---
Later, when the house had filled again with familiar sounds—the kettle boiling, the creak of bamboo walls—Nezha sat by the lotus pond.
His mother had washed his hands earlier, gently scrubbing away the divine ichor that had stained them rust-red and luminous. The water in the basin had turned faintly golden before fading to clear. She had worked in silence, her touch steady even as her eyes glistened with unshed tears.
Now his hands were clean—pale and unmarked, as if the battle had been a dream.
But the weight in his chest remained.
---
The water of the pond shimmered with the reflection of the morning sun, now climbing higher in the sky. The same pond that once froze beneath his touch. Now, as his fingers hovered above it, the surface only rippled—no frost, no fire, just gentle circles expanding outward.
*I missed this,* he thought. *The quiet. The smell of earth. The sound of home.*
But beneath the peace, guilt coiled tight.
He saw the sea again—the flames, the flash of scales, the shattering of waves. The sound the dragon made when his body broke apart still echoed somewhere in the hollows of his mind.
The divine ichor was gone from his hands, washed away by his mother's gentle care. But he could still feel it—the heat, the wet thickness of it, the way it had gleamed even as it cooled.
He looked down at his palms. They trembled faintly. The faintest shimmer of gold pulsed beneath his skin—his own divine fire, restless and uncertain—fading before his mother could notice.
Li Jing joined him at the pond, silent at first. Behind them, through the open door, Lady Yin moved through the house—a quiet presence, always near but giving them this moment.
Then, quietly, "The water doesn't freeze anymore."
Nezha didn't answer.
"You're not the same boy who left this house," his father continued, watching the lotus sway. "And I would be lying if I said I understood what you've become. But I remember the day you were born. How the storm broke over the roof, how the world trembled, and yet your mother smiled."
He turned to Nezha then. "You were never meant to be ordinary. I feared that once. I feared what Heaven had given us. But seeing you now..." His voice wavered, then steadied. "I think I only feared losing you."
Nezha looked away, his throat tightening. "You don't know what I've done."
Li Jing's reply was simple. "You came home."
The words hung in the air—gentle, accepting, unbearable.
Nezha's hands clenched. "I killed someone. A dragon prince. He came for me because I was born. Because Heaven made me this way. And I..." His voice broke. "I tore him apart, Father. And I didn't stop. I couldn't stop until—"
He couldn't finish.
Li Jing was quiet for a long moment, his gaze steady on the pond's surface. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of experience—of a soldier who had seen what killing does to those who survive it.
"Did you have a choice?"
Nezha's breath hitched. "I wanted to come home. He stood in my way. And I just... I didn't think. I just—"
"Did you have a choice?" Li Jing repeated, firmer this time.
Nezha looked at his father, eyes bright with unshed tears. "I don't know. Maybe. But I was so close to home, and he was there, and I just... wanted it to be over."
Li Jing reached out, placing a hand on his son's shoulder—heavy, grounding, certain.
"Then you are human enough to regret," he said quietly. "And divine enough to survive what would break lesser souls. That makes you my son. That makes you *whole*, not broken."
He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was darker, edged with warning.
"But the sea will come for you. The Dragon King will demand justice for his son. And when he does—" Li Jing's grip tightened slightly. "—we will face him together. You are not alone in this."
Nezha nodded slowly, unable to speak past the knot in his throat.
They sat in silence for a moment, father and son beside still water, while the weight of what was coming settled between them like a stone.
Li Jing glanced at the sky, noting the sun's position. The morning was passing. The peace wouldn't last much longer.
But for now, he sat with his boy and let him be both divine and human, both powerful and afraid.
That evening, Lady Yin made lotus porridge, as she used to when he was small.
The air filled with warmth, woodsmoke, and the faint hum of cicadas outside. The scent wrapped around Nezha like an embrace—familiar, safe, *home*.
Li Jing had excused himself earlier, checking the garrison, he said—ensuring the watch was set. But both knew the truth. He was giving them this moment, mother and son, before the world came asking questions.
Nezha ate in silence, each bite grounding him further into a life he thought he'd lost. The warmth of the porridge, the slight sweetness of the lotus seeds, the texture he remembered from childhood—all of it pulled him back from the cold depths of guilt.
When the bowl was empty, he leaned against his mother's lap, the way he once had as a toddler. Her fingers threaded through his hair, gentle and slow. The motion lulled him, though the weight of what he'd done pressed at the edges of his mind.
"I hurt someone," he whispered, voice barely audible. "He didn't deserve to die like that. He was just following his father's orders. And I was just... trying to come home. And now he's gone."
Lady Yin's hand paused for just a heartbeat, then continued its gentle rhythm through his hair.
"Then carry that pain gently, my son," she said softly. "It means your heart is still your own."
He closed his eyes. "I was supposed to protect people."
"You still can," she said, and there was such quiet certainty in her voice. "Starting with yourself."
Her hand traced the curve of his cheek, the warmth of her palm steady against his skin.
Nezha wanted to speak again—to confess everything, to fall apart completely—but the exhaustion caught him first.
He drifted between waking and sleep, half-dreaming of mountains and fire, of waves rising high enough to touch the moon, of eyes like drowned moons sinking into darkness, of a voice saying *the ocean does not forgive*.
The guilt stayed, but softened—not gone, just quieter under her touch.
Outside, the night deepened.
The lotus pond shimmered under starlight. Crickets sang. A breeze carried the faint scent of rain from the east—not the clean rain of spring, but something heavier, salt-tinged, carrying the ocean's breath.
Li Jing stood at the manor's edge, one hand resting on his sword. His eyes scanned the horizon, watching for movement in the darkness. The air felt wrong—too still, too quiet, like the pause before thunder.
He had seen enough battles to know when one was coming.
The sea would not forget. The Dragon King would not forgive.
And when Ao Guang came—and he would come—Li Jing would stand between the dragon and his son, even if it cost him everything.
But for tonight, he let his family have peace.
---
Far below the eastern horizon, beneath the surface of the sea, the water grew colder.
In the depths where sunlight never reached, where pressure could crush mountains, the Dragon King's palace trembled with suppressed fury.
Ao Guang had felt the moment his son's light went out—a candle snuffed in an instant, the bond between father and child severed like a cut string.
He had waited. Listened. Hoped for some sign that Ao Bing had merely been wounded, captured, delayed.
But the ocean floor told him the truth. Fragments of divine essence, scattered and fading. The taste of his son's ichor dissolving into the currents.
The Third Prince of the Eastern Sea was dead.
And the flame-child responsible was sitting in his father's house, warm and safe, while Ao Guang's son lay cold in the deep.
The Dragon King's eyes opened—ancient, terrible, burning with grief that had calcified into rage.
"Soon," he whispered to the darkness. "Soon, I will come for him. And we shall see if mortal love can shield him from the sea's justice."
The water around him began to churn.
⸻
---
But in the small house by the pond, unaware of the storm gathering beneath the waves, a divine child slept at last, his mother's lullaby threading through the night—soft, wordless, the same melody she had hummed when he was born in fire and thunder.
She sang for him now as she had then.
*Born strange, but born mine.*
*Born to shake the world, but held by love.*
*Born of Heaven's fire, but cradled by mortal hands.*
The night held its breath around them.
And for one fragile, precious moment, there was peace.
⸻
**End of Part II — The Weight Beneath Relief**