Discarded by Heaven's Prince, Courted by the Demon Emperor novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Thrown Down the Stairs
Qinghe is discarded in front of Heaven and vows to return as an equal; three hundred years later the ninth lightning falls, she is a god, and the Demon Emperor kneels before every watching mirror and courts her aloud.
Yan Chenxi snapped the red betrothal cord in front of nine thousand immortals.
It was the cord that tied his wrist to hers, and the snap rang across the whole Hall of Radiance.
He dropped the two halves at Su Qinghe's feet.
"The engagement is void," he said. "You are a distraction from the Dao."
He did not sound angry.
His tone was cool and transactional.
Qinghe was twenty-two and had been a goddess-in-waiting for exactly eleven days.
She had come up from the mortal world with a herbalist's hands and a borrowed robe, and she had believed the cord meant something.
Hua Yuruo, the Lady of Flowers, was already standing at the Prince's elbow in rose silk.
Nobody had asked her to come forward, and she had come forward anyway.
Two heavenly guards took Qinghe by the arms.
They walked her out of the hall, across the terrace, and to the top of the Jade Stairs.
There were nine hundred and ninety-nine steps down to the cloud floor.
The guards let go, and she did not fall.
She turned around instead, and every immortal in the hall could see her face.
Qinghe picked up the two halves of the red cord and put them in her sleeve.
"Prince Yan," she called.
The whole terrace went quiet.
"I will not look at any man again," she said. "Not one, until I stand on these stairs as your equal."
Somebody laughed.
The Heaven Mirror hung over the terrace, a round bronze disk as wide as a house, and it showed her face to every realm that could see.
Yan Chenxi looked at her for one breath, with nothing in his face at all.
"Then go and cultivate," he said. "I will not wait."
She walked down all nine hundred and ninety-nine steps by herself, and she did not look back once.
Three hundred years later, the ninth lightning struck Cloud-Cutting Peak.
It came down violet-white out of a clear sky, the last of the nine strikes of the Heavenly Tribulation.
Qinghe stood in the middle of it with her arms open.
She was three hundred and twenty-two years old.
Her hair stood out around her, and her robes were burnt to ribbons at the hem.
The lightning ran down her spine and into the golden core below her navel, and the core rang.
Then the sky went quiet, and she was a god.
She felt it all at once.
She felt every blade of grass on the mountain, every stream in the valley, every cloud in the Nine Heavens leaning toward her.
She laughed out loud, sure that she was alone.
She was not.
A black cloud rolled up the side of the mountain, trailing red light, and stopped at the edge of her stone terrace.
The cloud was not a chariot, and no cloud that fast belonged to Heaven.
A man stepped off it.
He was tall, broad through the shoulders, in black robes with a crimson lining and a gold collar open at the throat.
His hair was dark brown with copper in it, half tied up, and the rest hung over his shoulders.
His eyes were amber, and they were looking at her with no shame at all.
Behind him, in the sky, hung a hundred small round mirrors.
Every immortal in the Nine Heavens had sent one down to watch the Su Qinghe tribulation, because it was the most talked-about climb in three hundred years.
Qinghe looked at the man, and she knew who he was.
Every god knew the face on the Demon Realm's banners.
"Mo Jinye," she said.
"Su Qinghe."
He said her name.
Then he knelt on one knee on the burnt stone in front of her, and the mirrors in the sky all tilted to see.
"I'm the Demon Emperor," he said, loud enough for them to hear. "I am three hundred years old, and I have never wanted anything else."
"What are you doing?"
"Courting you," he said. "Aloud, so nobody can say later that I did it in secret."
She stared at him.
"You heard what I said on the stairs."
"Everyone heard. I have waited at the border for three hundred years, because you said no man until you stood as his equal." His smile was slow and crooked. "You stand higher than he does now. So I'm here."
He held out his hand, palm up.
She should have burned his hand off.
The thunder-fire was still crawling under her skin, and a god fresh from tribulation could crack a mountain with a touch.
Instead she laid her hand in his.
He turned it over and kissed the middle of her palm.
Lightning bit his lower lip, hot and white, and he did not flinch.
He only closed his eyes.
The heat ran up her arm and down into her belly, and her knees went soft.
"Su Qinghe," he said against her skin. "I would like to marry you. I would like to do a great many things first."
The thunder-fire lit in her blood all at once.
It hit, and her legs gave way under her.
He was up in a heartbeat, one arm around her waist, holding her against his chest.
He was very hot.
"The fever," he said quietly, and she realized he knew exactly what it was. "It lasts three nights. Say the word, and I take you down the mountain to the cold springs and leave."
Qinghe looked at his mouth, and then at the mirrors watching.
"Carry me," she said.
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