(1) An Ill-Fated Beginning

Hemuda spent a considerable while retrieving the medicine from the Langhuan Immortal Abode. Elder Mu conjured up a cup of "sweet dew" for the Queen to take alongside the pill.

　　"Report—" A soldier's urgent cry of alarm suddenly rang out beyond the sleeping quarters.

　　"Rest easy — whatever calamity has come, I'll handle it. Don't trouble yourself over it. I'll go see what's happened." The Asura King soothed the Queen, and then the five of them withdrew from the chamber and made their way back to the main hall of the royal court.

　　"Report to Your Majesty — our forces met with early success. The Celestial Court was caught entirely unprepared, and our vanguard struck deep, breaking straight through the Southern Heavenly Gate and throwing the whole of the Celestial Court into disarray. But then, somehow, the Celestial soldiers turned to some manner of sinister formation and incantation, and every one of our Asura warriors was struck with splitting headaches and utter exhaustion, leaving us powerless to resist their counterattack. Our forces have been routed, more than half of them dead or wounded..."

　　"How could this happen?" The Asura King staggered, nearly losing his footing.

　　"Who commands the Celestial forces?"

　　"They had no time to muster a proper army, and so had no commanding general at all — only General Deng Liang, once under the Crown Prince's own command, leading five thousand of his personal troops to hem in our forces and form a defensive line. After that, they unleashed that sinister formation and incantation, and our losses were severe. The First, Second, and Third Princes were all caught within the formation — I fear the worst for them as well."

　　"And where is their Crown Prince?"

　　"Reporting to Your Majesty — he was nowhere to be seen."

　　Waving the soldier off, the Asura King stood frozen, at a complete loss for what to do. Anu, gritting her teeth, invoked her power of swift passage and vanished at once toward the Celestial Court.

　　"Look at this! This is the calamity you brought upon yourself — your fiery temper, your rash and reckless ways, defying the will of heaven — and now the retribution has come home to roost, one piece at a time."

　　Seeing Anu vanish toward the Celestial Court, the Asura King made to follow after her at once, but Elder Mu caught hold of him and pulled him back.

　　"Go after her, and you'll only be scooped up along with the rest — that would be an utter catastrophe for the entire Asura clan."

　　"But... our eldest, second, and third boys are all there... and Anu has gone as well..."

　　"All the more reason you must hold steady."

　　Elder Mu raised his hand and counted upon his fingers, then sighed. "Your three sons will very likely lose their lives in the Celestial Court today — you had best prepare yourself for that. The karma you sowed yourself, you alone must bear. As for your wife — keep this hidden from her completely; she is not to learn of this terrible news under any circumstances until she has fully recovered." With that, he turned to Hemuda and Xing'er. "Go back to the Mist Forest and find Xiaoyi. He is not of the Asura clan, and that formation and incantation are meant specifically to strike down Asura — they will have no effect on him. Tell him to go at once and guard Anu, and to hold out for as long as he possibly can. And you, Hemuda — mark my words well — under no circumstances are you to go to the Celestial Court yourself."

　　Hemuda accepted the charge, and he and Xing'er hurried off toward the Mist Forest at once.

　　"Now you listen to me, Asura King. Mark this well: from this moment on, no matter how events unfold, you are to bear it all without a word of protest. Whatever demands the Celestial Court makes, however harsh, you are to agree to them unconditionally — or else not only will your three sons be lost, but Anu as well may not be saved, and when that day comes, you will not even be able to face your own wife."

　　Meanwhile, Anu had made her way all the way to the Celestial Court, where the ground beyond the Southern Heavenly Gate already lay in ruin, plainly the site of a brutal clash. No one stood guard there now, and Anu rushed straight in, half-expecting to find the din of battle still raging within — but instead found only corpses strewn across the ground as far as the eye could see, blood enough to float a shield. Only a handful of Asura soldiers remained, huddled in a corner — some marked with streaks of blood, their flesh torn nearly to the bone, others limping badly, barely able to stand. Every face among them still bore the raw shock of what they had witnessed, and yet, well-disciplined as they were, not one of them would think of fleeing. Catching sight of Anu, they stared at one another in bewilderment.

　　"The... the young prince?" Their minds reeled in confusion — this face was surely the one they knew as their young prince, and yet the young prince was plainly a man — how had he become a woman?

　　"Go, all of you, quickly — don't throw your lives away in a hopeless last stand. Where are my brothers?"

　　"Reporting to the young prince — we believe... we believe they have all... fallen. That incantation was simply too sinister — it wiped out our entire force without the slightest effort. Young prince, you must not go over there!" Their eyes were full of nothing but terror.

　　"Go, all of you, quickly! Don't throw your lives away for nothing. But I must go to them — they all died because of me. How could I simply turn a blind eye and abandon them? Those are my eldest brother, my second brother, my third brother, and all the others of our people who fought and bled and died for my sake!" Even as Anu spoke, the tears were already streaming down her face — never before had she felt such heartbreak as this. Though she had already heard the report from the soldier back at the Asura royal court, how could she possibly believe it without seeing the truth with her own eyes? Only a moment's time had passed in the heavens above — how could her brothers, her kinsmen, have fallen here in such numbers, one after another? Only just now, in the hall of the royal court, her brothers had shielded her with their own bodies without a second thought — how, in the space of turning around once, could those brothers who had cherished her like a treasure never come home again?

　　It turned out the Celestial Court had long held in reserve a lethal weapon meant specifically for the Asura clan; it was only that Ziyuan, unwilling to see needless slaughter, had chosen instead to hold the two clans in careful, patient balance. Now that the Celestial Sovereign himself had been provoked to fury, and the Celestial Sovereign was not Ziyuan, this killing intent had come on swift and merciless, leaving them no time at all to react.

　　"We won't go — no Asura warrior fears death!" Terrified as the surviving soldiers looked, not one of them showed the slightest sign of flinching.

　　Seeing this, Anu rushed forward into the mass of the fallen, searching desperately for her brothers' bodies — she had to see them one last time, and she had to retrieve the tiger tally from her eldest brother, or else these stubbornly loyal Asura warriors would surely be wiped out entirely, with not a single one left alive.

　　A sudden flash of crimson cut through the carnage, a pair of violet eyes, misty and enigmatic, stunning the whole battlefield at a glance — five thousand Celestial soldiers found themselves utterly transfixed, forgetting themselves entirely, letting her move freely back and forth before them as she searched among the bodies, every thought of formations and incantations driven clean from their minds, leaving nothing but a rising chorus of astonished murmurs.

　　"Eldest brother, second brother, third brother — where are you?" As Anu wept, her eyes grew all the more clouded and lost, tears spilling over her pale, faintly rosy cheeks, each one round and glistening as a pearl, until the whole crowd found themselves swept up in her grief, an unbounded sorrow rising in their own hearts, and even among the five thousand Celestial soldiers, more than a few felt their noses sting with unshed tears.

　　Such loveliness, such sorrowful grace, such enchantment — who among them had ever beheld a bearing so tender, so achingly beautiful, that it stirred such helpless pity in the heart?

　　All at once, Anu bit into her fingertip and began murmuring the Kinship Spell, sweeping her hand lightly through the air; a faint red glow rose above three of the fallen bodies. She crooked her finger, parted her rosy lips, and spoke a single word — "Rise" — and the three bodies rose at once and drifted gently down before her. Anu cast another spell, drawing the tiger tally from Geluqi's body, and raising it high, called out in a clear, ringing voice to the scattered remnant of soldiers in the distance: "Retreat at once, back to Asura — every one of you, without exception. This is a general's command."

　　"Young prince..."

　　"This is a general's command." Anu repeated it once more, her voice resolute even as it thickened with tears.

　　"Yes." Though they feared for the young prince, a military order was not to be disobeyed, and so, before the surrounding Celestial soldiers could even register what was happening, they swiftly withdrew and were gone.

　　By now, with the crisis in the Celestial Court having turned from danger to safety, the bolder among the onlookers had already begun slipping back and forth behind the ranks of the five thousand soldiers, craning their necks to see; word spread from one to ten, ten to a hundred, everyone eager for a glimpse of this peerless beauty with the violet eyes.

　　Watching the remnant of the Asura forces withdraw, Anu felt a weight lift from her at last, and her body went slack; she sank down among the bodies and wept without restraint, her sobs rising and falling in aching, unbroken waves, and all who stood watching, man and woman, young and old alike, found themselves moved to tears along with her.

　　"Brothers... my brothers..." Each cry more anguished than the last — the shattering of a dream she had cherished, day and night, of coming home at last to a family reunited.

　　This had been her dream since childhood — why should it be destroyed so utterly, in the space of a single moment, leaving her with no chance at all to prepare herself for it? She wept as though her very heart were being torn apart, with no thought left to spare for what was happening behind her, and so she did not notice Shenya slip out from the crowd.

　　"What are you all standing there gawking for? Have you forgotten your duty entirely, letting this Asura witch run wild and unchecked here in the Celestial Court?" The moment Shenya laid eyes on Anu, something in her broke apart completely. Anu's beauty was beyond any words to capture — set the two of them side by side, and it was like comparing the blazing sun to a solitary firefly's glow; small wonder that Ziyuan's heart belonged to her. Never mind Ziyuan — there was likely not a single man in the whole Celestial Clan who could hope to resist being captivated by such beauty. Those misty, mysterious violet eyes seemed a bottomless whirlpool, capable of drawing in the gaze of every man under heaven.

　　Seeing that not one of the five thousand soldiers moved to act, Shenya suddenly snatched up the sword at the waist of the nearest Celestial soldier and lunged forward, driving the blade toward Anu's back — only for a figure in pale yellow to reach out and deflect the sneak attack with a single backhanded sweep, the broad sleeve flung wide, sending the blade spinning back around to plunge straight into Shenya's own right shoulder.

　　"Ah..." Shenya let out an anguished scream and collapsed to the ground. The sight of the Crown Princess struck down threw the crowd into instant chaos — some shouting for the Medicine King, others calling to carry her to the medicine cottage, still others shouting to notify the Crown Prince, and amid the confusion, someone cried out that the Celestial Sovereign, fearing his son might show mercy to the enemy, had barred him from taking any part in this at all, sealing him away with a barrier and confining him to his sleeping quarters...

　　The figure in pale yellow seized the chaos to rush to Anu's side, calling out softly, "Anu," and gathering her at once into his arms.

　　"It's far too dangerous here. Come home with me, quickly."

　　"Home? All three of my brothers are dead. What good does it do me to go home now? All I ever wanted was for my family to be whole together again, and now it's all turned to nothing, like a dream dissolving..." She wept without restraint in Xiaoyi's arms, her whole body shaking.

　　Heaven only knew how much he dreaded seeing Anu cry — and now, with her weeping like this, Xiaoyi himself was thrown into utter helplessness, at a complete loss for how to comfort her.

　　"You said you'd take me home, and Ziyuan said he'd help me resolve the enmity between our two clans, turn swords into silk and jade — and you both lied to me, both of you lied..."

　　She collapsed limp against Xiaoyi, her emotions in turmoil, her fists pounding against his chest, though with no real force behind them.

　　"Anu, listen to me. You can hate me, you can hit me, all you like — but let's get away from here first. That vicious woman just tried to strike you from behind — if I hadn't come, you'd already be dead at her hands. We need to get away now, before these soldiers come to their senses — once they move to strike, we won't be able to get away at all." Xiaoyi understood perfectly well why these soldiers had been so slow to react — they were exactly like him, the first time he had ever laid eyes on Anu. Who could possibly not be swept away, dazzled beyond all reason?

　　Even back when Ziyuan had first seen Anu's true face, he had felt, however faintly, that something was badly amiss — and sure enough, things had spiraled to this point, entirely beyond anyone's control now. It was not only Anu's dream of going home that lay shattered — was his own dream not shattered along with it?

　　Now that the truth had come fully to light, that Anu was the Asura King's own daughter needed no further explanation at all — what use, now, was there in marrying her himself merely to shield her from the Celestial Clan's covetous eyes?

　　"You've already seen your brothers one last time. Can we go now, please?" Xiaoyi went on pleading with her, with all the earnestness he had.

　　"No one is going anywhere..." Before Anu could even answer, a voice rang out, stern and cold.

　　"Do you imagine the Celestial Court is some place you may come and go from as you please, with such utter disregard for anyone else?"