it was cast from.
"Zhao Yunlan?" Shen Wei was staring. With the Lantern's glow out, his face looked all the whiter against the shadows, and his wide eyes blacker. "What...what did you do?"
"I didn't—I don't know," Zhao Yunlan said, and gave the Lantern a shake, like it was a flashlight with a loose battery. It didn't so much as give a flicker of dark energy.
Dark energy...like Ye Zun's powers. Like Shen Wei's, freezing ice, until Zhao Yunlan's touch started to melt it away.
Like he could feel in himself, or something like it, anyway, vibrating with the pounding of his heart, like ripples on a disturbed pond, the singing of a plucked string.
"Boss?" Lin Jing asked, overlapping Da Qing's confused, anxious, "Lao-Zhao?"
"No," Zhao Yunlan said, "no, I can't—I have to—" He held up the Lantern, tried to focus, to take hold of whatever it was inside him. Silence it, dam it back—but it was like trying to move a limb he'd only just grown; he didn't have any idea what internal mental muscle to flex. And the Lantern stayed dark, quelled—unless it wasn't just suppressed, but damaged; if he'd broken it, like maybe he'd broken Ye Zun, and with it their chance to save everyone—
He fumbled, didn't quite drop the Lantern but set it down on the stone hard enough to make its glass rattle, and drew back his hand. Nothing happened for a moment, but as he held his breath it started to glow again, very dimly, barely visible sparks dancing around its outline.
Zhao Yunlan exhaled hard, and heard Lin Jing do the same, while Da Qing said, "Huh—so it works on the Hallows, too?"
"What does?" Lin Jing started to ask, but Zhao Yunlan hardly registered it, because Shen Wei was rocking forward, reaching his own hand toward the Lantern.
"No!" Zhao Yunlan snapped, and grabbed it, touching it the same time as Shen Wei did—and its light switched out again. Dark—harmless, unable to burn.
"Zhao Yunlan," Shen Wei said. He had one arm braced against the floor, barely enough to keep him sitting upright and not folded to the ground; the fingers of his other hand he curled around the Lantern's frame. When he spoke his words came choked, his breathing harsh. "I don't understand what's happened, what this change of energies in you is—but it doesn't matter now. If you cannot light the Lantern now, then I must."
"No," Zhao Yunlan said, shaking his head, his own fingers locked so tightly around the Lantern's metal that its impression would bruise. "This—this isn't how it's supposed to go!" His father had explained it to him—had hugged him, Zhao Xinci or Zhang Shi, whichever one of them it had been—he'd gotten that promise from them, knowing how it was going to end. Ten thousand years before, Ma Gui and Fu You had always had those melancholy looks when they spoke with him, that Zhao Yunlan now finally understood. He knew what he had to do, how this was supposed to happen.
But the Lantern stayed dark, under his hand.
"There's no other choice now," Shen Wei said, still holding onto the Lantern. "You know it."
"It doesn't have to be," Zhao Yunlan said. "Not you—if it's not me, then it doesn't have to be—we can find someone else here. Xiao-Guo—" He looked around to find Guo Changcheng, the kid's tremulous voice audible across the throne room. Still assisting the frightened crowd, his own obvious terror making their fears less.
Ye Zun had said it, that he was pure enough to be the wick; hell, Zhao Xinci had chosen him for the SID for one reason. Xiao-Guo had refused to light the Lantern for Ye Zun, for the sake of the world. Now, though, to save it—
But Shen Wei shook his head, slow with the effort of it. "You can't ask Xiao-Guo," he said. "You won't."
To save the world, Guo Changcheng would say yes to the Lantern's sacrifice, without a single question.
No, Zhao Yunlan wouldn't ask that of him. Could never.
"Zhao Yunlan," Shen Wei said, and Zhao Yunlan loved every other way Shen Wei said his name—but not like this. Not when it sounded like an apology. "You have to let me try."
"Try," Zhao Yunlan said. Grabbing onto it like a drowning man, desperate. "But you don't even know if it'll work. If the light energy in you isn't enough—and it's my energy, after all, it's hardly anything pure. And the risk, if you fail—"
"It will be all right," Shen Wei said, and made his colorless lips smile. "I swear to you, Zhao Yunlan. Even if I fail to light the Lantern, Haixing will not fall. With the other Hallows, the gateways to the surface can be closed."
Zhao Yunlan frowned. "Didn't Lin Jing say that the gateways collapsing would go off like a nuke?"
"Not with the Hallows," Shen Wei said, his voice strengthened by his certainty. "As the wormhole through time was collapsed, and those energies directed harmlessly into the nether space."
"Oh!" Lin Jing said, in a tone of enlightenment. "Yeah, that really could work...the Sundial's energy exchange, along with the Awl and Brush's phase alterations..."
"So, shut the door between Dixing and Haixing?"
Shen Wei nodded. "The moment all of you cross back through. And with those gateways permanently closed, Dixing will no more pose a threat to Haixing, now or ever."
"—Permanently?" Zhao Yunlan repeated. "But if the Lantern is lit—after Dixing's been restabilized or whatever, then the gateway can be reopened—?"
"No," Shen Wei said. "Not possible—once the Lantern is lit, it will be all the more crucial to keep the realms separate. Lest the Lantern's dark energy pour into Haixing."
Zhao Yunlan stared at him. "You mean—Dixing will be entirely cut off from the surface."
Shen Wei nodded, his cold fingers wrapped around Zhao Yunlan's. "Dragon City—all of Haixing—will be safe."
"But all of your people," Zhao Yunlan said, feeling a different kind of dread than the terrible ache of coming grief. "Everyone in Dixing—you'll all be trapped down here? Forever?"
"If I succeed," Shen Wei said, "we'll have the Lantern. It will grant us light, life. As it was meant to."
"Life..." Zhao Yunlan said. The anger burned low but curdled in his stomach, thinking of Dixing, and all its people. The people Shen Wei had fought for, time and again; that he would give his life for now.
Give his life—to damn his people forever. A sacrifice, Zhao Yunlan could understand, had to understand. But for Shen Wei to offer himself to the Lantern's eternity, for this..."Even with all that power, what can you grow down here to eat, without seeds? What is anyone going to wear, without those mass-produced t-shirts everyone smuggles in? What about ice cream, how are you going to make that, without any cows?"
"The Dixingren will manage," Shen Wei said. "As we must, as we always have."
"Yeah—but why should you have to? Why do you all have to be stuck down here, while the rest of us get the whole planet above?"
It was a struggle for Shen Wei to draw each breath; pain etched deep grooves in his face, but his voice was calm. "You know what we are, Zhao Yunlan. You've seen it now, more clearly than ever—in Ye Zun, in all who followed him. This is justice—"
"Yeah," Zhao Yunlan said, "yeah, I've seen it. Over and over again, all the Dixingren who've fought their way topside, just to have a shot at a real life. And all the people down here who are surviving the best they can, scraping by, but still doing their jobs, and raising kids, and going to bars—and yeah, Ye Zun used them, but only because he promised them something, when they had nothing. Anyway, how many Haixingren and Yashou did he use, too, and promised less? You're going to tell me only Dixingren can commit crimes, can hurt people? So why is it only the Dixingren who deserve to get damned down here—Lantern or no Lantern?"
Shen Wei was staring at him, his face indescribable. As if Zhao Yunlan himself was as brilliant as the sun; as if he'd managed to light the Lantern after all.
"What about all those people with friends in Haixing now?" Zhao Yunlan demanded. "Everyone with brothers, with daughters, with lovers who were lucky enough to get out, who they'd never see again. And what about Sha Ya?"
Shen Wei blinked. "Sha Ya?"
"She and her friend wanted to see the stars, more than anything. Even if the Lantern gives Dixing a sun, nothing is going to make the stars shine for real, not this far down. Your people came from them, and now they won't even get to see them, not ever again. How is that justice—how is that fair?"
"But this is the only way," Shen Wei said. "To save Dixing as well as Haixing, the Lantern must be lit, and the gateways sundered—or else Dixing falls, or else Haixing is flooded in darkness. There's no other choice now."
No other choice—and then Zhao Yunlan saw it, clearer than any vision from the Hallows. So bright he almost laughed in the blinding face of it. "The Lantern," he said. "Of course!"
"Yes," Shen Wei said heavily, "the Lantern..."
"—Not like that," Zhao Yunlan said. "This Lantern—it uses dark energy, like the other Hallows," and he tapped his fingernail against the glass. "Right?"
"Yes...?"
"Before, you used the Sundial to exchange our energies—and learned how to do it yourself, more or less? You said you kept drawing from me, whenever I got dark energy in me, but you didn't need to use the Dial anymore to do it."
"...I did," Shen Wei confirmed, more warily, and with a considerable degree of guilt Zhao Yunlan didn't fully get.
Deal with that later. Now there wasn't time, not with the ground shaking under them again. He raised his voice to speak over it. "Could you do the same thing with the Guardian Lantern? Learn how it contains the reaction, how its dark energy burns the light energy of a wick—so you could burn the light energy you've got in you now?" Matter and anti-matter, Lin Jing had said—an unimaginably explosive combination, but in the Lantern it became life-giving power, not just destructive force.
Shen Wei, even drained and injured as he was, still had his brilliant professor's mind. As always one of the few people Zhao Yunlan had ever met who could keep up with his train of thought when it had a full head of steam, and even jump tracks, get ahead of him. He saw the moment of hope flaring in Shen Wei's eyes, and then dimming as he shook his head. "It...may be conceivable. But, Zhao Yunlan, even if I could initiate that reaction safely in me, it wouldn't possibly be enough. All the dark energy in me now isn't a fraction of a percent of what's held in the Lantern. And the power that's needed to save Dixing—I could never muster it, even if I had my full strength to draw on."
"To save Dixing," Zhao Yunlan repeated. "Is that what you'd sacrifice yourself for, Xiao-Wei?"
Shen Wei's brow furrowed, such a familiar expression on his bloody face that Zhao Yunlan almost could've laughed again. "Of course."
"For Dixing?" Zhao Yunlan demanded. "Or for the Dixingren?"
"If Dixing isn't saved," Shen Wei said slowly, "then all my people here will be—"
"—Yeah," Zhao Yunlan said. "Everyone left down here would be crushed under lava—magma—whatever you call what's in the mantle. So—what if there weren't anyone?"
"...Weren't anyone?"
"Left down here," Zhao Yunlan said. Waited a moment, long enough to see the corners of Shen Wei's eyes crinkle as they narrowed, then widened. Zhao Yunlan nodded. "You wouldn't have enough power to shield all of Dixing, huge as it is. But what about the Dixingren? And you said the Hallows can be used to control the gateways to Haixing, and according to Lin Jing, the energy in the magma could force the gateways open wide enough to create a supervolcano—so what if it didn't need to be that wide? Just a little wider than now, relatively speaking..."
"Boss," Lin Jing said, sounding urgent, "Boss, I'm pretty sure that's completely insane—"
"—What is? What are you even talking about, Lao-Zhao?" Da Qing complained.
Zhao Yunlan ignored them, everything in him focused on Shen Wei. He was starting to feel unsteadier, or else the ground was that much shakier under them. His heart was beating faster; he could hear it, pushing along the power flowing from him into the darkened Lantern his hand rested on.
Shen Wei, though, was looking less gray, his lips more white than blue—and the icy spike embedded in his chest was dripping, seeping into his coat. Red-tinged moisture was spreading across the pale green.
"Shen Wei," Zhao Yunlan said, "would you be strong enough to do it?"
Shen Wei's breath trembled as he inhaled. "If I am not," he said, "and this attempt were to fail—then Dixing and Haixing both—"
"The worst-case scenario, I know," Zhao Yunlan said. "But if it works—then everyone's saved." He was light-headed with the hope of it. "All of Haixing—and all your people, too, finally. As you all deserve. So—can you do it?"
Shen Wei was still, considering; weighing it in his mind, measuring his own strength. If he might fail, then he wouldn't risk it. But if he decided to try—then Shen Wei wouldn't fail. It was as simple as that.
"Yes," Shen Wei said at last.
Zhao Yunlan felt like his face might split with the wideness of his grin. "Good."
"But I'll have to see how the Lantern works," Shen Wei said, looking down at the Hallow. "If not burning a wick, then..."
"One of my bullets worked in it before, temporarily," Zhao Yunlan said. "If I've got a spare..." He took his hand off the Lantern to fumble in his pocket—and the Lantern should've started glowing again, but things got darker instead, a shadow pressing over his vision. The ground must have quaked again, because Zhao Yunlan found himself on his back on the stone, rubble digging into his shoulders and his ears buzzing.
Through the ringing he heard voices—"Lao-Zhao?" "Boss?" And softer, but even closer, to his body and his heart both, "Zhao Yunlan?"
"'M'okay," he tried to say—tried to open his eyes, to sit up and remind them that they were on a time limit here; but he couldn't catch enough breath for the words. His heart beat fast but light, like an engine sputtering on fumes, like there wasn't enough blood to be pushed through his veins.
Shen Wei was talking, his voice low and concerned and such a wonderful sound to hear, when Zhao Yunlan hadn't known he would again. "—like the backlash after overexerting a power, but how could Zhao Yunlan—"
Da Qing started babbling about Ouyang and serums, but then Lin Jing was, finally, cutting in with a reminder about the end of the world—"Got a bullet," Zhao Yunlan managed, struggling to get his fingers into his pocket—then another hand was there, pulling out the hard little shape of the shell. "Careful putting it in the Lantern," Zhao Yunlan reminded, "don't want it to go off...Shen Wei wouldn't look as good as Ye Zun did with a hole in his head."
He thought he said it, anyway, but maybe not aloud, because none of the voices around him seemed to respond to it. Then there was light, bright even through his closed eyelids—a relief, that the darkness wasn't as absolute as when the dark energy had robbed him of his vision.
—Which Shen Wei had fixed, harming himself in the doing, and not even saying anything about it. Keeping that light energy in his heart, and taking more. Zhao Yunlan's own life hurting him, and Zhao Yunlan hadn't even known, not really.
"Shen Wei?" he asked, and then stopped himself, because Shen Wei had plenty else to worry about right now—
But there was a hand wrapping around his—or maybe it had been there already and he hadn't noticed it until now, when it squeezed back. "Zhao Yunlan."
Shen Wei's voice was soft, strained and hard to hear. The ringing in Zhao Yunlan's ears was subsiding, and his heart wasn't pounding so fluttering fast, but the grumbling of the stone under them vibrated through him, and thunder was cracking close by, rattling his teeth to their roots. He gritted them, and listened to Shen Wei saying, "We're nearly ready; just hold on, Zhao Yunlan."
Zhao Yunlan forced open his eyes, but couldn't see much more than the ceiling of the palace's throne room overhead. It had cracked widely, broken open like an egg; the only thing that was keeping the stone arches from falling and crushing all of them were glistening threads of dark energy. Beyond the crumbling stone and Chu Shuzhi's protective net billowed clouds of gray ash, shot through with lightning.
"Everyone's here?" Zhao Yunlan got out.
"All of the SID," Shen Wei told him. Zhao Yunlan tried to sit up—failed, but then there was a warm solidity at his back, propping him upright. It hurt his ribs, made his head dizzier, but it meant he could see blurry shapes before him, waving vague fuzzy limbs at him.
"Yeah, all of us, Lao-Zhao!" Da Qing said, behind Zhao Yunlan—the shape he was leaning against. "Ready to go, so you just hang tight..."
Zhao Yunlan blinked dust from his eyes, squinted to bring into some focus the people before him. Zhu Hong was before him, and Wang Zheng and Sang Zan kneeling and holding hands, and Xiao-Guo, who looked like he wanted to be holding hands with someone too, but Lao-Chu was busy keeping his strings taut against the falling ceiling.
And Shen Wei, of course, looking at him intently.
"The Dixingren?" Zhao Yunlan asked, trying to peer into the dimness beyond the circle of his people.
"There isn't time to get everyone here," Chu Shuzhi said, and the loudest thundercrack yet boomed, as if in grim emphasis.
Zhao Yunlan tried to sit up further, was stopped by Da Qing throwing an arm across his chest, hard enough against his cracked ribs that he gasped. "It's okay!" Da Qing said in his ear, and the damn cat sounded like he was grinning. "We're just going to have a lot of explaining to do..."
"It's all right, Zhao Yunlan," Shen Wei said. "They'll all be saved." There was a hole in his coat where the icicle had been, a ragged tear stained dark—but there wasn't any fresh blood flowing from it. His face was pallid and dusty and bloody and his eyes were dark as night, but he was smiling, and it was the most beautiful thing Zhao Yunlan had ever, would ever see, always.
He smiled back. "So this is going to work?"
"It's going to work," Shen Wei said.
Lin Jing was hunched over, muttering something under his breath. Zhu Hong poked his shoulder. "Hey, stop it, that chant or prayer or whatever—aren't you supposed to be a man of science?"
"Science!" Lin Jing rasped. "What we're talking about doing here—putting aside the Hallows, do you have any grasp of the sheer force of the pressures in the mantle—? And we're relying on that to push us all through—the science is—is—we don't need science now; we need a miracle, so if there are any gods down here—"
"—There aren't," Lao-Chu said. His teeth were gritted, muscles on his arms standing out as he braced his shell of threads.
The lightning crashed again, even louder. The air was dusty, reeking of sulfur. "Almost," Shen Wei said, strained like he was holding his breath, as he looked up through the broken roof. "Dixing's shield is nearly collapsed. The Hallows—"
"We have them," Xiao-Guo said, the most resolute Zhao Yunlan had ever heard from him. He held up the Merit Brush, glowing softly. Lin Jing held the Sundial, clutched in both hands, and Zhu Hong had the Awl.
"The power should just flow through them," Shen Wei said, calmly, almost as if he were lecturing to a class. "It shouldn't harm you; it may not even be perceptible. But keep holding on—they must stay close. And once we're through, to ensure the gateway is broken—"
Zhao Yunlan's team nodded resolutely. Shen Wei nodded back, braced to stand.
Zhao Yunlan reached out to him. "Shen Wei," he said.
Shen Wei caught his hand. "If I can't—" he began.
Zhao Yunlan shook his head. "You can," he said. "But—whatever happens next—"
"Haixing will be safe," Shen Wei said. "I swear it."
"And you," Zhao Yunlan said. "You, too—or else I'm coming after you. Whatever happens."
Shen Wei just stared at him for a moment. Then he nodded once, sharply. Let go of Zhao Yunlan's hand, and stood, bracing himself to balance against the shaking ground.
Zhao Yunlan tilted back his head against Da Qing's shoulder to look up at him, watching as Shen Wei closed his eyes. He brought up one hand, spread his fingers over his chest, close to the bloody tear in his coat—his palm over his heart. Dark energy gathered around his hand—and beneath it, between his fingers, shone its opposite, brightness, not like fire but like sunlight, white plasma.
Shen Wei's gasping breath was audible, pained, and Zhao Yunlan jerked up, starting to call his name—but Da Qing's arm tightened around him again, the cat muttering, "It's okay, Zhao Yunlan, that's how it went before, but then he could heal himself, so it probably worked—"
When the light met the dark energy's shadows, it became even brighter, blazing up—but not drowning out the shadows; instead they became all the more vivid, their own darkly brilliant hues spreading and tangling with the light. Like two fires somehow feeding on one another, the flames impossibly burning each other.
Then, abruptly, the turmoil of energy vanished, and Shen Wei stood there, standing upright with his hand flattened over his chest, every line of him rigid, braced and motionless.
Until he opened his eyes, and they shone blindingly with all the power in him. He raised his other hand, effortless, graceful. Made a little motion with his fingers, and the air rippled, a nearly invisible wave—crashing over them, a sonic boom loud enough to almost rupture their eardrums.
The Hallows the others held were glowing, flashing in fits and starts; their teeth were gritted but they kept holding on.
Wind blew against his cheeks, hot and sulfurous. In the trenches, the lava was bubbling, bursting with sparks that scattered searing bright across the stone floor. Zhao Yunlan looked up. In the gaps of the roof overhead, past the clouds of ash and lightning, he could see a new kind of radiance—stone, squeezed by unfathomable pressures to molten, glowing orange, leaking through a growing rent in the false firmament.
But between them and that doom was a twisting, whirling nothingness—void given unlikely existence. A portal, like any of Shen Wei's, except stretching wide, and wider, and wider, like a snake unhinging its jaw, reaching across Dixing's imitation sky. Shimmering with unreality, in a reflection of the Hallows' coruscating glow.
The magma above started to fall, giant droplets of boulders flowing down the edges of the world, like water condensing on the lid of a boiling pot, filling the air with scorching light and heat. But the portal kept expanding too, spreading its reach further, almost to those burning edges.
Then Shen Wei brought down his arm, and the portal plunged down with it like the sky falling, and everything—
—went—
Zhao Yunlan was standing in that incomprehensible nothingness that was becoming paradoxically familiar. Nothing hurt, and he wasn't lightheaded or nauseous for all the whirling of the not-stars around him. There was no ash in his hair; he wasn't even wearing the same clothes.
And Da Qing wasn't here, nor any of the others who he'd just been with—except when he turned around, there was—
"Shen Wei," he said, and Shen Wei turned toward him as well. No longer bruised or bloody either, his hair neat, his tailored suit pressed.
He wore his glasses, even, and his eyes behind them—were not glowing with energy, but the usual beautifully rich brown. Shimmering now with a film of tears, and Zhao Yunlan's ribs weren't hurting him here, but his heart ached in his chest behind them.
"Here you are," Shen Wei said.
"For now," Zhao Yunlan said. "But we can't stay long, can we? There's so much more to do."
"...Yes," Shen Wei said, "but I..."
"—Are coming back with me," Zhao Yunlan said. "Everything that's coming, all we're going to have to do now, to build now—I can't do this alone, Shen Wei."
"You could," Shen Wei said, soft and unshakeable. But then he added, even softer, "But I wouldn't want you to. After everything, though—all you've lost, and sacrificed, down to your very DNA—and all I've done—
"I know," Zhao Yunlan said. It hurt to say, even here. "After all that, you deserve to just—just stop. You do, I know you do, and yet..."
"And yet," Shen Wei whispered, still gazing at him with those shining eyes. "And yet, I still—I should not, but I do. I want to see what happens next. I want—" He reached out, and Zhao Yunlan moved nearer, so that Shen Wei's hand curved gently over his cheek. Near enough that he could hear Shen Wei's barely voiced sigh, "Zhao Yunlan, I'm—"
—and everything—
—went dark, and then light, glaring, burning—pure brilliance through the void's nothing; silhouetted against it were a few familiar shapes, and Shen Wei was shouting, "We must—the gateways—!" and behind them swelled the violent, scorching vermilion of magma—
Zhao Yunlan reached out, into the brightest light, and grabbed onto the Hallows—for an instant they felt searing hot, as if channeling the mantle's obliterating forces—but then they were just cold metal under his fingers. Brittle metal, crumbling to fragments, and then rusting away to gritty dust, that scattered into the void as it shrank, compressed to a single point, that then wasn't there at all—
And he was lying on his back, but it wasn't rough stone under him, but something softer, and rustling. Green grass stems waved in his face, and as he rolled onto his side the blades crushed under him made a sweet scent rise in the air.
In the distance he saw bare rock—not molten but gray and cool and solid, peaks jutting high into the air. And all around him were people, dozens or hundreds scattered across the field—most of them crouched, their arms thrown up over their heads in helpless, futile protection—lowering them now, as they looked around themselves, and gasped in relief, or confusion, or—
"Lao-Zhao, there you are!" Da Qing bounded onto his chest—in feline form, fortunately, but it still made Zhao Yunlan groan, shooting pangs stabbing from his ribs. Ignoring him, Da Qing babbled, "Professor Shen, where are we, shouldn't we have come out by the gateway—"
"I thought that would be unwise," said a rasping, faint voice, and Zhao Yunlan rolled over onto his other side, dislodging Da Qing.
Shen Wei, once more bloody and unkempt, his eyes mortal-dark instead of glowing like stars, was sitting in the grass, legs sprawled awkwardly under him like they'd given out on him. "It's safer here," he said.
"Safer?" Da Qing demanded, wrinkling his nose. "Wouldn't it be safer in town, where everyone can get medical attention—and food, it's almost lunchtime, and there's no fish seller around here that I can smell..."
Shen Wei just blinked at him. "I," he said. "I...can..." He listed suddenly, dazed eyes fluttering, and Zhao Yunlan shoved himself upright, ignoring the shrieking protest from his ribs, to catch his shoulder, so that Shen Wei slumped against him.
"Damn cat," Zhao Yunlan said, "forget the fish—are you getting a signal out here? We could use some help."
"Not sure any emergency services in Dragon City are going to be available," Da Qing said, even as he shifted back to human form and dug in his pocket. "Besides, the SID's reputation right now..."
"Our reputation's going to be great," Zhao Yunlan said. "Our consultant just saved the world," and he squeezed Shen Wei's shoulders.
He thought Shen Wei had already passed out, but Shen Wei shook his head, without lifting it. "You," he mumbled into Zhao Yunlan's chest. "You...saved..." He sighed, body relaxing, going limp and heavy against Zhao Yunlan.
But he was breathing, steady and regular. And it wasn't like he didn't have damn good reason to need a nap. Zhao Yunlan could use one himself, for that matter. But there was a lot to do still—back in Dragon City, obviously, but here, too, wherever this was—that peak in the distance looked familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. And there were all these other people here, some of them starting to stand now, to move around, to squint down at the grass and up at the sky, shouting in confusion and wonder—and a little ways away in the grass he could see a motionless heap of white robes, long silver hair—
A lot to do. But for just this moment Zhao Yunlan could not manage anything but sitting here, feeling Shen Wei breathe against him and slowing his own breaths to be in time, inhaling the fresh scent of grass and wildflowers, as he gazed up at the sun shining in cloudless blue.