The road out of Qingliang was a single ribbon of mud and gravel that snaked between frozen fields and low, wind-bent pines.
Frost crusted the grass along the verge; here and there a wisp of steam rose from a distant cluster of roofs where a farmhand or two already tended early chores. The sky was a pale, washed blue, the kind of color that made snow look sharper—an honest light for travel, but cold enough to keep nerves taut.
Renmei rode with her shoulders wrapped in the heavy cloak Ruihua had given her days before, the fur collar pulled up against the wind. Her hands had long since found an easy rhythm with the reins; the horse beneath her was patient, hooves sure on the rutted track. Beside her, Caius sat like a portrait—straight-backed, precise, the injured wing tucked tight along the left shoulder so it passed for an arm bound in a loose, dark cloth. Even reduced to human form and bound limb, his posture declared the distance between a dragon's ease and a mortal's wobble.
From a distance, his profile was almost princely: cheekbones carved, jaw clean, hair falling in a pale, managed cascade that caught the weak sun. Up close, there was an animal intensity behind the arrogance — the rawness of someone who had once gnawed the air with wings and now measured himself in the smallness of stirrups.
Seth, ever the amused watcher, rifled through her secret worry and teased her about it.
"For the record, your thoughts are a dreadful thing to overhear while trying to appreciate the scenery."
"Shut up," Renmei muttered under her breath, louder than she meant.
"Language," Caius replied coldly, though the reprimand held a thread of humor. He settled his injured arm in the sling that had been wrapped hastily in the cave — a makeshift sheath of linen and cured leather. "You will not regard him with such frivolity," he said frostily, planting his heels. He did not call his brother as Seth aloud—he never did—but the possessive ripple in his words made the younger dragon's identity plain enough to anyone who had shadows for history. "He is my brother, the Custodian—an asset to our line. Treat him with the respect a dragon who dwells in mortal flesh demands."
Renmei bit her lip. He would never call Seth by his given satchel-name — Caius always used the formal title when speaking of "the Custodian" out loud — but she could feel Seth's small, private scoff at being described as an "asset." "And you, my grandiose brother, are being insufferable," he thought back to her, just loud enough for her to smile despite the chill. "You are fussing like a windless kite."
Caius's nostrils flared at that—he could not hear Seth's tone, only his meaning through the way Renmei's expression shifted when her eyes flashed cobalt. He shot Renmei an appraising look. "Is he being insolent?" he asked aloud.
"Only sometimes," Renmei replied, choosing words like steps on thin ice. She concentrated on keeping the conversation bland and the mood cooler than her inner churn. The landscape unrolled: frozen streams etched like glass, flocks scattering ahead as the horses' hoofbeats beat a steady percussion.
"If only I could hear him now, his voice is wasted to be exclusively for your mind only. Therefore we must make haste in our journey, for the sooner we reach the pyre, the sooner he will be back in his own form." The edge in his tone told her he had no patience for sentimentalities that invited risk. "When we reach the Pyre, the Custodian's bond will be tended; your life will not be spent as tinder. You may return, afterwards, to your village to mend and to live, if that is your wish."
Renmei swallowed the small hope like a bitter fruit. Return? The word whispered a comfort she had not realized she would crave. She wanted to picture Ruoyu waiting, the veranda lighted in the winter dusk, Baosheng's arms folded like a shield. Seth's voice, cool and private, answered the picture with the kind of bluntness only he could muster.
"You think of him often," Seth observed. "He will wait, and so will many others. The world is not a place that keeps pledges when dragons and courts dance over the horizon."
Caius gave a small, disdainful snort that scattered a loose trail of breath into the air. "It pains me that we must travel by horse," he said aloud, voice crisp like breaking ice. "We are reduced to beasts of burden. Ridiculous. I could have flown us west in a mere week, if you had not insisted upon this… terrestrial endurance."
Renmei's fingers tightened on the reins. He said it as if the act of flight were trivial—a shrug of sovereignty. "A mere week," she repeated, keeping her tone level. "You mean, if there were no wind, no hunters, no patrols, and what would you have flown with, exactly? Your wings?" She nodded meaningfully toward his left arm, which was bound from shoulder to wrist in layered bandages and fine silk wrappings, faint traces of blue flame occasionally flickering beneath the fabric.
Caius gave her a sharp look, though he didn't respond immediately. His jaw tightened.
She cleared her throat and called, simple and small, "Caius?" The name floated to him on the wind.
He didn't look. Not at her. Not even a flick of the eyes. His profile remained a pale cut against the dimming sky, jawline set, gaze fixed on the narrowing road. He rode as if a single, unbroken line of will could push the horizon aside.
She called again, a little sharper. "Caius! We should stop soon—my hands are cramped and I'm starving."
Caius did not look to her. He rode a pace ahead, back rigid as a statue, eyes fixed to the dimming path as if it alone had offended him by the turn it had taken.
Renmei nudged her mare; the creature responded, moving up until its flank matched the polished shoulder of Caius's stallion. She eased to his side, breath fogging in the cool air between them. "Sir Caius!" she persisted, louder now, forcing the courtesy reserved for a man of his bearing.
He did not turn his head. If anything his posture stiffened; his shoulders narrowed as if bracing against a gust. He spoke aloud, but not to her, voice low and a shade theatrical—an offhanded monologue to the wind. "I hear whispers tonight. The wind carries idle words and the memories of travelers. None call my name. I shall not answer a call that is not for me."
Renmei glared, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like "pretentious lizard."
Seth chuckled in her mind, warmth curling through the bond. "Well, he answered you, didn't he?"
"Barely." She huffed, a spark of irritation warming her. "He's being rude," she thought aloud, glancing at the elegant set of Caius's profile.
The horses slowed as the first stars began to prick through the sky, and though neither of them said it, they both began to search the roadside for a place to stop—a small, begrudging truce settling into the rhythm of their ride.
"He does not like being called by his human name," Seth replied in her mind. "He likes the pomp of it, makes him feel… complete.."
Renmei snorted inwardly. "That's one way to say 'he's full of himself.'" She chewed the jerky and felt it like a small comfort. The path dipped and then rose again, silhouette after silhouette of darkened hills sliding past. Overhead, the first stars were pricking through the thinning clouds, indifferent witnesses to the travelers.
Renmei snorted. "His title's a mouthful," she thought back, between teeth. "The Dignified Eternal— no wait—" She tried to shape the long name in her mouth and it felt like trying to swallow a broomstick. "Unyielding—what was it—Cyan something Inferno? It's ridiculous."
"You could compliment him, he'd enjoy that. Doing so would be bound to rid some of the tension between you two." Seth leaned into her mind with the slyness of a grin. "Do say something flattering about his mane," he urged. "He likes that, infuriatingly." He trailed an imagined phrase into her head: "Your mane shimmers like a crown of silken gold."
"His mane? You mean his hair?" Renmei rolled her eyes inwardly, though a small part of her was tempted. "No thank you," she told Seth silently. "I do not compliment tyrants I do not want to owe. I'll sooner recite his pamphlet of a title than do that!"
He made a noise that was half-laugh, half-admiration. "You are very human, indeed."
Caius's horse shifted beneath him; his gaze snapped sideways. For a heartbeat his face held something like amusement at the mangling, then his expression hardened into that familiar, flinty mask. The silence stretched. She felt the carriage of his disdain settle into the space between them like a cold cloak.
He still hadn't looked at her, though she could tell from the faint curve of his mouth that he knew she was fuming. Fine. The Dignified Eternal... Guardian... and—what was the rest again?
"Unyielding Sentinel of the Cyan Inferno," Seth supplied, far too cheerfully.
Renmei took a deep breath, sat up straighter, and announced with as much dignity as she could muster, "O mighty Dignified Guardian and Eternal... Cyan... Sentinel of the... Unyielding—uh—Infernal Flame or whatever it was!"
Caius's expression did not change for a heartbeat.
Then, ever so slightly, he turned his head, one sharp brow arched. The corner of his mouth lifted into something perilously close to amusement. "You butcher it," he said, voice thin as a blade. "Do you take pleasure in inventing new insults? The title is not so complicated for one with a good memory."
Renmei's face heated. "Oh, I'm sorry," she snapped, "I didn't realize I needed a herald just to get you to listen when I'm trying to tell you I'm both tired and hungry!"
Renmei felt her face heat despite the chill. Absolutely not.
Seth's laughter hummed in her skull, smooth and velvety. "You'll find that dragons are more susceptible to flattery than they admit."
Caius's lip twitched. He did not offer her the reprieve of correction; instead he inclined his head in the faintest measure of mock-salute. "Your efforts are noted," he said acidly. "If you must address me thus, at least do so with the respect the designation demands."
"Hey! Dignified Eternal— uh… Guardian and Unyielded… Sentimental Cyan Fireplace!"
That got a reaction. Caius finally turned his head, one brow arching with exquisite offense. "Inferno," he corrected coldly. "Not fireplace. Do I sound like a hearth to you?"
Renmei bit her lip, trying not to grin. "You're certainly warm enough when you're angry."
His nostrils flared. "Mockery ill becomes one who rides beneath my protection."
"Then maybe the one who's supposed to be protecting me," she shot back, "could at least acknowledge me when I'm trying to talk to him!"
Caius gave a sniff, gaze sliding back to the horizon. "When one calls properly, one is heard properly."
Renmei groaned aloud. "You are impossible."
"He is consistent," Seth offered helpfully.
She glared at the invisible voice. "Don't start."
The road stretched ahead of them in quiet tension, broken only by the soft sound of their mounts' hooves and the whisper of wind through the trees. Renmei's stomach growled again, loud enough for even a dragon's pride to hear. Caius, mercifully—or perhaps smugly—pretended he hadn't.
"Perhaps," Seth mused gently, "we should stop and eat before you bite him."
Renmei tightened her grip on the reins and muttered darkly, "No promises."
"How far till the next village?" she asked, because she needed noise other than her stomach and the hooves against the path. "It had been half a day already since we left the borders of Yunyang."
Caius glanced at the map they shared—an old, creased scrap with the merchant roads and a few crude dragon-ward symbols. "Two days if the road does not betray us," he said. "We aim for the pass beyond the black ridge; from there, the plains open and the west becomes more generous. Once we find a secluded enough area away from dens of wildlife, we may make camp."
Renmei nodded, though she felt the cold of three days like a distant star. In her mind she counted the moons left before their deadline at the Pyre, turning handfuls of time into a shape she could measure. Seth hummed in the quiet, a low, contented vibration, and for the first time since the dragon's breath had raked her face, Renmei let herself feel something that was not only fear: a strange, fierce curiosity. If she had to be a vessel, perhaps she could learn to steer some part of it.
Caius's lips twitched, as if suppressing a smile that might ruin his regal severity. Renmei met his eyes; there was an almost clinical appraisal in the cyan depths. He lowered his voice. "We will not be conspicuous," he said. "We keep the roads that avoid the watch, we travel by daylight, and we sleep in places that will not parade us before magistrates. The less spectacle, the better. You will play the part of the rescued village girl. I will play the noble mage from the West." His tone softened only in the slightest — a concession to the charade. "If anyone asks, we stick to the cover story; I vanquished the beast holding you captive, thus placing you in my debt."
The string of words had an easy roll, practiced and precise. Renmei could have corrected him — insisted they not lie; felt the heat of shame at having to let him carry their falsehood like a badge — but she saw the practical stitch in the plan. It would keep them safe. It would give them leeway to travel. It would keep the magistrates' questions focused on a hero, not on an orphaned girl with blue in her eyes.
Besides, she thought, there was also the practical truth: Caius's left wing — in whatever shape it took now — was slashed and fixed into his arm. He could not have flown them without being both seen and slowed; any attempt to ride above the open ground would have drawn attention to a dragon attempting unnatural flight over settlements. "All right," she murmured at last. "But keep your pride sheathed as much as your arm."
Caius arched an eyebrow. "You speak of my pride as though it were a sin I should conceal."
Renmei let out a long breath, forcing the tension from her shoulders. The mare beneath her snorted, stamping in time with the horses ahead. Stars thickened above them, unblinking witnesses. Somewhere behind the thin wall of season and sky, doubts gathered — of the road, of magistrates' eyes, of the strange company she kept. Still, Seth's voice — warm, teasing, oddly protective — was a tether she had not known she needed.
"You did well," he said softly. "Even if you're a terrible emissary for official decorum."
Renmei shot a murderous look at the dusk and then, muttering something under her breath about egos and long names, settled back into the rhythm of the road.
It was dark by the time the two had settled for camp. The ache in her limbs from a full day of riding and Caius's endless arrogance had drained her, and soon enough she'd lain beside the fire, eyes heavy, listening to the wind threading through the branches above.
She remembered closing her eyes.
When she opened her eyes again, she wasn't lying down.
She blinked down at the sword in her hand; its blade was slick with blood.
Before her lay a creature unlike anything she had ever seen. The body of a lion, golden fur matted with dark, glossy red; the head and talons of a bird, eyes dimmed and glassy. Great wings—once magnificent—had been severed, lying several paces away, feathers scattered like fallen stars.
Renmei dropped the sword into the grass, stumbling a step back as her stomach twisted. "You handled it—? Seth, I just woke up covered in blood!" Her voice cracked, high and trembling. "You possessed me!"
There was a beat of silence, then a low exhale that carried a touch of humor, like a sigh through smoke. Borrowed, he corrected. Temporarily. I didn't think you'd enjoy waking up with a griffin's talon in your chest.
Her breath shook out unevenly. "You could've warned me!"
"You were asleep."
Renmei pressed a trembling hand against her face, smearing dirt on her cheek. "This is insane," she muttered. "I just—" She stared at the griffin again. It was beautiful even in death, its feathers shimmering faintly blue in the moonlight, the golden fur beneath still gleaming despite the blood. She'd never seen a creature like it. "I didn't even know griffins were real," she whispered.
Seth replied, thoughtful now. "There are countless beasts in the west you'll never have seen in your village. griffins, wyverns, stone serpents… they're not rare out here. You'll come to know them all soon enough."
Renmei grimaced. "I'd rather not, if this is what it looks like."
"You'll get used to it," he said, tone softer this time. "Although this one put up more of a fight than I expected."
Renmei frowned. "Because you couldn't turn into a dragon?"
There was a pause. A wisp of melancholy laced his next words. "Yes. Because I couldn't. This form—your body—is a fragile thing. Human reflexes. Human limits. I had to compensate. It will have been worth it when we devour it though, it tastes delicious."
She blinked. "...Delicious?"
He replied matter-of-factly. "When I still had a body, they were plentiful prey. Slow in the air, heavier than they should be."
Renmei turned her eyes down to the blade again, its edge still slick. The realization hit her belatedly—her arms didn't ache the way they should have after a fight like that. Her body felt light, a strange buzz of strength humming beneath her skin. "You... fought that using me?"
"Yeah," Seth replied easily. "Though I must say, your body moved well. Fluid, even. You've had sword training, haven't you?"
Renmei swallowed, suddenly self-conscious. "A little," she chuckled, voice small. "Sir Baosheng taught me... so I could protect myself."
"That's insane." There was a warmth in his tone now—almost admiring. "Your movements were sure, instinctive. It was as if you and the blade already knew what to do." Then, after a pause, his voice softened further, amusement curling at the edge. "You're blushing."
Renmei's head snapped up, though there was no one to glare at. "I'm not!"
"You are," Seth teased, laughter flickering through her mind like sunlight. "It's endearing, really. I didn't think mortals could still get flustered by praise."
"I'm not flustered," she scoffed, too fast. "I'm—annoyed. You—you just—you can't go borrowing people's bodies whenever you feel like it!"
You're right, he conceded, not quite apologetic but close enough. "Next time, I'll ask permission—assuming we both survive the next ambush."
Renmei sheathed the sword with trembling hands, trying not to focus on the smear of red across her knuckles. "You really think I'm skilled with the sword?" she muttered, too quickly, trying to change the subject—though the faint pink still clung to her cheeks.
She glanced down at her sword, half-buried in blood-streaked earth, and swallowed hard. "I guess I don't make too bad of a weapon then, don't I?"
"Not a weapon," Seth replied with a silent shrug. "A partner. You'll see in time that we share more than flesh now. When you sleep, I'll guard you. When I fade, you'll breathe. We keep each other alive, Renmei."
Her heart faltered at the way he said her name—steady, deliberate, as though he was anchoring her to herself.
Still, she drew in a shaky breath and knelt beside the griffin, forcing herself to look at it properly. Its feathers were softer up close, mottled with white and gold beneath the blood. "It's beautiful," she murmured, surprising herself. "I didn't think something so dangerous could look like this."
"All predators are beautiful," Seth replied. "It's what makes them survive."
The wounds where its wings had been severed were jagged, feathers ripped like torn banners. A harness—faded leather and a rusted iron ring—hung from the torn stumps as if the creature had once worn a rider. That detail snagged the edge of Renmei's attention like a thorn.
"It had a harness," she said out loud, kneeling despite herself and bracing a trembling hand on a flank. The feathered shoulder was warm and soft under her palm, sticky with blood. "It—someone used it. Was this—domesticated? Or is that from battle?"
"Wild and trained in parts," Seth paused. "The west breeds strange things. griffins are common there; some are caught and broken for use, others fight with humans, and still others are left to their own. That harness could mean a hunter's mount or a raider's tool. Either way, it complicates things—there may be people nearby."
A flinch ran through Renmei. Her mind darted to Caius—he had gone to hunt, not to tame griffins—and to the potential that other human hands might be involved. "Could there be more?" she asked, voice small.
"Always more," Seth replied. "But not enough to worry at the moment. I handled the immediate threat."
Renmei stared down at the slain griffin. Its feathers shimmered faintly where the moonlight touched them — a strange, sad beauty. "I guess this means we won't be eating rabbit tonight," she muttered.
Seth's laughter hummed gently in her head. "You jest, but griffin meat is rich and sustaining."
Renmei snorted, her lips twitching despite herself. "You dragons really are something else."
"You'll get used to me," he said.
She wasn't sure if that was a comfort or a warning.
Still, as she knelt beside the fallen beast, her hand resting near its feathers, she found the trembling in her fingers had begun to ease. The forest no longer felt quite so silent, not with Seth's presence murmuring steady in the back of her mind — calm, reassuring, impossibly alive.
Renmei pressed her lips into a thin line. "If I don't preserve this meat, it'll rot before sunrise. Waste is a sin where I come from."
She had packed them because a healer's kit often doubled as a traveler's kitchen; salt cured more than just zeal—it preserved meat for winter, staunched wounds in a pinch, and, in the absence of anything better, kept a family fed.
Renmei first cleared a space on a flat, raised rock. Her hands shook less now; the initial shock had bled into a practical coldness. She steadied herself and set to work with the blade, thinking back to the butcher demonstrations she'd watched at the market in Yunyang once, and the way Baosheng had shown her how to hold a haft when practicing forms. Her fingers found the familiar cadence: a careful cut at the scapula, then along the joint where feather met shoulder. The bird half yielded in odd, satisfying segments—feathers and sinew releasing like a secret revealed.
When she reached the lower half—the lion's haunches—she hesitated. The meat there was darker, tougher, with a strange golden sheen under the skin. She'd never cooked lion before. Yunyang's wildlife was mostly deer and pheasant, and the occasional wild boar if one strayed too close to the outskirts. Lion meat was foreign, and she wasn't about to risk poisoning herself or Caius by experimenting.
So she did what she knew; the forelegs, which resembled a bird's drumsticks more than anything, were easier. She skinned them carefully, set aside a portion to salt and preserve for travel, and skewered the rest with long wooden spits she'd scavenged from fallen branches. The campfire Caius had left was still smoldering, embers glowing in a lazy pulse; she fed it a bit of dried moss and twigs until it crackled back to life.
The scent that rose as the griffin meat roasted was unfamiliar but surprisingly pleasant—something between roasted duck and wild fowl, rich and gamey with a faint sweetness. The fat sizzled and dripped into the flames, sending up thin wisps of smoke that curled and danced in the chill night air.
Seth hummed quietly in her mind, the vibration of his voice more a presence than a sound. "You've done this before?"
"I had to," she said, shifting the spit and turning the meat so it cooked evenly. "When you're the one who collects herbs from the mountain forests, sometimes you end up stranded longer than you plan. You learn to make do."
"And here I was thinking all healers spent their days grinding roots and singing incantations."
Renmei allowed herself a small, tired smile. "Most do. I just didn't have that luxury."
She salted the leftover cuts of meat with the pouch she carried in her satchel—a mixture of coarse mountain salt and a hint of powdered frostleaf, which she'd learned helped slow decay. Wrapping the salted meat in cloth, she packed it tightly into her bag, then returned to the fire.
The griffin's forelegs had turned golden-brown, their skin crisping where the fat had melted. She used her dagger to test the flesh; it was tender and steaming. The smell made her stomach twist again—but this time with hunger instead of revulsion.
"You know," she murmured, half to herself, "I don't think I've ever eaten anything that tried to eat me first."
"Then tonight will be a first," Seth quipped gently. "griffins were a delicacy among our kind, or so I was told. Easier to catch than wyverns, less stringy than drakes. Though admittedly, I didn't need to cook it back then."
Renmei made a face. "That's disgusting."
"Practical," he countered smoothly. "Obligate carnivores, you know?"
Despite herself, she laughed, quiet and tired but genuine. Her body still ached from the fight she didn't remember, her hands stained red from carving, yet there was an odd calm in the routine—the firelight, the scent of cooking meat, the simple act of surviving one more night.
"Smells delightful," Seth agreed. His tone carried something amused, and Renmei felt his warmth pulse faintly at the back of her mind, like laughter beneath the surface of water. "I must say, I didn't expect my vessel to be so… domestic."
Renmei rolled her eyes. "You make it sound like a bad thing."
"Not at all. It's simply rare. Most mortals who have hosted a dragon would be trembling or attempting to conquer battlefields. You, on the other hand, are cooking a griffon leg as if you've done this a dozen times before."
"Well," she chuckled, poking at the meat with the tip of a stick, "someone has to eat, and I will not suffer through food poisoning tonight."
"Practical," Seth repeated approvingly. "And useful. My brother, despite his temper, would find quite the welcome."
At the mention of Caius her fingers stilled a moment, and she felt the faint prickle of unease.
"The sooner you feed him, the sooner he will be reasonable." His voice softened. "…and if you are anxious, the roasted bird will not fail you. Food comforts the heart, is what I've heard."
"Well, whoever told you that was truly wise and true." Renmei grinned.
Renmei's fingers, still shaking, portioned the remainder carefully: a generous leg apiece for Caius, some smaller strips to be cured and wrapped in layers of hide, and a pile of bones she broke to keep and make into broth when they reached a village with pots to cook.