He woke up on the infirmary floor, not the cot, which was the first thing that struck him as strange, lying there blinking at the ceiling with Lin Yueqing’s face hovering somewhere above his own, pale and furious in a way he’d never seen on her before.
“Don’t,” she said, before he’d even tried to sit up.
“Don’t move yet.
You scared the life out of everyone in that courtyard, including me, and I would like at least thirty seconds where you’re not actively doing something alarming.” “How long–” “Two hours.
Give or take.” She pressed two fingers to his wrist, checking something he couldn’t see, her jaw tight the whole time.
“Your Qi went everywhere at once.
All nine fragments lit up together for about a minute, which — I don’t have a manual for that, nobody has a manual for that, and it scared me badly enough that I don’t want to talk about how badly right now.” “Did it hurt you?
When it happened, were you–” “I’m fine.
You’re the one who collapsed.” She said it sharply, the kind of sharp that came from fear rather than anger, though it took her a second visible effort to soften it back down.
“You’re fine too, mostly.
Exhausted.
Whatever that was, it cost you something, but it didn’t break anything permanent that I can find.” He sat up slowly, against her muttered objection, and the room only tilted a little.
“My family,” he said.
“Is there word–” “Not yet.” Her hand found his, gripping tight.
“Elder Bao’s already organizing a group.
He was waiting for you to wake up before deciding who goes.” Elder Bao’s study, an hour later, was crowded in a way Tianyun hadn’t seen it before — himself, Chen Hao, Feng Li, Lin Yueqing, the wounded rider propped in a chair with fresh bandages, and Elder Bao pacing the width of the room like the floor had personally offended him.
“Here’s the problem,” Elder Bao said, without preamble.
“Palace expedition to the vale is three days out.
I’ve got disciples committed to that already, supplies half-packed, a promise made to Elder Situ that Cloudmist would send its share of people.” He stopped pacing long enough to look at Tianyun directly.
“And now I’ve got a village that might be burning, with your family in it, and every instinct in me says send everyone we have, right now, tonight.” “Then send us,” Chen Hao said.
“It’s not that simple–” “It actually kind of is,” Feng Li said, quieter than usual, none of his usual deflecting humor anywhere in his voice.
“Elder Bao.
With respect.
He’s not going to be able to sit here and wait for a committee to finish weighing supply logistics while his mother might be–” He stopped himself, glancing at Tianyun, looking like he regretted saying it out loud even as it left his mouth.
“Sorry.
I just mean — some choices aren’t really choices.” Elder Bao was quiet for a long moment, jaw working.
“I know that,” he said finally, tired in a way that went past the last week’s exhaustion into something older.
“I’m not trying to stop him.
I’m trying to figure out how to send enough people that it isn’t a suicide mission, without leaving Cloudmist’s promise to the Palace in ashes at the same time.” He rubbed a hand over his face.
“Four of you.
Tianyun, Chen Hao, Feng Li, Yueqing.
I’ll send word to the Palace explaining the delay — Elder Situ will understand, or she won’t, and either way it can’t be helped tonight.
I’m keeping the rest of the outer disciples here to hold what commitments we can.” “I’m coming too,” the wounded rider said, struggling half-upright in his chair.
“I know the roads.
I can guide–” “You can barely sit up,” Lin Yueqing said, gently but firmly pressing him back down.
“You’ll slow us down and you’ll die trying to keep pace.
Tell us the roads instead.
We’ll move faster without you, and you’ll actually survive the night.” He didn’t like it.
But he told them anyway, quick and precise despite the pain clearly costing him to speak that fast, and Tianyun filed every word away like it mattered more than anything he’d ever memorized before, because right now, it did.
“One more thing,” Elder Bao said, as they gathered their gear.
He caught Tianyun’s arm before he could leave the study, voice dropping low enough that only the two of them could hear it.
“Whatever happened to you in that courtyard — whatever that was, all nine fragments lighting up at once — I need you to be careful out there.
If it happens again, mid-fight, mid-anything, it could kill you.
Do you understand what I’m telling you?” “I understand.” “I don’t think you do, not really, not with your family on the line.
But I need you to try anyway.” Elder Bao’s grip tightened, just briefly.
“Come back.
All four of you.
That’s not a request.” They rode through the night on horses borrowed from Cloudmist’s small stable, pushing harder than any of the animals were built for, and nobody complained about the pace, not once.
The stars wheeled overhead, indifferent, and Tianyun spent most of the ride not thinking, exactly, because thinking too hard about what they might find led somewhere he couldn’t afford to go while still needing his hands steady enough to hold the reins.
“Talk to me,” Lin Yueqing said, riding close beside him somewhere past midnight, voice pitched low under the sound of hooves.
“About anything.
I don’t care what.
I just don’t like the quiet you’ve gone into.” “I don’t know what to say.” “Say something ordinary, then.
Doesn’t have to mean anything.” He thought about it a long moment, the wind cold against his face, the road unspooling dark ahead of them.
“Ah Rou broke my nose when I was nine,” he said finally.
“With a wooden sword.
Never apologized for it.” “That tracks, somehow, with everything you’ve told me about her.” “She’s going to be furious I didn’t warn her properly.
In my last letter.
About how dangerous things actually are.” “If she’s still there to be furious at you,” Lin Yueqing said, gentler than the words themselves, “I imagine she’ll forgive you fairly quickly, once she’s done yelling.” He held onto that thought harder than it probably deserved, and they rode on.
They smelled the smoke before they saw anything — faint at first, easy to dismiss as some ordinary farmer’s evening fire, except it kept getting stronger, thicker, wrong in a way ordinary woodsmoke never was, and by the time the first ridge came into view above Qinghe Village, nobody needed to say out loud what that particular color of orange glow on the horizon meant.
“That’s not the whole village,” Chen Hao said, squinting into the distance, voice carefully even in the way people get when they’re trying hard not to assume the worst out loud.
“Can’t be.
Too much dark still, between here and there.” “Ride faster,” was all Tianyun said, and dug his heels in before anyone could answer.
The trail down into the valley felt endless, every turn revealing more smoke, more of that terrible orange glow climbing higher into the dark sky, and somewhere in the back of his mind, distant and useless, he found himself thinking about the wooden animals still sitting on the shelf above his bed at home, wondering with a strange, detached horror whether the house they sat in was even still standing.
They crested the final ridge together, all four of them, horses lathered and blowing hard beneath them, and the full valley finally opened up below.
Half of Qinghe Village was burning.
And moving between the flames, unmistakable even from this distance, crimson robes swarmed through the narrow lanes Tianyun had grown up running down as a child — dozens of them, not the handful he’d fought in the caravan valley or watched at the ruins, but dozens, an entire small army’s worth, methodical and unhurried in the particular way of people who already believed the outcome was decided.
“Oh,” Feng Li breathed, quiet and stricken, all his usual humor gone completely out of his voice.
“Oh, that’s — that’s a lot more of them than we–” Tianyun didn’t hear the rest of the sentence.
Because at the center of the burning village, standing atop the roof of what had once been Old Zhao’s house, a single figure in crimson robes far finer than any of the others stood perfectly still amid the chaos, head tilted up toward the ridge where four riders had just appeared — as though he’d been waiting there, patiently, for exactly this moment, and exactly this arrival, the whole night long.
To be continue….