The cliffs bled wind as we climbed. Harsh, thin, unfriendly. It howled around the stone like a beast too old to hunt and too proud to die.
Shen Yue was half a step behind me, her breath visible in the cold. She scraped frost from a stone and frowned. "There's a mark here. Sliced clean."
I ran my fingers over it.
The cut was smooth, polished — the kind only a certain type of blade made.
One I had seen in dreams and nightmares.
"My father was here," I said. "Not once — many times."
We climbed further.
The path wound between outcrops shaped like petrified screams. Stone monks with shattered faces. Ruins the wind refused to touch.
Then we saw it —
a dark structure built into the cliff, half-hidden by shadows that did not move with the sun.
A sect hall.
One that survived him.
Or thought it had.
A man stepped out as we approached — tall, grey-haired, with eyes like cold iron quenched in still water.
He looked at me.
Long and hard.
"You walk like him," he said.
I didn't react. Shen Yue did.
"He is nothing like that man."
The master tilted his head. "You misunderstand. I mean only that he left something inside you. Something he carved."
The bridge in my chest tightened like a fist.
The master felt it.
"Come," he said. "You came for truth. I offer it without mercy."
He turned and walked inside.
We followed.
Ling An's morning bells refused to ring again.
Instead, the first sound that reached the capital was the steady thrum of Zhou's marching boots — three thousand strong — entering the northern ward with alarming precision.
Their armor gleamed.
Their spearheads matched.
Their commander bowed with perfect courtesy.
"By decree of His Majesty of Zhou," he said, "we come to support the Mandate."
Wu Jin returned the bow.
"I did not ask for support," he said calmly.
"You did not need to," the commander replied. "Chaos calls for unity. And unity calls for… stewardship."
Behind him, Zhou priests erected small shrines whose smoke drifted upward in unnatural spirals.
Wu Jin watched stone by stone, soldier by soldier, as Liang's capital was turned into a polite occupation.
Inside the hall, he spoke to Wu Shuang quietly.
"They're preparing for invasion."
"Of course," she said.
"You knew?"
"I dreamed it."
"And you didn't warn me?"
She smiled faintly. "You wouldn't have believed me."
He glared. "What else did you see?"
She hesitated.
Then she lied.
"Nothing useful."
He stared at her.
She didn't flinch.
Shuang was no longer playing sides.
She was playing survival.
And she was winning.
Far to the south, past the marsh turned to black glass, past the abandoned camps of both Northern and Southern armies, a solitary pavilion sat beneath willow shadows.
Inside, lit by candlelight, sat the Emperor of Liang.
Alive.
Unstained.
Untouched by war.
Untouched by fear.
A figure in crimson robes approached and knelt.
"Your Majesty," he whispered, "the Southern King awaits your answer."
"Then send it," the Emperor murmured.
The messenger presented a folded letter sealed with the sigil of the Southern Kingdom — not the alliance seal, but the private one, carved with a serpent that devoured its own tail.
The Emperor opened it and smiled.
"You offer me the marshlands," he said softly, reading. "And in return, I give you what remains of the Hei line."
He chuckled.
Not warmly.
"I never thought the South would learn to bargain like this."
A shadow moved behind the screen.
Southern attendants — silent, masked, seawater dripping from their hems — stepped into view.
One spoke.
"When the tower rings, Liang will fall," she said. "We merely ask that you burn the North after your victory."
The Emperor twirled the scroll in his fingers.
"Destroy Liang?" he said mildly. "Why would I destroy a throne that already belongs to me?"
The attendant stiffened. "Then why join hands with the South?"
"Because," he said, "unity is for the weak. But deception? That is the language of kings."
He leaned closer.
"When the Lord Protector climbs his tower, he will believe he ascends alone. But I will be the wind beneath him. And winds do not remain loyal."
The Southern emissary bowed.
"And Wu An?" she asked.
"He will return," the Emperor said. "Weapons always return to their owners."
"And Wu Jin?"
"A placeholder."
"And Wu Shuang?"
The Emperor paused.
"An unpredictable child," he said. "But even unpredictability has… uses."
He closed the scroll sharply.
"Tell your King:
The Lord Protector will strive for Heaven.
I will strive for the earth he stands on.
When the time comes—
we break him together."
Back in the west, the master led Shen Yue and me into the sect hall.
Its walls were covered in spirals and diagrams — not art, not prayer. Instructions.
Lessons.
Warnings.
He gestured for me to sit.
"Your father came here seeking power," he said. "But he did not come alone."
My breath caught. "Who was with him?"
"You," the master said.
Shen Yue stiffened.
"That's impossible," she said. "He came here before An was born."
"Yes," the master murmured. "He brought the piece of him that would become An."
The bridge inside me shuddered violently.
The master continued:
"He wanted to learn how to force Heaven to kneel. But Heaven is not a throne — it is a door. And doors require keys."
"And I'm the key," I whispered.
"No," he said.
"You are the door."
Shen Yue whispered, "An… don't listen—"
But it was too late.
The master lit a brazier. Smoke spiraled upward, turning into shapes.
The shapes were people.
Not living.
Not dead.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Monks.
Children.
Warriors.
"The day he visited us," the master said quietly, "we refused him. So he carved the bridge inside you using our blood."
My vision blurred.
Shen Yue put a hand on my shoulder. "An. Look at me."
"I am," I said.
But I wasn't.
I was looking at the faces in the smoke.
Faces that watched me with pity.
Not hatred.
Pity.
"He made you from us," the master whispered. "From our essence. From our sacrifice. Not because he loved you. Because he needed something the heavens could not predict."
A pulse rolled through the earth.
The tower.
Its third surge.
The walls flickered.
The master staggered back.
"He is ahead of schedule," he gasped. "He is—"
The brazier flames bent sideways.
The walls shook.
A sound like a bell deep underwater rippled through the world.
The tower pulsed again.
This time—
Light shot skyward.
A beam that split clouds from Hei Fort to the Western cliffs.
Shen Yue grabbed me.
"AN—WE HAVE TO MOVE!"
The master's voice rang out:
"IF YOU DO NOT BREAK THE BRIDGE SOON—
YOU WILL BECOME THE MANDATE HE SEEKS."
The ground split.
Smoke poured in reverse.
The diagrams on the wall glowed with a violent, ancient force.
And the bridge inside me—
screamed.
For the first time.
Not in hunger.
Not in command.
But in fear.
I stumbled back.
Shen Yue pulled me by the arm.
"An, listen! Focus on my voice!"
I forced the bridge down.
Forced breath into my lungs.
Forced the world back into its shape.
The sect master steadied himself.
He looked straight at me.
"You must go further west," he said. "To the city that forgot itself. To the scholars who remember what Heaven denied."
"And then?" I asked.
"Then," he said, "you learn how to kill a man who believes he already owns the world."
The tower pulsed again.
A fourth tremor.
And somewhere to the east—
the Emperor of Liang smiled.