The gray vault overhead ripped open like brittle parchment, shedding flakes of vermilion and cinder onto the roiling river. Tainted with the stench of calcified marrow, the water steamed, boiling the flat fish until they floated belly-up in their illusory currents. “He means to seal us both in,” Kuang Zongtu snarled, his voice a low rumble, devoid of its usual arrogance, now laced with a raw, desperate fury. He lunged, not away from the heat, but towards the collapsing firmament. His massive calloused palms pressed against the peeling overhead weave. Tendons corded across his forearms as he drove his bodily weight upward to stall the collapsing pigment. The silk groaned beneath the strain. Kuang Zongtu braced his spine against the falling ceiling, his boots sinking into the river mud. Dark moisture dripped from the brute's jaw into the froth, running black where it met the dissolving wash. He kept his chin tilted up, teeth bared against the falling embers, bracing the simulated sky with raw sinew. Yunhe shielded his face from the drafting heat. Every rival he had spared and trapped upon these scrolls had not found quietude; they had been delivered straight into Fengmian's charnel foundation to rot under the reeds. “A hanging scroll cannot be breached from within,” Yunhe said against the roar of falling embers. “Not through force.” Kuang Zongtu grunted as a cliffside crumbled behind them, dumping soot across his broad shoulders. “Then what, scholar? A poem? A polite bow?” “An offering,” Yunhe muttered, looking at the fraying edges of the scroll. He carried no brush here, nor pine-soot slab. His fingers bore only the faint yellow stains of walnut wash, unaccustomed to violence against his own flesh. He sank his teeth into the pad of his right index finger until skin split. Salt and copper coated his tongue. A dark droplet welled against the knuckle, heavy and wet. Kuang glanced down, shoulders shaking under the crushing ceiling. “What are you doing?” Yunhe struck the blistered silk with his torn skin. The contact hissed. Dragging his finger in a wide arc, he traced a doorway, feeding his breath into the wet circle until the scorch marks peeled away from the outline. The circle gaped open, framing the dim gray timber of the outer room. Beyond the ring of red gore, the falling sky scorched the reeds to ash, but the threshold drew a draft of cool mountain air into the pocket domain. “Now!” Yunhe wheezed. “Out!” Kuang Zongtu dropped his hands. The ceiling caved in a sheet of falling fire, but he seized Yunhe’s collar and heaved both of them headlong through the ring. They crashed against the floorboards of the studio, skidding through scattered inkstones and dry brushes. The air reeked of scorched raw silk. Kuang struck the cedar floor with a heavy thud, the wash clinging to his arms drying into gray film under the room's lamps. Yunhe pushed himself up, coughing up soot, his sleeve damp with wash. Mist drifted across the threshold from the terraced waterfalls outside. Standing by the very window, overlooking the dizzying, deadly drop of Mount Qixia’s waterfalls, was Yue Fengmian. He cradled a limp, comatose disciple across one forearm, the boy's heels dangling over the open precipice. With his free hand, the elder dipped a thumb into a fresh saucer of cinnabar. “Ah, Yunhe, you’ve returned,” Yue Fengmian’s voice was soft, melodic, completely devoid of surprise. “And you’ve brought a guest. Excellent. Now, my dear disciple, you understand the urgency, do you not? The Grand Oblivion Scroll awaits. Finish it, or this young life will complete its journey to the depths below.”

Blood on the Canvas