In that moment, I wish I could carve out my foolish mortal heart. I know mó are dangerous. I know we exist for them as prey. Still, I can’t help but stare.
And then we collide. He grunts as we slam to the ground, my body on top of his, my legs hooked against his for grip, my blades already at work. I aim at his neck with Shadow—
—and he catches my hand.
I’m thrown off guard by this. Shadow is meant to conceal my movements, and the blade itself is impossible to track with the naked eye, even for some mó.
Higher One, my senses scream.
So be it.
I grit my teeth and push, but then I catch sight of something that unsettles me once more.
His expression. He’s surprised.
I have never seen any mó display such a mortal countenance; I do not think they feel emotions as we do. I hesitate— just for a fraction of a heartbeat, but it is too long. When I aim Fleet at the soft part of his neck, his other hand flies up to snag my forearm, throwing off my strike. Fleet barely nicks the curve of his throat.
His eyes narrow, and a grin drags open his lips, baring his teeth. Faster than I can blink, he flips me over. My head rams into the ground so hard that I see stars and my teeth rattle. I blink furiously, and when my vision clears, I find that I can no longer move. He’s holding both my wrists against the ground over my head and pinning me with his body. I can feel the hard planes of his inner armor pressing against me, crushing me under his weight.
He cocks his head, his gaze raking my face. “Do I know you?” His voice is as deep and smooth as the night.
I attempt a kick, but he catches the movement with his hip, locking my leg with his. He watches me struggle with a small, lazy tilt to his lips, as though he has all the time in the world to play with his food.
“Interesting,” he says. “A scorpion dressed as a chaste young maiden. Are there more stingers beneath that beguiling white dress?”
I hate him fiercely in that moment. I’m trapped beneath a mó, my arms too weak, my blades useless between my fingers. He will probably use my body first, then feast on my flesh as he drinks up my soul. I think of my father twitching on the ground, of my mother’s blank stare. I think of Méi’zi, small and alone beneath our town pái’fāng, holding on to my blade and the promise I made her.
My throat locks. I think of crying. I think of begging.
But no. I will not be prey.
If I am going to die tonight, then I’m going to do my damnedest to take him with me.
I do the only thing I can in this moment: I lunge up and bite his neck, clamping my teeth hard enough to break skin. I know mó have physical sensations, just as we do, and pain is one of them.
The mó shouts a curse and jerks back, but I go with him. I bite down harder, sinking my teeth in with all the hatred for his kind that I have. For all the deaths, all the half-eaten bodies and devoured souls and burned villages. For my father. For my mother. For the childhood stolen from Méi’zi.
I hold on, waiting for his ichor to sear my tongue, for its slow poison to seep into my body.
His skin is warm against my lips. He tastes of sweat, salt, and wind . . . and slowly, trickling into my mouth, is a familiar-tasting, hot coppery liquid.
I blink. It can’t be.
Demons don’t bleed. They don’t have blood. Which means—
I release him, coughing as his blood swirls on my tongue. My captor groans out another curse, and when my head falls back against the grass, I see my teeth marks on the side of his neck . . . and the fresh red blood dripping from the wound.
My captor shifts so that he is gripping both my wrists with a single hand. He swipes the other at the blood on his neck and stares at his palm for a moment. Then he looks at me in disbelief. “You bit me.”
“You’re not a mó,” I gasp.
He swears under his breath again, then leaps up with a fluid lightness to his movements that I have seen in my father . . . and in other practitioners.
Skies. Did I just assault and . . . bite a practitioner?
“Observant of you, considering I’m not the one goinf around taking chunks of flesh out of people,” he says, but the disbelief in his eyes is replaced by an edge of laughter as he flicks his gaze to me again. “Ten hells, that hurt.”
My cheeks heat, but I don’t have time for embarrassment and I’m not in the mood to apologize. I scramble to my feet much less gracefully than he did, then spit out the rest of his blood and wipe my mouth.
“What happened here?” I look around, my stomach roiling at the sight of the bodies strewn so carelessly. There are many monsters, ghouls, and spirits that roam the mountains and untamed lands of the mortal realm, but few known to kill us like this. No, the wounds on the victims are singular and clean, resembling the single slice of a blade.
Whatever did this didn’t do it to feast.
I count eight dead, and my heart sinks. Eight practitioners from the Kingdom of Rivers slain before the sun has set. Eight mortal lives taken from our ever-diminishing numbers.
My former captor folds his arms. “First you assault me, then you bite me, and now you accuse me of murder. Manners, little scorpion.”
I shift my blades in my palms, uncertain how to respond. I don’t remember the last time I made a joke. And I certainly don’t know anyone who would remain so cavalier when surrounded by death or facing the possibility of an imminent death.
“Why are you here?” I ask. If he was looking for the convoy as well, then dragons curse me, for he could have made a good ally. Until I accidentally tried to kill him.
He gives a deep chuckle. “Oh, for the fun of it. What more is there to life than wandering a bloody forest at night, surrounded by demons and getting stabbed and bitten by ill-mannered young maidens?”
I almost want to stab him again, but I settle for a frown. “You’re not dressed to travel,” I say, my eyes flicking to his crimson cloak, bright against the night that has begun to drape its shadows over us and the bamboo forest
“Neither are you.” His gaze skims my throat, my chest, down to the waist, and snaps back up to my face. “Clever. Dress as a chaste maiden in silks to lower their defenses and lure them in, then cut out their hearts before they know it.”
I know he is mortal and I know he is a practitioner, but I still tense as he takes a step closer, then another. My village has largely remained safe from the aftermath of the invasion, but I’ve heard tales of how desperation brought out the ugliest, cruelest parts of humans.
“Demons don’t have hearts.” I raise my blades just slightly and bare my teeth. When he stops his approach, a pleasant twinge of power courses through my veins.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so certain.”
“I’ve killed enough to know.”
His smile widens. “My outfit is a disguise, much like yours,” he continues, answering my earlier question. His hands are slightly raised, as though to signal peace. “The brightest and most beautiful flowers are the most poisonous. Most would think twice about attacking me.” He raises an eyebrow and fixes me with a pointed look. “Most.”
The brightest and most beautiful flowers are the most poisonous. That strikes a chord in me, deeper than he’d know.
Excerpt from THE SCORPION AND THE NIGHT BLOSSOM. Text copyright © 2025 by Amélie Wen Zhao. Reprinted by permission of Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. All Rights Reserved.
The Scorpion and the Night Blossom will be released on March 4, 2025, but you can pre-order it now.
Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB
The mó half turns at the last second. The movement is graceful, and because every ounce of my focus is trained on him, I see him shift as though time has slowed, rendering him like a painting in the dying dusk. His hair, billowing like swirls of ink; his eyes, flashing golden like embers in the sun; the strong, sharp cut to his jaw and the ghost of a smile on his lips. As the wind whips the jade-green leaves into a flurry and lifts his red cloak into a silken dance, his gaze rises to meet mine.