Twinned Destinies: A Cultivation Progression Fantasy

In the weeks that passed, Marcus asked nothing of her, so Ruyi did nothing. She sculpted with Aelia, played card games with Darius, and explored the palace. Her favorite part was the library—not the one in Marcus' study, but the big one that took up a whole floor and sank deep into the mountain. It was like a maze, with bookshelves as walls, lit by a warm yellow glow and filled with a pleasant, musty, old-timey smell.

Marcus said this palace had been the Lord of Demons' home for millennia, meaning even he didn't know all its secrets. Some of the books, held together only by magic, were hundreds, maybe thousands of years old. Mostly scrolls on the upper levels, but the deeper she went, the older the texts and the more books she found. Marcus mentioned some were from a time when demons and humans were one.

She was starting to like the old man more. He always made time for her, never asked anything of her, and patiently answered her questions. He seemed excited to learn about what she was up to, about anything really. She hoped she would still be this excited about life at his age. The only thing that seemed to get him down was his job.

It saddened her that Jin would have to kill him. She asked him why once—probably shouldn't have, but he wasn't offended. He just chuckled and scribbled down a note, a section of the library to visit. It was so deep underground, lost in so many twists, that it was clear no one had been there for years, maybe decades. The lights had gone out, and she had to carry a lantern.

When she got there, she found a dusty old shelf marked 'Prophecies and Divinations.' She yanked out a tome as long as her forearm and nearly as thick, bound tight in chains. At first, it wouldn't budge. It had a lock. Eventually she got annoyed and broke it. Holding it up to her lantern, she peered inside.

It was a biography of the shaman Bethsheda, one of the first demon shamans and the greatest among them. Half demon, half deity, she could have a foot in both worlds and dreamed of the future, even unintentionally. Sometimes, prophecies would casually slip out as she spoke.

Bethsheda was a big deal in the demon lands, but Ruyi had only vaguely heard of her. She knew about the stupid prophecy but not much beyond that. In her head, Bethsheda was like Mephistopheles or Julius the Black, great evil demons of old that human parents talked about to scare their children—'Be a good girl, or Bethsheda will come for you!'

Sometimes, shamans made mistakes. What was remarkable about Bethsheda was she never did. Thirty years before a great earthquake split the demon lands clean in two, creating the great Lake of Fire in the center, Bethsheda predicted it. Those who didn't listen drowned, burning. Eighty years before the blood showers of 115, when the stars fell from the sky, Bethsheda predicted that too, down to the time of day. She never relished her predictions nor did she lord them over others. The book said she had a good heart. The book said there were warnings. We didn't understand—if you said something was coming to pass anyway, what good was a warning? You couldn't avoid it. It just seemed like useless stress. Certainly it stressed Ruyi out a lot.

***

The tribe didn't move around anymore, and Dow grew restless and bored. One time, when she was sleeping on him, he decided he wanted to wander the mountains. He moved so slowly and deliberately that she woke up in a snowy forest dozens of li away before she realized what happened.

So now ruyi took him for walks every other day, just up and down the Olympus Range to a nearby river, which trickled down from this glacier called the Blue Eye; you could just barely see it from the window of her guest room in the palace. This long, pale stretch of white-blue, like a second sky, holding up the first.

She had a leash for Dow, but it was more to reassure Ruyi than because Dow needed it. She was talking to him so much these days; she didn't know what she'd do without him.

As they traveled down the winding mountain paths, they made it to where most of the tribe was housed. The snow was slowly starting to thaw. The paths, which were always run over with snow, snow that went up to her knees when she stepped in them, were showing streaks of brown.

When the Frigus Tribe first arrived, they made their home on a plain of snow. Now the snow was thawing, but she was happy to see tribesfolk going around, practicing their art, drawing essence from the ground, patching up the holes. Just like they used to do when they were wandering the north. Children were starting to play their snow-fighting games again; she could hear their laughter from this far out. She saw smoke rising from the huts and the tents, saw yellow light pouring out of their windows and doors. There was life here.

These past few weeks, Livia had been trying so hard. Ruyi asked her to slow down. Livia decided it was on her to get the tribe moving again, to bring back the pride of the Frigus. The Brewers had stopped brewing, and the Smiths stopped smithing, and the Lorekeepers spent their time playing dice. But Livia made her rounds, meeting them one by one, trying to pour into their empty hearts some of the love they used to have, some of the love Livia didn't even feel.

Slowly, it seemed to be working. People were doing things again, people were smiling a little. Livia was always smiling, showing a model of what was possible—that they could be happy again. Slowly, they started to believe her.

Livia felt like a fraud sometimes. Ruyi knew because they had long talks often. It was Livia coming to her these days. She just needed someone to talk to, and Ruyi was happy to listen. Livia said it didn't matter so much if she believed what she was saying, as long as they did. Leaders had to be strong for their followers; it was what her mother would have done.

As Ruyi crossed the little Frigus village, she saw pretty boy Titus smoking, playing dice with some of the other shamans and lower keepers. Their wounds had mostly healed, and the ones that hadn't were in places Titus and the shamans couldn't reach.

It took another hour or so of walking to get down to the Little River, mostly because Dow liked taking his time. When they got there, Dow plopped down and started lapping happily at the water. Ruyi took her shoes off, soaked her feet, and let the sunlight play across her face, a warm, peaceful feeling settling in her chest.

Things really would be okay.

***

On the way back up, she saw the warriors training. There were no more praetorianus, just warriors, and Sabina was leading practice. She looked guilty every time she saw Ruyi; Ruyi didn’t want to talk to her either, so they avoided each other. Just seeing her ripped open the wounds again.

She thought a lot about what Sabina had said about her.

If being weak meant she needed other people, then she supposed she really was weak. She had a long talk with Dow about it the night after Sabina screamed at her. She just lay on his back, cried, and talked for hours; mostly cried. At the end of it, she decided she didn't believe Sabina.

If you needed other people to be strong, you were still strong. Everyone needed someone. Sabina thought she was strong, pretending like she wasn't hurting, but to Ruyi, that was just sad. She knew that people would be there for her no matter what, so she was always strong. She knew Jin loved her, so she would be okay. Jin believed in her, and her brother was no liar.

***

These past few weeks, Marcus had been trying to get through to those contacts in the South and West. But whenever she dropped by his study, he seemed less and less optimistic. They weren't returning his ravens. The trouble was, they vastly outnumbered the allies he could scrounge together in the East and North. There were so many maps in his study—battle maps, scribbled all over with lines of possible futures he was drawing out—they blotted out all the bookshelves.

When she knocked on his door, she heard him say yes.

"It's Ruyi," she said. "Are you busy? Can I come in?"

"Please do!” he replied.

He was poring over a map so big it spilled over the sides of his desk. He set it aside when she came in, then walked over to her with a genial smile on his face, slightly amused. He always seemed so happy to see her. "So, what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I was thinking of helping you with the war," she said. "I might have an idea."

"Ruyi," he said, "truly, my offer of hospitality was unconditional. There is no need."

"But I want to," she said. "You've been good to me, and I like it here. I don't want something to happen to it."

She was so tired of being too weak to protect the things she loved.

Marcus thought for a breath, then nodded. "Then I would be grateful. Thank you, truly. What did you have in mind?"

"There's this plant we harvested in the Demon Springs. It's called Ignatius Folly, and it has a shard of Hades' essence in it," she said.

"I am familiar," he said. "What of it?"

"I think," she said slowly, "the limit of mortal power... I don't think it's as hard a limit as everyone says. I was studying it back when I was a human, too. It doesn't make sense that something as big as a dragon and as small as a human can have just about the same amount of essence... There is some kind of limit on the soul, not the body. And sometimes, I wonder if we could break that limit. Ignatius went against the devils and broke open a crack to Hell. What if we could do that, but with our bodies?"

"We can do that," said Marcus. "You have seen it. It ends badly."

"I don’t mean summoning," Ruyi said quickly. "I mean—what if there were a way to do it safely?"

"With an elixir which makes use of the blood of deities itself," said Marcus, nodding. "Mm. Yes—it is quite an intriguing thought. Nine hundred years ago, I had a very similar thought, and scoured the tomes for an answer, and found none. Three hundred years ago, the thought came back to me, and I burned a few years working on an answer, to no avail."

"Oh…"

"But that is not to say it can’t be done. Merely that I haven't managed it."

“I know,” she said. “Just because you couldn’t do it doesn’t mean I can’t. Can I have your notes?”

He blinked at her for a moment, then laughed a snorting, shaking laugh. “Oh, me! I can’t remember the last time someone said that to me. Ah… of course you may have my notes.”