Light has no right to feel heavy.
But the line on my wrist did.
It tightened over the old scar like a thin band of molten gold, neither burning nor soothing—just claiming. A vow made visible. A rule with teeth.
Wukong stared at it as if he'd been waiting his whole life to see proof that I could bleed and still pretend I wasn't human.
Bajie made a sound somewhere between a prayer and a gag.
"Master," he whispered, scandalized, "your wrist is—your wrist is glowing."
"Yes," I said, because stating the obvious was easier than admitting my hand was shaking. "Thank you for the update. I was unaware."
"Are you—are you cursed?" Bajie demanded.
I looked him dead in the eye. "Do I look like I'm having fun?"
He opened his mouth.
I raised a finger.
He closed it.
Miracles, apparently, could still happen.
Behind him, Wujing's gaze was fixed not on my wrist but on Wukong's forehead—on the golden circlet pattern that had flared when I spoke that name. His expression didn't change, but I saw the subtle shift in his posture: ready.
He was always ready.
I envy that kind of steadiness. It suggests a person has never been betrayed by his own heart.
The mountain groaned.
Not a crack of stone, not a collapse—something deeper. A long, slow vibration through the earth, like a sleeping giant rolling over.
Wukong glanced back at the split in the rock, then at me.
"The seal's breaking," he said, and he sounded pleased.
I did not share his enthusiasm.
"I did not authorize any additional breaking," I told him sharply.
He tilted his head. "You already did."
I hated that he was right.
The moment I'd spoken that short, intimate syllable—A Kong—something in the world had answered. The mountain's attention shifted. The air changed. A mechanism, ancient and precise, had recognized a key turning in a lock.
Which meant—
No. I refused to finish that thought. Finishing it would mean accepting it. Accepting it would mean admitting that my voice had become a trigger for a vow I didn't remember making.
I pulled my sleeve down with an unnecessary violence and turned the motion into dignity.
"We are leaving," I announced. "Now."
Bajie blinked. "Leaving? With him?"
"We are leaving," I repeated, enunciating each word like a hammer. "Now."
Wukong's mouth twitched, as if he could taste the command.
"And me?" he asked.
I looked at him.
He looked back.
The night between us felt stretched—like a line drawn too tight.
"You," I said, "are going to behave."
His brows rose. "That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting."
He leaned forward a fraction, the predatory curiosity back in his eyes. "What happens if I don't?"
I smiled. A small smile. A monk's smile. The kind you give when you're about to describe consequences.
"Then I will use my words," I said pleasantly, "to make you regret inventing the question."
Bajie exhaled loudly in relief—as if grateful I was still me, still capable of threatening people like an irritated schoolmaster.
Wukong's gaze drifted down toward my wrist again.
"You already are," he murmured. "Using your words."
I ignored him.
Ignoring is also a weapon. It simply takes longer to kill.
"Wujing," I said, without looking back, "pack what we can. Bajie—"
"I'm already packing!" Bajie yelped, scuttling as if fear itself had hands on his shoulders.
Wujing moved without complaint. He always did. But his eyes stayed on Wukong, measuring him the way you measure a bridge before you step onto it.
And that was sensible.
Wukong stepped closer again.
My chest loosened.
I hated my body for it.
I squared my shoulders. "Do not come any closer."
He stopped.
Not instantly this time—he slowed, like he'd hit an invisible wall. His jaw tightened as if he was fighting it.
I felt it, too.
A faint tug in my wrist, subtle as thread tightening on a loom.
He noticed my reaction and smiled like a criminal catching a judge flinch.
"So you feel it," he said softly. "When you tell me to stop."
"That," I replied, "is called listening."
He laughed under his breath. "No. That's called being bound."
The air prickled.
The mountain behind him rumbled again, impatient now. Bits of gravel fell. The crack in the stone widened by a hair's breadth, as if the seal wasn't content to merely loosen—it wanted to finish.
Wukong turned toward it, eyes narrowing. For the first time since he'd crawled out, the fury in him sharpened into focus.
Something inside the mountain moved.
Not him. Not the seal.
Something else.
My wrist throbbed once.
And, as if responding to the pulse, the golden line under my sleeve tightened again—just enough to warn me it could tighten more.
I inhaled slowly.
Very well.
If the world insisted on binding me to an unpredictable storm, then I would do what I always do with storms.
I would name it. I would define it. I would give it rules.
Rules are the only way to survive the divine.
"Wukong," I said, using the safer name—his public name—because I was not foolish enough to feed the vow again.
His gaze snapped to mine.
"Three rules," I said, and my tone shifted into the cadence I reserve for demons and officials and anyone who thinks chaos is a personality.
"Rule one: You do not harm civilians. Not in anger. Not in hunger. Not in 'justice.' If you do, I will stop you."
His eyes flickered. Something like… anticipation.
"Rule two: You do not use force to solve problems I can solve with speech."
Bajie coughed violently behind me. I ignored him.
"Rule three," I continued, voice steady, "you do not touch me without permission."
The words fell into the night like a coin into deep water.
Wukong didn't move.
But the gold at his forehead glowed faintly, as if amused.
"Permission," he repeated. "From you."
"Yes," I said. "From me."
He took a slow breath.
"And if I break a rule?" he asked.
I held his gaze. "Then I will tighten the binding."
Silence.
Even the wind seemed to pause, curious.
Wukong's smile widened slightly, and for the first time it wasn't mocking.
It was hungry.
"You can," he said quietly. "You don't know how, but you can."
I refused to react.
I refused to wonder what it would feel like to have power over him.
I refused to notice the way his eyes kept returning to my mouth—as if my lips were the real chain.
"Good," I said, crisp. "We understand each other."
"We don't," he replied.
Then he did something that made my stomach drop.
He lowered his gaze.
He bowed.
Not deeply. Not humbly. Not in the way a disciple bows to a master.
It was the bow of a warrior acknowledging a rival. The bow of a man accepting terms because he intended to rewrite them later.
"All right," he said. "Master."
The word shouldn't have sounded like a threat.
It did anyway.
Wujing appeared at my side with our meager supplies gathered. Bajie hovered behind him, still staring at my wrist like it might bite.
"Master," Wujing said quietly, "the mountain—"
"I know," I cut in.
Because the mountain was changing.
The crack had widened again. Cold air poured from it now, thick with that metallic scent. Not just iron—ink.
Ink.
A smell I recognized from temples and courts and imperial offices.
Paper.
My blood went colder than the stone under my feet.
Wukong's head snapped toward the fissure. His body tensed, all predatory readiness.
"What is that?" Bajie whispered.
Wujing's hand drifted toward the weapon he rarely used. "It's not demon qi," he murmured. "It's… official."
Official.
That single word made my throat tighten.
Because I knew what came with official energy: edicts, warrants, punishments disguised as righteousness.
The crack split wider with a sound like fabric tearing.
Something slid out of the mountain.
Not a creature.
Not a weapon.
A strip of pale paper, edged in gold, covered in characters so precise they seemed carved rather than written. It floated into the moonlight as if an invisible hand held it up for inspection.
My eyes locked onto the seal stamped at the bottom.
A mark shaped like a cold sun.
And beneath it, in tiny script that my mind read faster than my heart could deny—
Bureau of the Unfeeling.
Bajie made a choked sound. "Oh—oh no."
Wukong's voice went very quiet.
"They found you," he said.
I swallowed.
Because the paper wasn't addressed to him.
It was addressed to me.
And in the center, where a name should have been—
where Tang Sanzang should have been—
there was only a designation:
VESSEL No. 875 — Retrieve and Seal.