The air in the Cliffside Villa’s Grand Banquet Hall hung thick with fermented plum wine and the copper tang of crushed spirit-roots. Chenlu, her fingers rigid, poured another cup of amber-leaf tea for Lord Jianyu. Her movements were rigid, a drilled routine honed over the months since the Shen family sold her into this estate. Her gaze remained fixed on the grain of the dark cypress table, avoiding the expectant eyes around the room.
The master of the hall gestured with a ring-laden hand. “That is enough, child. Attend to Elder Zongwu.”
Chenlu bowed low, the silk of her ceremonial hem rustling softly against the floor slabs. Elder Zongwu sat at the host's right, a gaunt frame wrapped in dust-colored robes. His gaze, usually veiled and distant, held an unsettling intensity tonight. She refilled his cup, the steam curling against her knuckles, then retreated to the edge of the stone dais among the hushed retainers.
At the center of the dais, atop a pedestal carved from dark, petrified wood, rested a shallow, obsidian bowl. Within it, a draft shimmered like melted brass. It was the fruit of an illicit exchange with the trader Varrin, a gaunt man with eyes like chipped jade, who now stood opposite the master with twitching fingers. The brew, boiled from the flesh of a Qing-Zhai carp, promised to bind fortunes and grant unnatural vitality. Tonight, it was meant to seal dominion over the contraband spirit-medicine routes across the peaks.
“The creature's marrow, distilled over seven nights under the Twin Moons,” Elder Zongwu said, his voice scraping like slate on stone. “The bond will be unbreakable, My Lord. Your blood will take the mountain’s own strength.”
The lord grunted, his gaze fixed on the bright broth. He reached out, blunt fingertips brushing the smooth obsidian. A hush settled over the tables, thick and suffocating. He lifted the vessel, the bright draft catching the oil lamps, and drained it in a single gulp.
For a moment, nothing happened. A collective exhale rippled through the hall. Then his pupils rolled upward, exposing veined white. A choked, guttural sound tore from his throat, and his body began to convulse violently. His hands flew to his mouth, but it was too late. A torrent of black pond water, thick with rot and wriggling larvae, erupted from his mouth, splattering across the table and into Varrin's face.
A collective gasp ripped through the hall. The spasms racked the man's chest. A tearing sound, wet and sickening, emanated from beneath his silk robes. His skin, which moments ago had been smooth and unblemished, began to ripple. Patches of dark, iridescent plates sharp as scrap metal burst through his flesh, shredding his sleeves. His face distorted, his jaw elongating, his teeth sharpening into needle-points. His gaze, turned ink-black, locked onto the trader.
The trader stumbled back, choking on his own cry. “What did you do? This is not the draft!”
The transformed lord lunged forward in a blur of gray armor and raw speed. His transformation was horrifyingly swift, his movements no longer those of a man, but of a predatory, amphibious nightmare. He tore into the trader, his webbed hands tipped with yellow talons that rent muscle to ribbon. The shriek was abruptly cut short by the crunch of splitting ribs. Dark blood splattered across the obsidian bowl, mixing with the reeking sludge leaking from the beast's jaws.
Panic erupted. Nobles, guards, and servants alike scrambled, their screams echoing in the vast hall. Chenlu, frozen in terror, watched as the grand, intricately carved cedar doors, usually attended by four imposing guards, slammed shut with a thunderous boom. No human hand had touched them. A shimmering, sickly green light pulsed around their edges, forming an impenetrable barrier. The villa was sealed. Trapped.
Beneath the nearest banquet table, under thick brocade, Chenlu folded inward, pressing her ribs against the cold floor. Her mind screamed for her to run, to flee, but her limbs refused to obey. Years of ingrained subservience, of being taught to remain still and unseen, held her in an agonizing paralysis. The sounds of the massacre above were a horrific symphony: Jianyu’s wet snarls, the terrified cries of his clan, the sickening crunch of bone. Black pond water, thick and foul-smelling, began to seep from the edges of the table, pooling on the ornate rug.
Through a gap in the drop-cloth, Chenlu watched Lady Faiye, a concubine of the house, stumble past. Her face was contorted in a silent sob, tears streaming down her cheeks. As the woman wept, a glimmer of amber caught the light. Slowly, a tiny plate of carp horn tore through the skin beneath Faiye’s left cheekbone with a wet pop. The woman’s cry, choked and pain-filled, was swallowed by the escalating horror. More hardened scutes bloomed across her throat and knuckles. The room, once a beacon of opulence, was swiftly drowning in blood and the grotesque, aquatic corruption.
Near the dais, an armored guard tore at his own cheeks as green-black scutes split his skin. His struggles ceased abruptly as his head snapped towards Chenlu’s hiding place. His eyes, no longer human, but murky and featureless like stones at the bottom of a riverbed, locked onto her. He began to move, a slow, deliberate shuffle, his body twitching with unnatural strength. Chenlu clamped a hand over her mouth, her ribs vibrating with each shallow breath. He saw her. And she, in her paralyzing fear, could only watch him approach.