We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Scorpion and the Night Blossom, the first part of a young adult dark fantasy duology by Amélie Wen Zhao, out from Delacorte Press on March 4th.
Nine years ago, the war between the Kingdom of Night and the Kingdom of Rivers tore Àn’yīng’s family apart, leaving her mother barely alive and a baby sister to fend for. Now the mortal realm is falling into eternal night, and mó—beautiful, ravenous demons—roam the land, feasting on the flesh of humans and drinking their souls.
Àn’yīng is no longer a helpless child, though. Armed with her crescent blades and trained in the ancient art of practitioning, she has decided to enter the Immortality Trials, which are open to any mortal who can survive the journey to the immortal realm. Those who complete the Trials are granted a pill of eternal life—the one thing Àn’yīng knows can heal her dying mother. But to attain the prize, she must survive the competition.
Death is common in the Trials. Yet oddly, Àn’yīng finds that someone is helping her stay alive. A rival contestant. Powerful and handsome, Yù’chén is as secretive about his past as he is about his motives for protecting Àn’yīng.
The longer she survives the Trials, the clearer it becomes that all is not right in the immortal realm. To save her mother and herself, Àn’yīng will need to figure out whether she can truly trust the stranger she’s falling for or if he’s the most dangerous player of all… for herself and for all the realms.
The roar that goes up in the crowd of candidates fades to a high-pitched ringing in my ears. The Second Trial? After all that has happened… they’re going to proceed with their tournament?
“Every year,” Jǐng’xiù continues, his voice filtering through to me as though from very far away, “a long-lost island that drifts between all the realms reappears. Mythological beasts of old roam its forests.” A hush has fallen over the candidates. “It is in these eternal forests of Péng’lái Island that you will fight to qualify for the Third Trial… and earn your way back into the Kingdom of Sky.”
Something sparks on my wrist. I look down to see my golden bracelet beginning to glow. It unwinds from my arm, flames catching and transforming it into a burning scroll, as it did when it first came to me at Gods’ Fingers.
Welcome to the Second Trial, the parchment reads, and then the fire begins to eat away at it. Sparkling ashes gleam in its wake, and a golden butterfly flutters where there once were flames. I can just make out a number on its wings: 44.
“Find your bracelet to reenter the Kingdom of Sky and pass the Second Trial. You have one hour,” Jǐng’xiù booms as my butterfly begins to flit, with astonishing speed, out into the night. “That’s it. Those are the rules.”
That’s it? I want to yell at the Eight. A candidate is dead, likely murdered by a demonic beast that is still on the loose. And more of us might be dead by the end of the night.
The immortals don’t care. This is all a game to them. And to play their game, to gain immortality, we must leave behind more and more of our humanity.
My hand goes to my jade pendant, nestled beneath my collar. Is this why you left, Bà?
In the crowd, another candidate’s bracelet has begun to spark. And a third. We’re being dispatched in the opposite order of our arrival—perhaps by way of giving the slowest and weakest a way to survive.
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The Scorpion and the Night Blossom
“Àn’yīng.” Yù’chén’s voice jolts me from my thoughts. The light of the butterflies reflects in his eyes, and when he looks up at me, the concern on his face feels too real. “Go,” he says in a low voice.
Numbers Forty-Three and Forty-Two are already dashing for the gates. I’ve missed my head start.
I take a step toward them. I shouldn’t be concerned with the safety or politics of the Kingdom of Sky. The immortals have more than enough power and resources to find the culprit for one murder.
I need the pill of immortality to save my mother’s soul, and I am the only one who can win it for her.
I hesitate.
“Tonight,” I hiss to Yù’chén, “meet me at the Celestial Gardens. I want to see with my own eyes that you closed the gate.”
His gaze darkens. “Why don’t we survive this trial first, and then you can go back to accusing me of the monstrous things you think I do.”
I turn and shove through the crowd, already palming my crescent blades. Most candidates step aside to let me pass. Except for one person.
Yán’lù’s massive arms are at his hips, one hand curled over the hilt of his broadsword. He’s watching me with wide eyes and a crazed smirk. On his wrist is his golden bracelet, which has not yet morphed into the elusive butterfly.
His says 6. There are thirty-eight candidates between us.
I suppress a shudder. I need to get as far away as possible before it’s his turn to go.
I dart around him and make for the open gates, finally in sight. My butterfly has already gone out, but I think I spot its golden glow in the night.
Fleet and Poison are in my palms as I reach the marble stairs swirling with clouds. I hurry down them. In front of me, I see the silhouettes of Forty-Three and Forty-Two—and farther ahead, three tiny golden sparks drifting toward the Immortals’ Steps. Beyond, somewhere far away in the darkness, is home and Méi’zi and Mā.
I tighten my grip on my blades and touch my collarbone, where my jade pendant rests. A mist has risen from the sea. Brine laces the air, and the crash of waves sounds from far below, a realm away from the Kingdom of Sky and its wards. The wind whips storm clouds across the sky, casting shifting shadows.
I hear footsteps behind me, coming too close and too fast. A glint of metal in the corner of my eyes.
I dodge, swapping Poison for Shadow, as the next candidate’s longsword slices down where my head was just a heartbeat ago. She pauses, blinking in confusion as she looks around for me. To her, I have simply vanished in plain sight—but if she were slightly more observant, she’d see a shift in the air, a shadow darker than the rest of the night moving behind her.
She scowls and barrels down the remainder of the stairs toward Forty-Three and Forty-Two. They’re not as quick as I am, nor do they have bespelled blades. Their screams are cut short abruptly in the night.
I ignore the way my stomach twists and speed up. I’m careful to duck around where Forty-One is hauling the other two candidates’ bodies over the stairs, into the abyss between realms and the yawning black sea below.
When I reach the bottom of the stairway, though, instead of the Immortals’ Steps, a marble bridge extends into the night, vanishing ominously into thick clouds. I sense the hum of spirit energies as I near the Kingdom of Sky wards. The immortals must have altered them, for tonight, they allow me to pass without so much as a brush of air against my skin.
And just like that, I’ve left the Kingdom of Sky. I pause and glance back at the wards, shimmering iridescent and translucent in the night, and I wonder if Yù’chén was telling the truth: that it is much easier to leave than it is to get in.
I glance toward where the clouds swallow the rest of this realm and the next, in the direction I know the Kingdom of Rivers begins. And suddenly, I’m hit with a pang of homesickness so acute that I can’t breathe. I don’t want to be here, competing in a tournament where I’m surviving by the skin of my teeth. I want to be home in my ramshackle little cottage, laughing with Méi’zi as we dice parsnips for soup, sitting by Mā’s knees and listening to her stories, her needle catching the lanternlight as she sews.
But that world no longer exists—hasn’t existed in nine years. And this, this is the only chance for me to get it back.
I blink away the stinging in my eyes and take the first step onto the marble bridge. The stone is cool and solid beneath my feet, slightly damp from the clouds all around. Soon, I’m engulfed in a great fog, unable to see anything but a few paces in front of me, unable to hear anything but the sound of my own footfalls and breaths.
Behind me, someone screams. It echoes briefly before being swallowed—as if the silence around me is alive. Cold sweat beads on my skin.
As suddenly as it arose, the fog thins, revealing a dark shape in the night. I make out the flattened tops of trees— parasol trees, lining the rocky steps of an island that has appeared out of nowhere, hanging above the vicious sea.
A tall rock greets me as I step off the marble bridge onto the soft grass of the island in the sky. A puff of wind clears the mist briefly enough for me to read the characters inscribed on the surface of the stone, weather-beaten and scratched as though it has survived the turn of thousands of years: Péng’lái Island.
The stories surrounding this mystical island are just as Jǐng’xiù said. It drifts across the kingdoms, appearing once a year between the realms… and is supposedly haunted by mythological beasts and remnants of old magic that the Kingdom of Sky has purged.
The silence grows stifling as I step beneath the canopy of trees. The moon is hidden behind rain clouds, and a light drizzle has started, rendering it difficult to make out anything but ghostly shapes and silhouettes. I hold my crescent blades tightly as I move deeper into the forest, intent on getting as far away from the other candidates as I can. I have no idea how big this island is, but within the next hour, it’ll be filled with forty other bloodthirsty candidates, all seeking their tickets to the Third Trial.
I think of the look Yán’lù gave me in the Hall of Radiant Sun. Now that we’re off temple grounds, the Precepts no longer apply. Which means I need to find my golden bracelet… before he finds me.
A sudden howl rises into the night from somewhere nearby, resembling neither man nor beast and sending gooseflesh up my arms. I need to keep moving. The problem is, I’ve lost track of my golden butterfly in this damned rain.
I keep Shadow and swap Fleet for Heart. The talisman activates with a brief injection of my spirit energy; all I need is to project my greatest desires into the spirit energy flowing from me to the blade to let it lead me.
I close my eyes and focus on the image I have held inside me throughout all these years—the flame of hope that has kept me going when all else failed. Mā and Méi’zi, sitting beneath the old plum blossom tree outside our house, laughing as they water spring onions. The late afternoon sun haloes them, as in a dream, in a haze of gold. It is an outdated memory, one that is over nine years old.
If I can just find my golden bracelet… if I can just survive this island… if I can just win one of the eight spots in these trials… then perhaps I can bring back that hazy, golden afternoon.
Heart shifts in my hand, and I smile—just as another voice surfaces in my memory.
What else? That deep, melodic murmur. Something that you want, for you.
I want to see the ocean.
The memory of my mother and sister shifts, and now I’m looking at an ocean under the stars, surrounded by a haunting darkness that frightens me as much as it fascinates me. The heat and pressure of fingers against my waist and rib cage… and the face that I hate to dream of at night, eyes aglow in red. Enchanting. Ensnaring.
My eyes fly open. The drizzle has turned into a downpour, and I’m breathing hard in the rain-soaked forest. Heart is pointing forward, and I feel a ripple of spirit energy as the talisman takes effect, my desire determining the direction of the blade.
I just don’t know which desire it’s pointing to.
I shake my head to clear the heat beneath my skin. No, there is nothing across the realms that will unseat my desire for my family’s safety.
I hold Heart firmly and take off, following the point of its blade.
The parasol trees and cathayas around me have turned to shadows, branches twisting into claws that tear at me as I run in the heavy rain. It will be impossible for anyone to see their bracelet in these conditions.
Over the sound of the deluge, I hear a distant scream.
How many of us will die here? And what happens to those who don’t find their bracelets before time’s up?
It’s a while before I realize that something’s wrong.
I pause in front of a parasol tree, its branches extending like gnarled fingers. Three ghostly gashes gleam on its trunk: claw marks.
Claw marks I could have sworn I saw just minutes ago.
A sense of unease tightens my stomach. The ancient forest is unyielding, any movement or sound masked by the roar of rain. Twice now, I swear I’ve seen eyes glinting out at me from the dark, but each time, they vanish before I can take a closer look. More than that is the bone-deep sense of being watched. Of something closing in.
It is a feeling I’m used to, and I know that usually, my instincts are not wrong.
I angle Heart in front of me and continue walking.
It’s when I see that tree with the same marks for the third time that I know I’ve walked into a trap of some ancient magic or talisman.
I spin, Shadow in my other hand as I scan my surroundings. The air in front of me ripples, and between the rain and the darkness, the forest shifts: in the space of a blink, the parasol trees cluster around me tightly to form a cage, each now bearing the three pale claw marks. Overhead, the skies are no longer visible. I’m trapped; I don’t know how much time I’ve lost walking in circles; and worse, I don’t know how to get out of it.
A scream sounds from nearby, eerily inhuman, and the hairs on my arms rise. I scan the area, but there’s nothing. Only rain, and trees, now all bearing the same three claw marks… and now dripping thick red blood.
When I hear the scream again, this time directly behind me, I know I’m being hunted.
I whip around, blades in hands. In the darkness, I see nothing, no one; just the silhouettes of trees.
Gooseflesh breaks out along my body. I wipe my face again. “I will not be prey,” I whisper.
As soon as my lips form the words, I feel heat against the skin of my collarbone. My pendant! When I pull it out, it’s pulsing gently, warm with magic and aglow in the golden strokes that make up two characters.
“There you are,” I whisper, realizing my guardian in the jade must have heard my panic when I’d spoken aloud. The familiar handwriting is a touch of comfort.
Yet when I read the message, I do not feel the steadiness of safety that usually comes to me when my guardian sends word.
I feel a cold twist of fear.
Nightmares, it reads.
As a flash of lightning erupts in the skies, I catch a glimpse of a massive, hulking shape between a tangle of trees a dozen paces from me.
With the second flash, it stands directly before me. This time, I scream.
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.
