Page 90 of Between Ghosts and Gods

General Shusa was a young cowherd who fell in love with a lowly weaver girl. When war struck, the local lord drafted all young men into the army. Shusa went to war, leaving the girl behind…

Lady Camellia had met a fate just like Kasu’s mother. Perhaps all cowherds were just heart-breaking cads looking to abandon their sweethearts when the going got rough.

Susha quickly distinguished himself from his peers through great feats in battle… Soon, the gods themselves offered him a place among their ranks.

General Shusa had admitted that he’d once had a lover. Someone who had done terrible things while they were separated by the war. Someone he had left behind when he had risen to the heavens.

“Lady Camellia was your lover. Even after you became a god, you remained in contact with her. She made that elixir for you. She loved you, even though you abandoned her. You knew how she felt, and yet you only strung her along so that you could use her!” Simply speaking those words felt blasphemous. Kasu wondered if she could grab her voice and stuff it back down her throat.

“So what?” Shusa retorted. “She was happy to go along with my every request. Besides, why should I care about the feelings of a demon? When she was human, she committed such heinous acts. She stole and killed for food! Wicked people deserve everything they get. If she didn’t want to damn herself, why couldn’t she have just died? It would have been nobler if she had just given up and died a virtuous death!”

A virtuous death. How many times had Kasu thought the same thing about herself? If she had just accepted her fate without resentment, if she had just given up and died instead of resorting to selling her soul, things would have been better. She would be happier.

Maybe that was true, but it still tasted bitter going down. Kasu felt a burning anger she had only ever felt when Ruo was born. What right did someone like General Shusa have to judge them? How dare he say they would have been better off dying? He could only make that claim because he had never suffered a fraction of what they had.

Kasu thought of Lady Camellia, scorned and alone. Starving, dying, and in pain. She imagined the rage that ran through her veins in place of blood. She imagined her hatred twisting and warping her into a demon. The Heavenly Principles would probably say that General Shusa was right and demons deserved to be treated terribly, but Kasu could not help but think he was wrong.

General Shusa swung his sword with all the strength of a god, pointing the sharp tip at Kasu’s neck.

Arun’s eyes blazed with a cold fury.

“If you hurt her, I’ll rip you apart.”

“With what? That little knife?” Shusa scoffed. “I’m the guardian god of the south. You don’t want to know how many ghosts and demons I’ve killed.”

Kasu knew. Tales of General Shusa’s heavenly exploits had reached even the under-realm. She had heard about the great demon of Bushian Bridge and the thousand fire spirits of Ture; Kasu didn’t need reminding of his impressive list of accomplishments, not when facing down the point of his sword.

Neither Kasu nor General Shusa noticed the blur of black fur hiding in the shadow of the shelves until it lunged at them. Ruo sank their fangs into General Shusa’s hand.

“You damn beasts! It’s the Celestial Empress you should be fighting. Who do you think decided that demons could never reincarnate? Who turns a blind eye to the suffering of ghosts? The Celestial Empress decides what is right and wrong, and who is worthy of forgiveness.” Shusa clutched his injured hand to his chest as he staggered back.

“Oh please, spare us your bleeding heart.” Arun snorted, his gaze flinty and unrelenting. “You don’t really care about the poor demons and ghosts of the under-realm. You just want to be in charge here.”

General Shusa bared his teeth at him. “You don’t know what it’s like having to bow and scrape to that old hag every day. The humiliation! We gods toil away, keeping the wheels running, recording the deeds of humanity, vanquishing demons, while the Celestial Empress does nothing but sit on her throne all day! I have fought calamities and battled monstrous beasts. What great accomplishments has she performed? What makes her more deserving of the throne than me?”

With a look of burning fury, Shusa swung at him. His sword sang past Arun’s face, missing his ear by a hair’s breadth, and drawing a line of blood across his cheek.

“Arun!” Kasu grabbed a large pot from the shelf and hurled it at the general. The god raised an arm to block it and the pot shattered against his arm, soaking him in rice wine.

Arun leapt back, putting more distance between himself and Shusa.

“I’m fine.” He wiped the blood from his face. “You know, I’ve been thinking about the curse that killed the Pale Lady. Why did it seem in pain? When Ruo cursed their target, they knew who it was.”

“I did?” The cat cocked their head to one side.

“In Camellia House, when I was walking around listening to gossip, you said you knew you got the right target because you felt happy afterwards.”

Ruo’s eyes lit up at the memory. “It was the best feeling. Even better than the way eyeballs burst between your teeth,” they purred.

“But that wolf wasn’t happy. I think they got the wrong target. If my mother died in pain, why would she not curse Lady Camellia, the one torturing her? Why only the Pale Lady?” said Arun. “I think she was only targeting one person. General Shusa.”

The general glared. Wine dripped down his neck.

“That can’t…” Kasu wanted to protest, but the more she thought about Arun’s explanation the more the pieces clicked together. The actors that the wolf targeted had all been dressed as General Shusa. Someone had said that the curse was going after all the Shusa actors. When the Pale Lady had died, she had been rehearsing for the play dressed as the general.

A young curse was a being of pure instinct. It could not reach the heavens to hurt General Shusa, so it had attacked anyone who looked like him.

“My mother didn’t steal the reincarnation wheel and run.” Arun brandished his knife and took a step closer to Shusa. “If she had, there would be no reason to curse you. So tell me, what did you do to her?”