The abandoned temple squatted on the mountainside like a toad made of rotting wood and broken promises.
"It's perfect," Yunhao declared.
"It's falling apart," Lianyin countered, eyeing the holes in the roof. Three days of running had brought them here, to this forgotten shrine where even the gods had given up listening.
"Exactly. No one will look for us in a place this pathetic." He was already exploring, moving with the easy grace of someone raised in palaces. Even covered in dirt and wearing torn robes, he looked regal. It was deeply annoying.
Mochi chirped agreement, batting at a spider the size of Lianyin's palm. The spider burst into tiny flames. Because of course it did.
Home sweet home, the Demon King mused. Though I preferred my palace in the Abyss. Better feng shui. Fewer spiders. More screaming.
"Will you shut up about your stupid palace?" Lianyin muttered, dropping their meager supplies, stolen from a traveling merchant who'd tried to capture them for the bounty. She'd only meant to knock him out. The way his memories tasted when her shadows touched him was... not her fault.
"He's talking again?" Yunhao glanced over, concern flickering through their bond.
"He never stops." She rubbed her temples where a headache was building. Again. The devoured memories from the cave still churned in her mind, a constant whisper of lives that weren't hers. "It's like having the world's most arrogant grandfather living in my head."
Grandfather? The Demon King sounded offended. I'll have you know I was considered quite handsome in my day. Devastatingly so. Why, the Empress of the Northern Heavens once—
Lianyin found a mostly-intact meditation cushion and threw it at the wall. It didn't help, but the action felt good.
"Here." Yunhao produced a small jade bottle from somewhere. "Spiritual recovery pills. They'll help with the headaches."
She stared at the bottle. "Where did you..."
"I lifted them from that merchant. While you were busy having an existential crisis over his memories." He shrugged at her expression. "What? We're already fugitives. Might as well be practical fugitives."
This was the problem with soul-bonds, Lianyin was learning. She could feel his emotions too clearly, the guilt he carried like stones in his chest, the fear he hid behind dry humor, the way his heart stuttered whenever she smiled. It made staying properly angry very difficult.
She took the pills.
"So," Yunhao settled across from her, producing a second bottle, this one full of clear liquid that smelled like paint thinner and bad decisions. "We need a plan."
"Don't die! seems like a good start."
"Aim higher." He took a swig from the bottle and immediately coughed. "Ugh. Why do all cultivation wines taste like someone fermented disappointment?"
Because most cultivators have no taste, the Demon King supplied. Now, in my day, we had proper demon wine. Made from fermented souls and aged in barrels of crystallized screams—
"Your demon grandfather is disgusting," Lianyin informed Yunhao, who nearly choked on his second attempt at the wine.
"Noted." He passed her the bottle. "But seriously. The blood moon is in four days. According to every text I've read, that's when demonic power peaks. When seals break and..." He gestured vaguely at her. "Things happen."
"Things." She took a drink and yes, it did taste like fermented disappointment with notes of regret. "Very specific. Very helpful."
"I was trying to be delicate."
"Why start now?"
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, passing the bottle back and forth. Outside, rain began to fall, pattering through the holes in the roof. Mochi had discovered a nest of possibly-demonic mice and was having the time of his little predator life.
"I've been thinking," Yunhao said eventually. "About your power. The memory devouring."
Lianyin tensed. "What about it?"
"It doesn't have to be a curse." He leaned forward, eyes bright with the kind of intensity that probably made court ladies swoon. "Think about it. Every person you... absorb... they had skills. Knowledge. If you could learn to sort through the memories, control them instead of letting them control you..."
"I'd be a monster with a library in her head instead of just a monster?"
"You'd be unstoppable." He said it like it was a good thing. "The sects fear what they don't understand. But if you understood it yourself..."
Oh, I like him, the Demon King purred. He thinks like a demon. All that royal training, perverted to our cause. Delicious.
"It's not that simple," Lianyin protested. "Every memory I take, I lose something of myself. What happens when there's more of them than me?"
"Then we make sure that doesn't happen." Yunhao reached out, hesitated, then took her hand. Through their bond, she felt his absolute certainty. "I won't let you disappear."
"You can't promise that."
"Watch me." His thumb traced circles on her palm, and she tried not to think about how nice it felt. "I'm very good at keeping promises. It's breaking them that got me caged."
The rain grew heavier. Water dripped through the roof, forming puddles that reflected the grey afternoon light. The temple felt even more abandoned, more forgotten. Safe, in its own decrepit way.
"Teach me," Lianyin said suddenly.
"What?"
"Cultivation. Real cultivation, not whatever scraps the orphanage taught." She met his surprised gaze. "If I'm going to survive this, I need to be stronger. And you were trained by the best masters in the empire."
"Before they decided I was a traitor." But he was already nodding, mind racing. She could feel him organizing lessons through their bond, excited to have something useful to do. "We'll start with meditation. Boring, but essential. Then basic forms, energy circulation, maybe some..."
A bell chimed in the distance.
They both froze. Mochi's head snapped up, mouse dangling from his jaws.
Another chime. Closer.
"Temple bells," Yunhao whispered. "But this place has been abandoned for decades."
Company, the Demon King sang. And not the pleasant kind.
Through the rain came figures in grey robes, moving with unnatural synchronization. Their faces were hidden beneath deep hoods, but Lianyin could see their hands, pale as bone, with too many joints.
"Bone Collectors," Yunhao breathed. "They harvest cultivator corpses for—"
"I know what they do." The merchant's memories supplied that information, along with seventeen different ways they liked to ensure the corpses were fresh. "Can we run?"
"They've already surrounded us." His hand tightened on hers. "Lianyin, whatever happens, don't let them—"
The first Collector stepped through the temple door. Its hood fell back, revealing a face that was almost human. Would have been human, if not for the extra mouth where its eyes should be.
"Demon vessel," it spoke from both mouths in harmony. "Prince of Tianyu. The Bone Sage will pay well for your corpses."
"Pass," Lianyin said.
The Collector tilted its head. "That was not an offer."
"Then let me make one." She stood, shadows beginning to writhe around her feet. The devoured memories whispered suggestions, the soldier's stance, the merchant's negotiation tactics, the bride's final desperate gambit. "Leave now, and I won't feed you to my cat."
Mochi helpfully grew three sizes larger and smiled, showing far too many teeth.
The Collectors hesitated.
Good.
Hesitation was all she needed.