The Beggar Who Devoured Heaven

Chapter 5: The Number on Her Back

By the time Ren Kai reached home, the rain had stopped, and the moon was high.

He had not walked straight there. He had taken the long way, over low roofs and through the dry canal, and stopped at every corner to listen. No one is following you, Old Crow had said at last. Yet. Ren Kai had not liked that last word.

The shack stood at the end of Crooked Lane, where the Gutters met the river. It had one room, one window, and a roof full of holes. A bucket sat in the middle of the floor, catching the last drops. Plink. Plink. Plink.

Ren Lan was sitting up on the straw mat, wrapped in a blanket. She did not look sleepy. She looked like a girl who had been counting the hours.

"You are late," she said.

"I know."

"And you are bleeding."

"A little."

She squinted at him. "Big Brother, you smell like a barrel. You have a bruise the size of a plate. And your hands are empty."

Ren Kai looked down. He was still holding the clay pot. It was very, very empty.

"There was a gang," he said. "And a big man. And the noodles... fell."

"They fell."

"Yes."

"Onto what?"

"The street."

Ren Lan was quiet for a moment. Then her shoulders began to shake, and she started to laugh. It was a small, tired laugh, and it quickly turned into a cough. Ren Kai dropped the pot and rushed to her side. He rubbed her back until the coughing stopped.

"I am fine," she wheezed. "You just looked so sad. Like a puppy that fell in the river."

"I am sorry about the noodles."

"I do not care about the noodles." She patted his hand. "You came back. That is the important part."

She dipped a rag in the bucket and began to clean the blood from his knuckles. "Stop moving. You fight like a sack of flour."

"I won."

"Against a sack of flour?"

He laughed, and it hurt his ribs.

STRAIGHTEN YOUR BACK WHEN YOUR SISTER SPEAKS TO YOU! roared Sergeant Pan.

Ren Kai jumped.

"What?" said Ren Lan.

"Nothing. A chicken."

"A chicken?"

"A very rude chicken. Outside."

Ren Lan looked at him for a long moment. She was ten years old, but her eyes were sharp. "You have been strange since you came in. You keep looking at nothing."

"I will explain tomorrow."

"Is it a good story?"

"It has a shoe in it."

"Then I want the whole thing. Including the part where you are brave."

"I will try to remember a brave part."

He reached into his coat and took out the four blue jars. Ren Lan stared at them. She knew those jars. She had seen them in the shop window every time they walked past, and she had never once asked for them.

"Big Brother," she whispered. "Where did you get one hundred silver?"

"Tomorrow."

"That is two tomorrows."

"I have many tomorrows."

She smiled. It was a real smile, and it made the whole cold room feel warmer.

She took the first spoonful and made a terrible face. "It tastes like old socks."

"Good medicine always does."

She swallowed the second spoonful, then the third. Slowly, her breathing grew softer and deeper. The rough, scratchy sound in her chest faded into something almost normal. Ren Kai had not heard her breathe like that in a year. He pressed a hand over his mouth so she would not hear him cry.

"Do not go away," she mumbled, as her eyes closed.

"I will not."

She fell asleep with her fingers wrapped around his sleeve.

For a long time, Ren Kai just sat there and listened to her breathe. Plink. Plink. Plink. The moon moved across the floor. Somewhere in the city, a night bell rang twelve times. For one small moment, he felt almost safe.

Boy, said Old Crow.

His voice was different. The jokes were gone.

Look at her back.

"Why?"

Because I cannot stop looking at it. And I think you can see it too.

Ren Kai frowned. Then he felt it. The black mouth on his chest had grown warm again. It was not hungry for food this time. It was watching.

He pulled the blanket aside. Under Ren Lan's thin shirt, a pale golden light was glowing, like a candle behind cloth.

His heart began to pound.

Very gently, he lifted the edge of her shirt.

Between her shoulder blades, thin golden lines lay under her skin. They formed a circle, like a bowl seen from above. Inside the circle were glowing marks. Ren Kai had never learned to read such writing. But somehow, he understood it perfectly.

Nine. Nine. Six.

996.

The numbers were small, but they were the most terrible thing he had ever seen.

Under the numbers, the lines curled into a small shape. It looked like an open hand.

"What is this?" he whispered. "Is it a rash? A bruise?"

It is a Harvest Mark.

"A what?"

Old Crow was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, he sounded very old and very tired.

Heaven marks the ones it wants. Strong ones. Special ones. Sometimes just children who happen to be in the way. The mark counts the days until they are ripe.

"Ripe for what?"

Boy, have you ever wondered why cultivators rise to heaven and never come back?

"They are... happy up there."

Are they?

Ren Kai said nothing. He stared at the glowing numbers. 996. The mark seemed to throb, softly, as if it were breathing along with Ren Lan.

"It is why the medicine never worked," he said slowly. "The doctors said her lungs were weak. They said she was just sick."

She is not sick. She is being counted.

For a year, Ren Kai had carried his sister to every doctor in Azure City. Each one had tapped her chest, shaken his head, and taken a coin. He had hated all of them. Now he saw that it had never been their fault.

"How long?"

You are looking at it. Nine hundred and ninety-six days. And the number goes down every morning.

Ren Kai's hands began to shake. He pulled the shirt down, then the blanket, as if hiding the mark might make it disappear. Sergeant Pan was silent now. Even the dead seemed to understand.

"Can I stop it?"

I do not know. A pause. But whatever sleeps in that coin was made to fight things like this. It is why they wanted it so badly.

"Who wants it?"

Ah. Old Crow's voice dropped to a whisper. That is the other problem. Look at the window.

Ren Kai turned slowly.

The window had no glass. It was only a square hole covered by a thin cloth curtain. Behind that curtain, in the moonlight, stood a tall, thin shadow in a long white robe.

It did not move. It did not knock. It did not make a sound.

It just stood there, perfectly still. The bucket had stopped dripping. The whole night seemed to hold its breath.

And even through the cloth, Ren Kai could tell that it was smiling.

Over his heart, one golden tooth began to glow.