visit Diyu. There is something different about him.”
Mulan swallowed. She knew what was different about her, but there was no way the ghosts could sense that she was a girl, was there?
Languai poked Mulan’s rib with the hilt of his sword. “Stop dallying. We don’t have all night.”
Mulan cringed from his jab. All night, she repeated to herself.
She craned her neck up until she could see the very top of the cave. There was a hole in the ceiling, just small enough to permit a soft beam of moonlight. When she squinted, she could make out a faint outline of the moon. It was full and bright, hanging like a golden pearl against the black sky.
It’s still night, she thought. I have until morning to save Shang.
She quickened her pace, forcing the demons to hurry after her.
“I’ve never seen a mortal so eager to meet King Yama,” Languai muttered after her.
Another snorted. “That’s because he doesn’t know any better. Look at him, rushing toward his doom. Even if King Yama doesn’t kill him, he won’t last long in Diyu.”
Mulan ignored the demons. Their words didn’t frighten her.
She’d crossed the point of no return knowing the price: that once she entered the Underworld, the world above would become a distant dream—one she might never wake and return to, ever again.
But fear, guilt, grief—she’d buried those emotions the moment General Li told her she had a chance to bring Shang back. Now, mere steps from the mouth of the Underworld, courage swelled within her. Courage and hope and determination.
She only hoped they would be enough.
Every time Mulan thought she’d reached the end of the bridge, she was wrong. The stone path seemed to extend forever. Every now and then she felt as though she were actually sprinting across the back of some stone-scaled dragon that kept growing and growing to keep her from reaching its tail.
If it was a test of her determination, Mulan didn’t fail. Eventually, the number of torchlights on the bridge decreased, and no new ones appeared. Twelve, eleven, ten lights, she counted…then, Finally! Mulan spied the other side of this vast cavern.
She stepped off the Bridge of Helplessness and paused to catch her breath. She looked up, surprised to see the sky.
I guess we’re no longer underground, she thought, her eyes skimming the silvery clouds for traces of the moon. There was something peaceful—and beautiful—about the sky here. The stars appeared closer; they shone brighter than any she’d ever seen. She wasn’t sure if it was the same blue sky that blanketed the world above or a different one stitched especially for Diyu. She suspected the latter.
Shadows flickered ahead; behind her the demon guards huffed and puffed to catch up with her.
She didn’t wait for them, or for ShiShi. She pushed forward, entering a passageway brightly lit with lanterns and guarded by armed demon sentries. The walls stretched as far as she could see, and the ground gradually sloped upward, creating a hill into which hundreds of stone steps had been carved. She couldn’t make out what was at the top of the hill, for she was at the tail end of the longest line she had ever seen—all ghosts!
There had to be thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of them.
“What are they waiting for?”
Languai, the first to catch up with her, cackled at her confusion. “To see King Yama. You didn’t think you were the only one with an appointment, did you?” He grinned. “You’ll be dead just in time to meet him.”
The demons all laughed at Mulan’s foolishness. Mulan ignored their taunts and turned to ShiShi.
“These are the recent dead,” ShiShi murmured. The ghosts’ expressions were long and grave or surprised, as if they’d only just discovered that they had died. A good number had arrows in their chests or other terrible wounds of combat; some looked to have been poisoned, and many were very old.
“Wait here,” Mulan said to ShiShi so they wouldn’t lose their place in the queue.
“Where are you going?” ShiShi barked.
She slipped deeper into the throng, making for a rocky outcrop where she might get a better view up the hill to where King Yama was. The demon sentries were too busy keeping order in the line to acknowledge her: ghosts were gossipy, and prone to getting into fights with one another, Mulan noted. Maybe it was because they were bored.
A few dozen places ahead of ShiShi, she thought she recognized some of the Huns that had perished in the avalanche. She didn’t