Chapter Text
Ahead shone the brilliant light of a setting sun, burning gold against a bloody horizon. Behind stretched the half-dozen wagons that made up their procession, laden with precious metals and gems, silks and herbs, and a live Jian bird. They had been travelling for a week, and they had just passed through the borderlands last night. It would do them better now to travel by night, as they would have the advantage of sight on most creatures of the human realm, but shifting the schedule around would take another day at least, and they would get to their destination soon enough.
Four days, Binghe thought, three if we rush—that was how long he had before he would see A’Yuan-ge again. It had been so long since they’d last seen each other, since they’d last spoken. Would A’Yuan-ge be proud of how much Binghe had grown, how much he had improved? Would A’Yuan-ge even remember him? Binghe had come of age since then. He had gained a proper title and he now controlled proper troops—a select few of which had come along with him on this expedition.
Binghe ignored the urge to look back at his subordinates. He was their commander, and he must look the part.
The cliffs to either side of the valley through which they travelled neared, pressing at them from either side. The damp evening air was suffocating in its density. Binghe could smell the reek of horse manure and the sweat of his subordinates lingering even as the temperature began to drop. All around him was the quiet clamour of travel, yet with every step of his horse’s hooves into the dry riverbed, every snort of the beasts that flanked his back, every pant of exhaustion from his vanguards, every beat of his own heart—
Something was off.
Binghe tightened his grip on Xin Mo’s pommel and adjusted where it lay across the saddle. Its black blade seemed to radiate a kind of restlessness, a kind of paranoia, even. Binghe itched to pull it out of its sheath—it called out to him; it asked, it demanded, to be shown off, to be admired, to be feared.
Binghe answered that call, now, for his blood, too, stirred restlessly as his caravan ventured further into unfamiliar territory. The valley narrowed further, forcing Binghe to signal for a shift in formation as they continued up the skeleton of the long-dried river. The path turned again, shifting the shadows away and letting the thin strip of brilliance that was the setting sun peek out at them from the crack in the horizon.
Binghe held his breath, suspended between one eternal moment and the next, then urged his stallion forward, slipping past the leading wagon and past even Yinke-lang, his flag bearer. Even as he felt the sounds of movement, Binghe heard nothing as he emerged to the front of the procession—not the clink of his armour, not the clatter of his steed, not even the rasp of his slow exhales.
It was at this moment that, far away to the north, Binghe’s blood burned. It was A’Yuan-ge; it had to be. Nobody else had his message charm. Nobody else could activate it with traces of Binghe’s own blood. For a moment, Binghe was struck dumb. The western horizon hid something sinister, yet Binghe’s heart called out from the north.
Binghe gritted his teeth and drew Xin Mo from its sheath. Pointing its tenebrous blade skywards, he yelled, “Halt! Stand firm.”
It was this motion that must have startled their enemies out of ambush. As one, a dozen steely glints shifted from the top of the cliff sides and fired a volley of arrows.
At the same time, Binghe sprung from his saddle and swung Xin Mo in an arc that drew on the heat of his boiling blood, incinerating that first volley of arrows before they could ever reach the wagons of the horses, but a second volley crept through before Lingyan, his lieutenant, managed to activate their shield arrays around the caravan. One struck Binghe in the hip, bouncing off after leaving an ugly dent in the armour. Another struck Yinke-lang in the arm.
Binghe reached the apex of his jump, and a dozen arrow tips followed his movement. They would die.
Binghe stepped through the air, summoning shadowy wisps beneath his feet. Another two volleys of arrows flew at him as he rushed at the archers, but he cleaved through most of them with lazy sweeps of Xin Mo. One arrow, loosed just after the rest, flew unerringly for his head. Binghe dodged and glared. Its archer was a dull-eyed man from the left formation, whose eyes widened in fear as he met Binghe’s gaze.
Binghe fell upon the clever archer, dragging Xin Mo’s edge from shoulder to hip as the rest of them (soldiers? mercenaries? cultivators?) broke formation. The man keeled over, hands scrabbling at his displaced entrails. Binghe lopped his head off. Five remained of the archers on this side of the valley, but they were guarded by two spearmen and a cultivator who had raised her shield arrays too late.
The cultivator was a pretty little thing clad in plain taoist robes that revealed no particular allegiance to any major sects, but her flame runes were polished and vicious in a way that spoke of more formal training. Binghe’s convoy was outnumbered two to one, and he should have been trying to take out the archers first to minimise damage to their wagons, but then she almost singed his hair.
He threw himself at her, and she dodged nimbly backwards. Binghe had the disadvantage of both a larger frame and armour, but she was weaker than him. She would tire, eventually, and he would catch her off guard; he would tear into her guard, into her. He would bathe in her fear as the ground ran red with her comrades’ lifeblood. He would—
He would stop chasing her because she was leading him away from the battle.
Binghe didn’t bother turning. Instead, he slashed Xin Mo through the air and ran straight through the tear in space to portal back to the heart of the battle. A ripple of alarm went up as he appeared, and he immediately went for the neck of the closest archer. A spray of blood temporarily blinded him, and he opened his mouth to the warmth that dripped down his face. He blinked twice, ensured that the archer had ceased to be, and moved onto the next.
By the time he had downed his fourth archer, something had changed. Someone from the other side of valley had yelled something almost intelligible and the spearmen had immediately retreated. Binghe paid it all very little heed as he busied himself permanently disarming his victim opponent.
He should have paid it more attention as, upon bisecting his fifth archer, the metallic din of battle was drowned out by a flurry of flutters.
A swarm of faintly iridescent moths surrounded him, glowing silver in the moonlight. (And since when had it turned to night? Had he lost so much time chasing that cultivator?) The moths were enormous, the size of magpies, with soft wings trailed in shimmering dust. They were hypnotising, and the only thing that prevented Binghe from standing still and admiring their beauty was a hunger within the deepest, darkest part of him that demanded blood.
A’Yuan-ge would know what these creatures were, and Binghe craved that knowledge now, for he was too addled by their pretty wings to know if they were a danger or not. Better safe than sorry, though, and Binghe batted them away using the flat of his blade even as they tried to land on his shoulders. Xin Mo raged at the gentleness, but Binghe couldn’t bear to harm such pretty things. Maybe, if they weren’t dangerous, he could capture them after the battle, present them as gifts. Instead, he leapt for the pair of spearmen standing somewhat dazedly by a large bamboo cage. Binghe ducked under the tips of their spears and swept a foot under their legs. They fell as one, landing atop each other. Binghe unceremoniously plunged his blade down, piercing through the spearmen’s stacked torsos like they were pieces of fruit and Xin Mo was a toothpick.
Binghe looked around. Those pretty moths were swarming him again, and through their wings he saw the distant figure of the last archer, who had fled the battle in a fit of cowardice. Binghe sniffed in disdain, then sneezed as he inhaled too much of the silver dust from the gigantic moths that swarmed him.
Binghe blinked. Lethargy was a sudden and unwanted blanket falling upon him. The sharp hunger within him began to dull, but Xin Mo’s hilt heated in his hands. Binghe blinked again.
No, he still had another half a battle to fight. With a slight running jump, he leapt across the chasm to the other formation, which scattered in his approach. The half-dozen archers on this side had abandoned their bows and taken up spears and shields, covering each other like an abused tortoise.
Binghe rushed them, tearing through the shield arrays erected the cultivator on this side with pure brute force. He swung Xin Mo at the spear-and-shield formation, trying to knock them into disarray. He needn’t have bothered, for Xin Mo cut off a good four or five spearheads in one swing. It was a little pathetic, how terribly outclassed these humans were. They were so numerous, the lot of them, like a realm of ants. Binghe swung again, but this time he channelled flame, splashing hellfire against the heavy shields.
Exclamations of alarm seeped through widening cracks between the shields, and Binghe stabbed Xin Mo blindly within. There was the slick sound of pierced flesh and a cry of agony, and Binghe turned his blade to sweep across—the shield wall broke apart. Binghe tore into the next human that he could reach, and the bright smell of copper mingled with the darker smell of viscera as Binghe felled one after another. Bursts of spiritual energy pelted him from the side, but he ignore them. This cultivator was far weaker than his martial sister, who Binghe could sense even now approaching from the direction in which she had lured him.
The cultivator yelled something as Binghe turned upon the fifth spearman, but the word couldn’t penetrate the agitated buzz within Binghe’s mind. The remaining mortal fighters retreated as one. Binghe knew he should spare the human he’d skewered through the shoulder and pinned to the ground. He removed his blade, prepared to do just that, but then, as quickly as Binghe had shifted, Xin Mo came down again on the human’s other shoulder. A ragged scream filled the air as a lurid spray of blood drenched over Binghe’s face and open mouth.
He’d been about to say something.
What had he wanted to say?
Binghe shook the blood out of his eyes as another burst of spiritual energy exploded against the small of his back. The scalding presence of the female cultivator approached, and he reared just in time to wrench the ends of his hair away from the scorch of her fire.
The deranged sort of smile that graced her face melted into apprehension as Binghe met her gaze again. The male cultivator yelled something at him, a taunt of some sort, from the tone of his voice, though the exact meaning of the words still escaped Binghe’s grasp. He turned, and the cultivator drew a sword, rushing at Binghe even as the female threw another ball of burning energy exploding against Binghe’s side.
Pain came a moment later as Binghe met the male cultivator’s blade with Xin Mo in a deafening clash. It felt almost cold, the burn, yet it served only to increase the fog that clouded Binghe’s mind. The male cultivator was much better with a sword than with qi-blasts. He fought in a style that held a watered down version of the sharpness that was characteristic of Binghe’s mother. Huan Hua Palace, then, Binghe realised grimly; they were both wealthy enough and unscrupulous enough to hire mortal mercenaries as cannon fodder.
Binghe shifted his stance and reinforced his armour with demonic energy. Brute force was the weakness of this style, so Binghe called upon the savagery of his demonic blood. Heat surged within his veins, and Binghe swung Xin Mo with all his might. Again, fire exploded against his armour, but its heat was tempered by demonic energy. The male cultivator, too, landed a hit against the underside of Binghe’s left arm, scoring a deep gash in the soft leather but not drawing any blood.
It was to his detriment, however, as taking the opening left the cultivator in range for Binghe to hit him in the side. Xin Mo met the cultivator’s blade in a shower of white sparks, and continued across to crunch against the cultivator’s side. The cultivator staggered, then curled in on himself, gasping and redirecting his spiritual energy to reinforce his shattered ribs.
Binghe held out his off hand, pulling demonic energy into his hand to interrupt the healing process. He slammed it against the cultivator’s chest, where it spread like acid through human veins, corroding at the weak golden core.
Binghe scoffed. Even A’Yuan-ge was stronger than that, and A’Yuan-ge couldn’t be much older than Binghe himself.
Some clarity encroached upon the haze that clouded Binghe’s mind, and he faltered in his channelling of demonic energy. The cultivator was already completely incapacitated; why was Binghe wasting his time wearing him to death?
Another flare of heat, and Binghe dodged this time, dashing crosswise towards the female cultivator. Her outer robe had torn at some point in the battle, revealing translucent underlayers that were spattered with blood like winter plum blossoms. She darted back, leaving a flash of fire where she had been standing. Binghe tore through it in pursuit, jumping just high enough that it wouldn’t scorch his hair. The cultivator loped through the air with deer-like grace, ascending towards the clouds. Binghe hopped onto Xin Mo to fly after her. The same impulse to capture (to subjugate, to tear) overwhelmed him, and Binghe sent ahead slashes of wind to knock her off course. The first and the second missed, but his last struck true, and she swerved unsteadily. He slashed again, this time sending a larger wave of stormy energy that she couldn’t possibly dodge—nor did she, and the concussive force sent her spiralling out of the air into a river below.
He followed without abandon, plunging into the frigid rushes to reach for the twisted form of the cultivator. Blood stained pink the florets of effervescence, and the plum blossom splatters upon the inner robes of the cultivator were washed to a faded rust. Binghe fished her limp body out of the water and raised Xin Mo in preparation for a downward stab.
However, the haze of bloodlust had been dampened by the frigid stream, and Binghe directed Xin Mo’s blade to instead pierce the sandy earth of the riverbank. For a moment, the cultivator’s chest was still, but then she spasmed, bloodied water welling from her parted lips. She coughed and spat. Then, wearily, her eyes blinked open, but it took several moments for them to focus, for her pupils, constricted in confusion and concussion, to dilate with night-time gloom and fear.
A ragged sound tore itself from her pale throat, which stirred prettily as she swallowed.
Binghe realised he was looming and leaned back, extricating Xin Mo from the earth beside her shoulder. He cleared his throat. Then, in a low and hopefully assertive tone, said, “Leave. I will send your martial brother after you if he yet lives. I will not show mercy if I see you again.”
The woman seemed frozen in fear, but then she painstakingly propped herself up on her elbows and nodded her assent. She too cleared her throat as if about to say something, but, clearly thinking better of it, she merely turned to the side and huffed.
Binghe took a deep breath, and turned away. The chase had not been brief; he should return to his subordinates with haste, yet there was a spark of his blood, centred upon a location a couple days’ travel beyond Cang Qiong Mountain.
The waning gibbous hung high in the south; dawn would come in a few hours. A’Yuan-ge would surely be asleep by now. If Binghe ran back to his convoy, he would conserve enough energy for a round trip to and from A’Yuan-ge’s location come morning.
The pale silver of pre-dawn had washed over the east half of the sky by the time Binghe returned to the wagons. The male cultivator had disappeared, leaving only a patch of blood-stained stone where Binghe had left him. Binghe’s followers struggled still with a dozen of those enormous moths. All around the perimeter of their shield arrays lay the torn and dusty remnants of the better half of the swarm.
With post-battle clarity, Binghe recognised what was happening—the shield array was weakening, eroding slowly away under the lazy flutters of the moths’ glimmering wings. In the morning light, they seemed more gold than silver, but—no, it wasn’t the morning light; the moths had changed colour. The corpses scattered on the ground ranged from polished steel to sunlit snow to palest gold. The ones that remained in the air were closer to the bright yellow of coins than the muted tones of their dead brethren.
They were feeding on the demonic energy of the array.
Once Binghe realised that, he also noticed the wan looks on his subordinates’ faces, as well as the fallen form of Yinke-lang, half of whose body lay outside the cover of the barrier in a blanket of pale yellow moth wings.
Weariness overtook Binghe, and he drew Xin Mo again. Morale picked up upon Binghe’s return, and they made quick work of the remaining moths, stuffing them into a makeshift cage on the same covered wagon as the Jian bird. Eclipse Moths, they must be. They were typically used in therapy against more violent qi deviations, as they fed off of negative energy. Someone had bred them to be offensive, to feed off of demonic energy both in use and in demon blood.
Yinke-lang turned out to be alive, but badly injured. Most of the rest of them were exhausted but functional. By the time everyone was patched up enough to start setting up camp, the morning sun had crawled halfway to noon.
“Rest for the day,” Binghe ordered. “Lingyan, you’re in charge until I return.” He gave them all a severe look, daring them to question after his whereabouts.
“Yes, your highness,” said seven voices in unison (the eighth would belong to Yinke-lang, but he was still unconscious).
Binghe drew Xin Mo and, ignoring the flinch of Lingyan, who was the closest to its blade, turned and slashed through the fabric of space.
He stepped through the portal to a small room that smelled hauntingly of jasmine. A cold teapot, two full teacups, and a short string of coins lay upon the small table by the window. The bed was undisturbed, with unwrinkled sheets and a folded quilt atop the pillow box.
Binghe took a deep breath and scented the remnants of ash and rust and shadow; this was the room where his message charm had been used. He also scented something familiar, something that tasted of home: the warm and comforting scent of A’Yuan-ge.
But the room was empty—A’Yuan-ge was nowhere to be seen.
Binghe was alone.