“But it’s true, Heavenly Majesty. I was ordered to do it.”

The guards had shackled my wrists in front of me and chained them to my ankles, making my shoulders hunch in a most unattractive manner, but I could work with that. I dipped my head so my hair tumbled over my cheeks and pulled my most piteous face. Given what I was, it was pretty piteous indeed.

Emphasis on the pretty.

And it worked: The Jade Emperor, who’d honored me by presiding over my trial in person, let me keep talking.

“Lady Fate, the Director of Allotted Lifespans, summoned me to tell me that the Lang Dynasty’s time had come,” I explained in my sweetest voice. “She ordered me to pave the way for a new dynasty. I’m just a lowly nine-tailed fox. How could I disobey?”

I peeked up at the throne, then darted a fake-timid glance at the crowd behind me. That earned me a cuff from one of the guards, but not before I got an impression of silk robes, decked with gems and embroidered sashes – and topped by contemptuous faces. Seemingly every god and goddess in existence had packed themselves into the Hall of Purple Mists, from the Duke of Thunder in the front row to the star sprite clerks squinting through the doorway at the back. Even the Dragon Kings of the Four Seas had flown up from their watery palaces and coiled around the columns for a better view. Trial day in Heaven was a flamboyant affair.

And, like everything else here, it was a sham.

Before me stood Lady Fate, her Three Cadavers arrayed at her back. One passed her a sheaf of transcripts, which she made a show of flipping through until she came to a specific page. She pretended to reread it. “I did order you to ‘pave the way for a new dynasty’,” she announced at last, her eyes as black and blank as a corpse’s. “However, I also ordered you not to interfere with the lifespans of any innocent bystanders.”

I almost snorted, but changed it into a whimper at the last second. Blinking up at the Jade Emperor, I appealed, “But there were no innocent bystanders in that court.”

“Not after you got through with it, there weren’t,” muttered the Duchess of Lightning, and murmurs of assent rose from the crowd.

Ha. That was true. Sort of. As Prime Minister, I had managed to, er, cleanse the government of any officials who might help it keep tottering along. All in the name of helping the dynasty reach its allotted lifespan, of course.

And because it was fun.

And tasty. I was a demon, after all.

Lady Fate pitched her voice to ring throughout the hall. “Your machinations also strangled the new dynasty in its cradle. Because of your treachery, the Son of Heaven murdered the man who was destined to found it.”

Oh, yeah. That. But in my defense, she’d never told me which humans were important and should be left alive, no matter how annoyingly preachy they got.

“Your actions turned the shining Serican Empire, once a paragon of piety and grace, into a wasteland dominated by thieves, demons, and petty warlords.”

Yeah, maybe…. Okay, not just maybe. Definitely. After the emperor’s suicide, the surviving courtiers – the ones I’d let survive specifically for their corruption and incompetence, that was – had shredded the empire into feuding fiefdoms.

Angry mutters from the crowd. Ritual offerings to Heaven always decreased in quality and quantity during civil unrest. Doubtless the gods and goddesses were picturing lean decades ahead.

I bowed my head, pretending to feel shattered by remorse. “It is true that in my zeal to carry out your commands, I may have been too thorough, Lady,” I confessed. “However, it was not I but the humans themselves who tore Serica apart – “

“Because you set us up for it!” exploded a voice, sounding as if its owner had been pushed past the limits of courtly protocol. “You, Piri!”

That voice. I knew that voice.

Oh, how I knew that voice.

I froze. Then I rotated slowly, and as I did, the courtiers parted to reveal the man at the heart of this mess. The one I’d last seen seated on his throne, preparing to burn down the palace around himself as rebel dukes attacked the gates, because if he couldn’t have it, no one else could. Because that had always been his way.

I’d assumed that his soul had already been judged and reincarnated into a worm or something of that ilk, but here he stood. And not drowning in this white sackcloth of a prison uniform either, but resplendent in midnight-blue silk embroidered with constellations in silver thread.

“Cassius?”

The same guard cuffed me again. “That is the Star of Heavenly Joy, criminal.”

Was I the only one who saw something wrong in making a god of the man whom Heaven had destroyed? I scanned the other Stars, searching for signs of shock, or disbelief, or outrage – but they all glared back at me. All except one. The Star of Reflected Brightness pinched her lips and averted her gaze from her ex-husband.

“Why does he get to be a god?” I demanded, dropping all pretense of meekness and whirling to face the Jade Emperor. “Why does he get rewarded for the same deeds I’m being tried for?”

The Jade Emperor simply creased his brow and stared off into the middle distance, and it was Lady Fate who replied, “Because our scholars have determined that he would have been a just ruler if you hadn’t driven him to excess.”

“Wait…wait….” My head was spinning. “But you told me to do it! You told me his dynasty was ending and that I was your tool for ending it! If he were such a great ruler – if he could have been such a great ruler – then why – why –”

She cut me off with an icy, “Because he defiled my temple. And my visions revealed that that act marked the beginning of the end for his dynasty.”

My head ached. I wanted to rub it, but the chains kept me from lifting my hands, and I was done bowing my head. “That makes no sense, Lady. You’re saying that a man who defiles temples can also be a just and great ruler?”

“That was what my visions revealed,” she repeated, which didn’t answer my question at all. But all the Heavenly courtiers were nodding along and murmuring about the awesome power of Fate.

Disgusted, I turned back to Cassius and studied him from head to toe. With his shimmering robes, glowing skin, and serene expression, he did look divine – I’d give him that much. But then again, he’d also looked like the very incarnation of regality as he watched his own family and allies tortured to death. In various slow, painful, and creative ways that I might or might not have suggested. But that was the point. Mine were only suggestions. His was the voice that ordered them. If he were rewarded for his crimes, then so should I. And if I were punished for them, then so should he. The Jade Emperor was the god of justice, the final arbiter of grievances and wronged souls. Surely he could see that no other outcome made sense.

But his face held no emotion as he regarded his newest god, then Lady Fate, and finally me. “We have heard all sides of the story,” he intoned. “Flos Piri, We hereby pronounce you guilty of high crimes against the Heaven-ordained emperor of Serica and hence against Our own person. The sentence is death.”

Before the crowd could burst into full-scale cheering, the Star of Heavenly Joy spoke up. “Perhaps, Heavenly Majesty, a poetic form of execution might be appropriate? One that she devised herself?”

Which one?

“The Burning Pillar, perhaps?”

Oh. That had been one of my more notorious inventions. First you filled a giant bronze cylinder with coals and lit them. Then you stripped your prisoner naked and chained him against the metal with as much flesh as possible pressed to the metal. (Typically a him – we’d had better ways of killing women, Cassius and I.) After some length of time determined by how much said prisoner had annoyed you, you had him tossed into the cylinder to burn to death. Cassius had always been quite taken with the method.

He beamed at me.

The Star of Reflected Brightness flinched.

“Under the circumstances, that does seem fitting,” pronounced the Jade Emperor.

“Hey!” I shouted as the guards grabbed my arms and started dragging me towards the doors. I thrashed and fought, yelling, “Hey! You call this justice? You call yourself the god of justice? This isn’t fair! This isn’t fair!”

Cassius’ triumphant smile followed me all the way out of the Hall of Purple Mists to the execution plaza.

Forty-nine days later, the shreds of my soul finally recoalesced into me, and I woke to find myself inside a pure white glow. Beyond it, I made out flat surfaces and right angles. Was I inside a coffin? A box? Based on how my trial went, I hadn’t expected the gods to keep my ashes long enough to put them into a box. More like dump them into the River of Silver the first chance they got. So where was I now?

I moved forward, trying to get out of the light so I could see better, but it floated along with me. That was odd. I put out a hand to block the glare – only to find that I had no hands.

Or feet.

Or eyes, for that matter. I appeared to be…a ball of white light?

What in the – ?

My world grated sideways, and a square of open air appeared overhead. I shot free, then hovered, pulsing in confusion. Surrounding me was a vast space that resembled a library, except that instead of bookshelves, it was packed with rows and rows of racks that held hundreds of drawers each. Drawers like the one I’d just escaped. An archive, then? An archive of souls?

“If you will follow me, please,” said a flat voice from below, and I looked down to see a human figure with glowing golden skin. Her plain, black, cotton robes told me that she was just a star sprite clerk.

“Where to?” I tried to demand, only it came out more like a cross between a thought and a chime of bells. Where are we going? I tried again.

“It is your turn for reincarnation. Congratulations.” The clerk’s monotone conveyed no sense of celebration whatsoever.

She led me out of the archive into a featureless hallway, lit only by her yellow and my white glows. At the far end, we turned into an equally dark and gloomy room where three balls of light, one yellow, one green, and one white like me, floated in different corners, revolving slowly. “Your number is 11270,” she stated. “Please wait here until it is called.” Turning on her heel, she stalked back out.

I drifted over to the closest soul, the white one. Hey, who are you?

Silence. It spun faster, warning me off.

A door on the far side of the room opened, and another black-clad star sprite called, “Number 11267.”

The white soul zipped towards him, and he shut the door before I could see past him.

I tried the yellow soul next. Hey, what’s going on here? What’s in there?

It, too, refused to speak, but it did drift sideways until it illuminated a calligraphy scroll on the wall. Then it flared once to highlight the words: “Respectful silence is requested in the waiting area.” What a goody two-shoes. I considered trying the green soul, but it didn’t look any friendlier.

I found out what lay behind that door soon enough anyway: a dim, cramped office with a plain wooden desk, a single chair (for the clerk, not his visitors), and a bookshelf jammed with files. Next to the desk squatted a crude, ceramic vat full of brownish liquid that smelled like herbal tea. If these were what passed for “furnishings” in Heaven, then we’d developed far more advanced technology on Earth.

By the light of his own skin, the clerk skimmed a document, then droned, “Please state your name and nature for me.”

Piri. Nine-tailed fox. Where am I? What’s going on?

“This is the Bureau of Reincarnation. You have been assigned a Tier and a mortal form in accordance with your total karma, and you will be reincarnated shortly.”

A Tier?

“Yes. As this is your first time here, I will provide a brief overview of the system. Souls are classified into five categories depending on the deeds they performed in life. The highest Tier is Red, indicating that the soul will be reincarnated as a human.”

Somehow, I didn’t think the powers-that-be had sorted me into that category, but that was all right. I’d rather be a fox anyway.

“The second Tier is Yellow, indicating that the soul will be reincarnated as a higher animal, such as a monkey or an ape.”

No wonder that yellow soul in the waiting room had been so disgustingly rule-abiding.

“The third Tier is Black, indicating that the soul will be reincarnated as a bird or a four-legged mammal. The fourth Tier is Green, indicating that the soul will be reincarnated as an aquatic creature, a reptile, or an amphibian.”

I didn’t like where this was going. I glowed neither red nor yellow nor black nor green. And the last Tier?

“The lowest Tier is White. You will reincarnate as an insect or a worm.”

What? Hey! That’s not fair! I could have lived forever as a nine-tailed fox, you know! The only reason I died was because I obeyed Heaven! Is this how you reward people for obeying Heaven?

“I am merely a third-class clerk, and as such, I do not make decisions as to Tier.” The clerk’s rote reply suggested that he’d memorized that line.

There must be a mistake.

Once, my firm tone would have made ministers quake and Cassius cower. The clerk, however, merely rotated the document so I could read it for myself. It was a form, filled out with my name, nature, dates of birth and death, and a list of my deeds over the past thousand years. At the top, next to the words “Curriculum Vitae,” was stamped the rune for “White.”

Who makes these decisions? I want to talk to them.

“I’m afraid that is impossible,” droned the clerk, with the apathy of one who’d heard every possible variant on that demand over the millennia. “All decisions in the Bureau of Reincarnation are final. Now, if you will please dip yourself in the Tea of Forgetfulness – “

I want to talk to your supervisor, I snapped. There’s been a mistake. Someone picked up the wrong seal and –

The clerk didn’t speak. He didn’t even sigh. He simply lifted a hand and pointed a finger in my direction, and I found myself swooshing towards the vat.

Hey! Hey! Stop! It wasn’t my fault –

Splash.