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i. stars
The teashop Jingliu frequents most is tucked in a secluded corner of Exalting Sanctum, down an alley most wouldn’t think to wander into, and it is owned by a former starskiff pilot who had chosen to trade the vast sky and stars for a quiet life amidst the fragrance of the tea leaves. Jingliu is hardly one to blame her. How often has she, too, longed for some semblance of respite only to be met with another fierce battle, another enemy of the Alliance? The life of a Cloud Knight does not allow for frivolities such as relaxation, and so she can only find crumbs of it in things like quiet alleys and steaming barley tea.
Another day is coming to an end. The artificial sunset stretches its fingers across the sky and the teashop owner must be preparing to close, but Jingliu finds herself unwilling to stand up and return to her apartment. She picks up the teapot from the wind-battered table in front of her and pours the last of the tea into her cup. The teashop owner won’t mind, and Jingliu is not one to draw attention to herself anyway. Warmth emanates from the cup and she closes her eyes, but not before she notices a shadow begin to cast itself over the alley.
Her eyes fly open, sword materializing—freight starskiffs shouldn’t land in residential delves, much less on a deserted backstreet. But as the skiff descends, Jingliu notes how gently it touches the ground despite its size and the absence of a jetty. Such a landing could only have been performed by an experienced pilot from the Sky-Faring Commission, but even so, she keeps her sword out as she approaches the door, which pops open to reveal a startled-looking Foxian in the cockpit.
“Ah! I’m so sorry,” is the first thing to come out of the Foxian’s mouth, her ears twitching. “I swear I didn’t mean to land here, it was just an accident! Let me explain—”
Jingliu looks to the sound of hurried footsteps behind her to see that two Cloud Knights have already arrived at the scene. She turns back to the pilot. “State your purpose.”
“I’m a pilot from the Yaoqing transporting some materials to the Alchemy Commission. They’re marked as special handling but they were cleared by the Sky-Faring Commission here two system hours ago. My skiff—” she glances at the instrument panel— “Well, it’s not my freight skiff, it’s our Sky-Faring Commission’s, and it was already kind of malfunctioning but the jade wheel started giving out randomly and I didn’t want to cause a crash again. It was an accident, truly.”
“I see.” Jingliu frowns, but lowers her sword hand. “Your cargo is not hazardous, correct?”
“I mean, as long as everything’s handled properly. It’s just alchemical materials, and I have a list. Tian Dong, Fanghu fossil root, dehydrated viscorpi—”
“That… won’t be necessary,” Jingliu cuts in, before the Foxian can get carried away. This alone is already more unwanted public attention than she would prefer to be getting in a month, much less one day. Best for the Foxian to be on her way as soon as possible. “We can assist you with moving your goods to another starskiff, and we will also transport the inoperative skiff to Central Starskiff Haven and notify your Sky-Faring Commission of its condition.”
The Foxian pauses as relief floods over her face. She gasps. “Really? You’d let me go just like that?”
“You’d best hurry before all of the starskiffs leave without you.”
The Foxian, whose name Jingliu learns is Baiheng, is surprisingly chatty when relaxed. An idle remark about the startaro bubble she’d had earlier turns into comments about the slight differences in Luofu and Yaoqing architectural styles, which turns into a ramble about how much she adores the sky and stars. Perhaps it is because Jingliu has nothing else to listen to, or because she is obligated to be polite, but she finds herself hanging onto every word Baiheng says.
Most civilians, noting Jingliu’s rank and having heard of her martial prowess, hold her at arm’s length, and she does the same as well. However, Baiheng, either not knowing or not caring of her status, talks to her as if they are not pilot from the most renowned of Yaoqing flying families and ace captain of the Cloud Knights, but just normal people unhardened by war. It’s not often that something can take Jingliu’s mind away from her duties like this, and when all of the cargo has been loaded onto the new starskiff, she almost wants to stay a little longer.
She, Baiheng, and the two Cloud Knights stand at the dock, looking the skiff up and down. “Perhaps someone should accompany her to the Alchemy Commission, Captain?” one of the Cloud Knights remarks, and Jingliu says,
“I will. Should anything happen with the cargo, I can handle it.”
It’s not a lie at all—Jingliu is best equipped to ensure that they and the materials arrive safely at their destination. When they’ve strapped themselves in, Baiheng turns to her with a grin that could rival a star. “Bet you haven’t ever been personally chauffeured somewhere by a pilot like me.”
“This could hardly be called chauffeuring.”
“Aw, I was just teasing!” Baiheng tips her head back and laughs. Jingliu finds her gaze drifting to the curve of her jaw, the soft skin of her neck. Stupid. Jingliu will never see Baiheng again after the hour strikes. She tears her eyes away, anywhere but the pilot’s seat.
Meanwhile, Baiheng fiddles with the instrument panel and mirrors, and they make a smooth ascent into the sky. As they reach cruising altitude, Baiheng leans back in the seat and sighs. “That’s my favorite part. Taking off.”
“Mm,” Jingliu supplies, still looking away.
“It’s just exhilarating, you know?” Baiheng continues, and if Jingliu’s gaze had not been fixed on the faint silhouette of the Palace of Astrum in the distance, she would have noticed Baiheng looking at her. “I think it’d be comparable to—besting your opponent in a fight, or perfecting a new move, for you. I mean, what do you love about swordplay?”
Love… what a strange way of describing it. Her blade is but a vessel for her; swordsmanship a means to an end. When Jingliu had first arrived on the Luofu, learning the sword was what drove her forward, gave her purpose. Yet to call it love would be too much—it is a necessity to her, a primal yearning, but how can something borne out of desperation and revenge be called love?
Jingliu thinks Baiheng might continue speaking, but when she finally looks to her left, the other woman matches her gaze, waiting for a response. “It would do you well to watch where you’re going,” Jingliu says, a poor attempt at deflecting. Baiheng looks to the front, but Jingliu can tell she hasn’t dropped the question.
“If you’ve dedicated yourself to the art of swordplay for so long, then surely you must hold some love for it, right?”
Jingliu can’t give her a straight answer. “Necessity and love are not synonymous.”
“...I see,” says Baiheng after a while, her tone considerably softer than before, and something seems to twist painfully deep inside Jingliu’s chest at that. She doesn’t want Baiheng’s kindness, or anyone’s kindness at all. Pity will not bring her family back, and love will not reverse the calamity of the Cangcheng—what can tenderness do in the face of the Abundance, who will snatch it away from her and grind it into bits? Time and time again, she has only been able to trust in the metal of her blade, cold and heavy and real in her hands.
If Baiheng had tried to continue this line of conversation, Jingliu would not have entertained her further. To the former’s credit, she instead tells Jingliu to look up to the sky, where the stars are beginning to blink into view. “Did you know that the night sky here is actually identical to the real stars outside of the Xianzhou? Not as artificial as you’d think, hm?”
They make a turn, and Baiheng continues, “See the brightest one? That’s the North Star—it’s how pilots orient themselves. When I’m lost, inside or outside the cockpit, I’ll remind myself that no matter where I am, there’ll always be a sign from the cosmos to guide me back onto the right path.”
Any words Jingliu can muster immediately die on the tip of her tongue. It’s then that she decides there’s nothing worth saying that wouldn’t simply eclipse everything Baiheng is, dim the light that shines so brightly from inside her. Baiheng shouldn’t be running errands for the Sky-Faring Commission; she should be sailing her skiff among the stars she so embodies. There is no place by her side for a soldier who is more weapon than human, no place for the shattered woman Jingliu has become.
Baiheng looks at her as if expecting her to speak, but Jingliu looks away, letting their conversation finally lapse into nothing. It’s silent when the Alchemy Commission comes into view, silent as they unload the cargo, and silent when Jingliu boards the passenger skiff that will take her home, back to her swords and her training and her eternal solitude.
ii. sun
Despite the late hour, Exalting Sanctum remains bustling with life.
In the crowded streets, no one bats an eye at the Sword Champion of the Luofu dragging an inebriated Foxian through the throng, and Jingliu pushes through as easily as water, Baiheng on her arm like an unruly child. How laughable, to see the most capable navigator and archer of their time reduced to a clingy, giggling drunk before her. Perhaps if it had been someone else, Dan Feng or Yingxing or Jing Yuan, she would not have extended this kind of courtesy, but Baiheng is—she is—
Forget it. Jingliu can’t think like this, with the wine she’d had during their gathering earlier addling her sleep-deprived mind. It’s only a short distance until she can break through the crowd and return Baiheng safely to her home—she pulls them swiftly down an alley as Baiheng whispers something too quiet to understand in her ear, followed by her pressing her house keys into Jingliu’s hand. They ride one lift up to Baiheng’s apartment complex and another to her unit, and Jingliu sticks the key in the lock, opens the door, and almost pushes a reluctant Baiheng inside.
“Jie.” A frown. “Come in.”
Jingliu sighs, shuts the door behind them. “You know I need to get home.”
“No,” says Baiheng, voice surprisingly firm this time. She closes her hand around Jingliu’s wrist. “Please. I—there’s something I need to tell you.”
“After we’ve been drinking?”
Baiheng’s eyes flutter closed. Their palms brush against each other, warm. “I’ve waited long enough. I can’t any longer.”
Despite herself, Jingliu feels her stomach turn. She had considered the possibility of Baiheng leaving the Luofu back when she’d first formed the High-Cloud Quintet, but she’d chosen her anyway because it was Baiheng, never mind how easily she swept the floor in battle compared to every other pilot in their fleet. Selfish she was, for wanting to shackle Baiheng to a ship much too small for her, just to keep her by Jingliu’s side for a little more time.
But it turns out to be none of that. With one hand clenched into a fist and the other closed so tightly around Jingliu’s that it borders on painful, Baiheng inhales as if it is taking all of the effort in the world to do so. “I…” she begins, a tremor in her voice that she fails to steady. “Jingliu… you mesmerize me. Do you know that? I couldn’t seem to forget you, after the day we first met. And now, it’s like I—” She pauses. Drops Jingliu’s hand and finally looks at her, expression softening into a wistful smile. “Ah. To think I had something rehearsed, but… with the way you’re looking at me, I should just get to the point. I’m—I’m in love with you.”
Jingliu stares at her; Baiheng stares back. Vaguely she realizes that Baiheng’s cheeks have flushed red, her eyes shiny with tears. She would pull Baiheng into a hug anywhere else, hand her the box of tissues, but Jingliu’s feet stay rooted in place as something deep within her chest seems to mend and shatter at the same time. “I…”
Baiheng swallows. “Why are you looking at me like that? You don’t believe me, do you?”
“Because I don’t understand why it would be me,” she forces herself to say. “Why me?”
“How could it not be you?” Baiheng steps forward to close the distance between them. “Why did the stars bring us back together? Why did you choose me, over every other pilot on the Luofu? Why, jie? Tell me.”
Jingliu shuts her eyes, steadies her breath. “I won’t be good for you,” she says. “You know what I am. We may fight well together, but—”
“No.” Baiheng’s gaze is set alight. “Not after everything we’ve been through, together. You’ve entrusted me with your life on the battlefield. Why can’t you trust me with your heart?”
Because it’s different, Jingliu wants to say. After years of fighting the Abundance, she has learned their strategies and attack patterns, where to aim for the kill on a Disciple of Sanctus Medicus’s armor or how to best evade a borisin’s claw attack. War is predictable in its ceaseless cycle—training, fighting, recovery—and also in that Baiheng and the High-Cloud Quintet will always be there, flanking her on foot or on starskiff, ready to act when she calls upon them.
But this is not war, and Baiheng has not yet proven her trustworthiness here. If what they have goes up in flames, if the space they share becomes a battlefield, Jingliu will not have the power to salvage it. Too many times has she witnessed destruction and devastation of the highest level, and she can’t, she can’t let this last good thing she built for herself burn in front of her eyes.
“Maybe I am ordering my own execution,” Baiheng says, slowly. “Maybe in a few decades I will come to regret this. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I try, and I live, and I don’t waste my life hanging on the precipice, refusing to fall.” This time, she fully entwines their fingers together. “Jingliu-jie. Do you love me?”
Jingliu looks away. “To love you is to let you become my undoing. You became my undoing a long, long time ago.”
“Oh, Jingliu, I…” Baiheng stops, breathes in, as if she is trying to regain her composure. “Then… isn’t that all the more reason to trust me?”
And Jingliu, the Luofu Sword Champion, a living legend capable of anything, finds herself lost for words under Baiheng’s gaze. There is fear, yes, but above that, there is also something longing for release, yearning to fall and know Baiheng will be there to catch her. She takes Baiheng’s hand.
“I do trust you,” she says, letting go. “Only because it’s you.”
“Oh,” Baiheng breathes again, and then comes the full force of her throwing her arms around Jingliu’s neck, warm like the mid-afternoon sun blanketing her shoulders. Jingliu lets her hands touch Baiheng’s sides, then her back, and then Baiheng pulls back to cup Jingliu’s face in her palm. The touch is almost too gentle to be for a swordmaster like her, but she knows Baiheng has never been afraid of being cut. A thumb brushes her cheek. “May I…”
And Jingliu leans down to meet her halfway. Baiheng’s lips are dry, but they fit against hers like pieces of a puzzle. Something that has laid dormant for decades stirs awake, deep in her gut, and this time, Jingliu lets it take her, lets herself sink into the lingering taste of baijiu on their lips and the warmth of Baiheng, the sun, all around her.
Baiheng breaks away, then, eyes blown wide. “Jingliu,” she says, somewhere between a breath and a whisper. Then she pulls her back down into another kiss, and another, until Jingliu is so dizzy with bliss that she’s not sure where this moment ends and eternity begins.
☾
They take turns washing up in the shower and at the sink later, Jingliu having given up on going home. She scrubs the day’s grime from her body, while Baiheng’s phone buzzes incessantly on the counter where she’d forgotten to bring it back to her room. The screen is still on when she leaves the shower, with a seemingly endless stack of direct messages from Dan Feng, Yingxing, and Jing Yuan all saying some variant of Good luck, How did it go, and sent most recently, Yingxing owes me 7,000 credits.
How amusing. Jingliu allows herself a small smile as she towels herself off. After some deliberation, she dresses in Baiheng’s spare nightclothes and leaves the bathroom without the phone—best to spare her from any further embarrassment.
They do not speak of the bets the next morning. And, later that day, if Jing Yuan notices Jingliu pushing him harder and keeping him later at training, he chooses not to comment on it.
iii. supernova
To say Jingliu hadn’t foreseen the disaster that was to befall them would be a lie.
Perhaps the first thread that would unravel was the morning Jingliu woke to an ache in her bones and the scent of pollen in the air.
She’d peeled the covers, damp with sweat, off of her, blinking lingering visions of an Emanator and a black sun and a starskiff ground to dust away from her eyes. The pale arm held up to her bathroom mirror betrayed the unmistakable silhouette of ginkgo leaves underneath, and she’d spent a system hour tweezing the sprouting branches where they’d pierced through her skin. Later that day, with her wounds bandaged, Jingliu had stripped her apartment clean of Baiheng’s possessions and banished the bag containing them to the back of her closet.
The next sign would be Yingxing locking himself away in his workshop once again, whittling away the hours of the night with more fervor than Jingliu had ever seen. She had visited him after the battle, blissfully unaware that this would be the last time they would meet as such.
“You need to rest,” she said, flinching from the sparks flying around the cramped space.
On went the steady strikes of the hammer. “You of all people understand that I cannot afford to rest if we are to press on against the Abundance.”
“If you neglect sleep or sunlight, you will work yourself into an early grave. What use will you be to the Alliance then?”
Yingxing laid the hammer down and stepped away from the fire. All Jingliu could focus on were the gray strands threading through his hair and the wrinkles in his haggard-looking face, set in irritation. “I can’t sleep. Tell me you wouldn’t do anything to keep from seeing her die in your dreams, over and over again?”
Jingliu had closed her eyes. “I would,” she whispered, not quite to Yingxing but not quite to herself, either. “I would.”
The final, most damning omen had been Dan Feng forgoing their sparring sessions for ‘business with the Preceptors’ which, after some investigation, turned out to be a series of secret rendezvous with Yingxing to Scalegorge Waterscape. But no matter Jingliu’s relationship to the High Elder, the Vidyadhara would permit her to go no further than the starskiff docks at the Alchemy Commission, and her investigation thus ended there.
The signs had been there from the start—an increasingly moody demeanor, disappearances to Dragonvista Rain Hall, a new obsession with Vidyadhara hatching rebirth rites. But what could she, a lover driven mad by grief and by mara, do against the unbridled power and fury of the Imbibitor Lunae? Jingliu coughing up ginkgo leaves and extracting branches from her skin while Dan Feng conspired to destroy Scalegorge Waterscape and the Vidyadhara race—how Baiheng would scorn them now.
And as the draconic abomination rears its head and unleashes another blast of lightning on the ground in front of them, the only thing Jingliu can think of amidst the blinding pain, the blood flowing from her wounds, is that even in death, Baiheng will still find a way to purvey punishment on them all.
The silhouettes of Dan Feng and Yingxing are unmistakable in the distance—how pitiful to see the High Elder and the Furnace Master fallen like this. Of five people… She shakes her head to clear it, breaking away from the Cloud Knight formation to appear like a wraith before them.
“You are a fool,” she spits to Yingxing as she approaches, “if you think you can protect him from retribution any longer.”
Yingxing doesn’t move from his position curled over Dan Feng’s frame, as if a short-life species like him could ever compare to the power of the Permanence. His eyes—his eyes—have been stained blood-red with fury, with revenge. With mara. Three must pay a price. Jingliu lets a bitter, maniacal laugh loose from her lips, pointing the broken remains of Yingxing’s legendary creation at him. “I should kill you first… but you will have your own torment to bear for all of eternity.”
The tip of the Shard Sword shifts to face Dan Feng. He clutches at a wound on his arm, and for the first time, Jingliu sees true fear reflected in the once-mighty High Elder’s eyes. "Impossible. The Preceptors said... The blood of my race and the soul of my ancestor should have created another high elder. All this... It shouldn't be like this."
Some small part of her cannot bring itself to completely fault Dan Feng, but she casts it aside as the mara rises, furious, within her. Instead of resisting it, Jingliu falls back into it, lets it run through her veins with a twisted, wretched vitality. I loved her, and I grieved her, more than anyone else did. But even I know not to abuse my power.
“And yet it is,” she snarls in a voice not quite her own. “If your death could return everything to how it was, I would do it. But you need to tell me right now where that dragon's weak point is."
Dan Feng shudders. He seems to recoil from her like he fears what she has become, what the mara has turned her into. Jingliu pulls her sword away—killing him here and letting him undergo hatching rebirth would be a merciful death. A death that Dan Feng had long since lost his right to, the moment he invoked the Transmutation Arcanum.
He heaves a ragged breath as Yingxing’s hand descends onto his shoulder. “The top of its head…”
Thunder explodes from the abomination’s mouth as Jingliu turns to face it. Pale purple mane, emerald eyes, a shriek bearing the pain of a thousand fallen soldiers—the abomination writhes in the air like a supernova, laying waste to yet another part of the delve, and Jingliu feels her Core Esse begin to boil, a ripe wheat grain ready to be freed from its husk.
Perhaps it is the mara blurring her senses, but for a moment as she and the dragon lock eyes, it is as if it is screaming directly to her in a plea: Kill me. It hurts. Jingliu’s grip on her sword loosens as mirages of the Cangcheng swim before her, the ominous planet bearing down, ready to swallow them all whole, and then her vision blurs gold as the mara finally, finally takes the last shred of her self-consciousness.
How tragic, that the legend of the High-Cloud Quintet has to end like this. Dan Feng, the original sinner, Yingxing, the accomplice. Jing Yuan, left to hold onto five lifetimes’ worth of memories, and Baiheng, begging for release in the form of destruction. And Jingliu, the swordmaster who has become more blade than human, whom pain and suffering follow like ghosts.
As if being commanded by something greater, Jingliu tears off the hem of her skirt and covers her eyes. Like this, the mara quiets, but not by much; it is enough, though, for the task she is to undertake.
In a flash as transcendent as the moon, Jingliu leaps up with her sword, slicing through the madness, the pain, the threads that bind her to this form. Suddenly, she is not a woman, but a divine phantasm, ready to send the final blow and deliver her lover to her death, and as she arcs through the air, the blade in her hand seems to turn frigid in her grasp.
She lands on the abomination’s head. Her palms now hold a sword of pure ice, glowing like a sliver of moonlight in her hands. The temperature around her seems to drop into oblivion—she doesn’t have much longer. Jingliu points her blade down at the abomination as she whispers her last oath to Baiheng: I will cut down even the stars in the sky.
Goodbye for the second time to Jingliu’s maker and unmaker. Goodbye to Jingliu’s lover, the most wretched and beautiful star in the sky.
And with a deep, shuddering breath, she drives her sword home.