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Lan Sizhui wasn’t scared.
He could not be.
The smell of damp and rot soaked into his hair and his robes as they were dragged along the undergrowth.
He was the highest-ranked junior on the night hunt.
He had to be calm. He had to have answers.
A creek burbled nearby, breaking the steady crunch of fallen leaves under his body. Sizhui sent a subtle talisman toward the currents, trusting it to flow into the town below. With any luck, it would reach its destination. He could not rely on that.
His shoulder was bleeding steadily, and the blood loss was starting to make him dizzy, but he knew now that this whole hunt had been a trap.
Lan Su and Lan Weining were looking at him with wide, pleading eyes, and even Jingyi was turned toward him.
Lan Sizhui was not scared.
They would be okay. They had to be okay.
Hanguang-Jun and Senior Wei were in town.
They would come looking.
It would be okay.
A rock in the path shredded Lan Su’s sleeve making her whimper as her arm scraped raw against the stone.
“We’ll be okay,” Sizhui promised, pushing down the coiled panic in his gut.
He would get them out of here. Even if help never came, he would keep everyone safe.
Somehow.
Somehow.
He had to.
Lan Sizhui was not scared.
The dragging stopped, and Lan Sizhui dared to glance up at their captors.
His eyes fell first on the blade and then on the runes traced in a wet, glistening red.
Jingyi cursed, and the other two whimpered. Lan Sizhui could not breathe.
Lan Sizhui was not scared; he was terrified.
He wished desperately that he had cultivated a wind instrument like Senior Wei or Zewu-Jun. Something that would give his quaking, trapped breath a reason to work and a way to free them.
Instead, he was bound, hand and foot, bleeding around the arrow wound, on the edge of panic, and praying desperately for help that would probably arrive too late.
His seniors were trained to sense when something was wrong with a spirit or a demon. But no Compass of Ill Winds would point them to the malice of living, breathing men.
“We caught a pack of Lan disciples just as you said,” one of their captors called, making the others jeer at Sizhui and his companions.
Lan Weining went paler and squeaked.
Jingyi bared his teeth. “You must be real idiots,” he snarled. “When our seniors find out about this, you’ll wish you had committed lingchi!”
The kick came fast, knocking them all a few feet back as Jingyi yelped in pain.
Stars swam in Sizhui’s vision as the arrow jostled in his shoulder.
Deep breaths.
He had to think.
Another voice came from farther back in the the decrepit mansion. “Oh, we know who your seniors are, little Lan.” The man stepped forward, revealing cold, off-white robes and a sneer.
He looked vaguely familiar, but it took Sizhui too long to place him.
“Su Junfeng?” he asked.
“Moling Su’s first disciple?” Jingyi squawked.
“Lan Sizhui,” the man said, his smile widening as he looked down on him. “What a fortuitous coincidence.”
Apprehension crept like the whisper of fingernails along Sizhui’s spine. He did not allow himself to visibly shudder.
The crowd of men and women came closer, bringing the scent of sweat and toil. Sizhui remembered the echo of it in his memories of the Burial Mounds.
“Well done, Haoren. This little Lan is the ward of Hanguang-Jun.”
“The noisy one?”
Junfeng snorted. “No. The one stuck with the arrow.” He leered down at Sizhui. “Cut him loose and gag the rest!” he barked.
“Sizhui!”
“Leave him alone!”
Sizhui wished he could fight back, but his head was swimming. That one talisman had been too much with his wounds. The guards cut the rope, not caring that their knives caught on his wrists and ankles, leaving shallow, bleeding wounds.
They dragged him upright and the world spun in shades of brown rock and stained, white robes.
Lan Sizhui lifted his head and met Su Junfeng’s gaze.
“You do not have to do this. It is not too late to repent.”
“The only penitence owed is from your pompous Lan Sect to ours!” Junfeng spit at him, and Sizhui closed his eyes as the droplets pelted his cheek.
“I urge you to reconsider,” Sizhui said. He was swaying on his feet, and only the guards kept him upright. He couldn’t escape.
He had to.
“Your infallible Hanguang-Jun killed our sect leader and disgraced our entire sect.”
“If you seek revenge, let the others go. I will stay and be your prisoner.”
Jingyi’s muffled protest was followed by a moan of pain.
“Oh, you’ll be more than that.” Su Junfeng circled him before turning to the blood-writ array.
Lan Sizhui focused on some of the radicals and characters drawn around the room. Sweat dripped down his neck even as he went cold as snow.
It couldn’t be.
How would they have—
“I think you recognize this particular array, no?”
“It is madness,” Sizhui whispered.
“And yet it brought the Yiling Laozu back.”
“That manuscript was destroyed!” Sizhui insisted. He had watched Senior Wei burn it himself.
Su Junfeng grinned and drew a knife. “Jin Guangyao was the greatest mind to ever grace the Jianghu. Did you really think he had no contingencies in place?”
Lan Sizhui thrashed as the man drew closer, but he was too weak to escape. He could feel the blood from his shoulder soaking into his belt now. Muscle tore as he squirmed, but he couldn’t let this happen.
“It requires a willing sacrifice,” he insisted.
Su Junfeng snorted. “Oh, you’ll be very willing,” he promised, eyes narrowing into sparkling slits.
One of the guards raised Sizhui’s trembling arm and wrapped his wrist in a vise-like hold, turning his palm up.
Su Junfeng snatched his hand and dragged the blade’s edge across Sizhui’s practice-earned calluses.
He hissed in a breath, watching the blood seep up from the sliced fingertips.
Keeping his limbs locked in place, Su Junfeng and the guards dragged him to the array.
“Now to set the parameters,” Su Junfeng said with horrific glee.
Sizhui balked, but he couldn’t get away as they dragged his first finger across the dirt and stone, drawing a name Sizhui knew intimately.
Lan Wangji.
“No,” Sizhui insisted, trying to smear the radicals. “No!”
He could hear the others screaming through their gags.
“Do you think Hanguang-Jun will realize it’s no longer you in your body? I almost hope he doesn’t, just so he can watch his beloved ward sink a sword into his heart.” Su Junfeng’s face lit with a smile as Sizhui tried not to vomit. “Now that will be justice.”
Sizhui wanted to scream, but the terror stuck in his lungs, choking him.
They dragged him to the next cardinal direction and used his blood to write Lan Xichen’s name. Jiang Wanyin’s came next.
“You’re going to destroy the cultivation world,” Sizhui insisted.
“That is the plan.” Sizhui tasted bile in his mouth, but his captor continued. “Moling Su will rise from the ashes and build a better one.” Su Junfeng grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. “Just because you were raised in greatness does not make you great. Su-Zongzhu was one of the few who crawled his way to the top. With his return, we will make cultivation equal for all.”
“No more elitism!” a man called from the back.
“No more noble bloodlines,” Junfeng agreed.
An edge of hysterical laughter caught in his throat. Lan Wangji, who had raised the adopted child of an adopted man and named him as his heir, did not care for bloodlines, nor did Zewu-Jun and Jiang-Zongzhu.
And yet it was their names, and not those of the older generation, that were scrawled in Sizhui’s blood.
They were at the southern edge of the array now, and Lan Sizhui was once more forced to his knees.
His heart was hammering in his chest.
He was going to die.
He was going to die and they were going to use his body to bring Su Minshan back.
They were going to use his body to try and kill his father and his uncle and Jiang-Zongzhu.
Tears burned in his eyes, and he almost didn’t realize the last name they were drawing in the array.
Wei Wuxian.
Sizhui couldn’t breathe.
“No.” He stared at his own blood in horror. “No… no.”
“Oh, yes. Did you think we had forgotten who else was in the temple that night?”
“You cannot do this! I won’t go through with the ritual!”
Su Junfeng tossed him into the center of the array and threw a knife at his feet.
By the time Sizhui looked up from the blade, the man had grabbed hold of Lan Weining, the youngest of their party. The boy was barely old enough to night-hunt.
Terror was writ across the boy’s soft face as Junfeng held a silver sword to his throat.
“You’re going to perform the ritual or else you’re going to watch your shidi here suffer lingchi.”
Sizhui’s heart stopped.
Lingchi was slow and it was painful.
Lan Weining was a child.
Sizhui had to protect him. Sizhui was responsible for him.
But could he really unleash the vengeful spirit of Su Minshan on his family?
His family was smart. They would realize it was not him. Surely they would know… right?
He hesitated too long.
In a flash of steel, Weining yelped, and twin slashes marred the boy’s cheeks, dangerously close to his eyes.
For his many failings, Su Minshan had not recruited talentless disciples.
The gathered men were skilled in swordsmanship and lacking in both compassion and mercy.
“Time is running out, Lan Sizhui. I take his nose next.”
Lan Weining whimpered, and Sizhui closed his eyes.
“Stop. Let him go. Let them all go. They are innocent.” Sizhui forced his head up. His wounds were burning like a rising clamor, but he pushed the noise down and met Su Junfeng’s gaze. “I will do what you want.”
Lan Su was unconscious.
Weining was shaking.
Jingyi was crying.
Lan Sizhui wished the others were not here to witness this. He wished he could warn his family. It was all pointless because this was it. He had survived the Jin prison camps, the Burial Mounds, a siege, a fever, a demon arm, Yi City, a kidnapping, and another siege.
Now he would die in the very ritual that had brought Senior Wei back just last year.
He wished he’d had more time.
He wasn’t ready to let go.
He reached, with shaking hands, toward the blade. “I’m sorry,” he whispered under his breath, thinking of the first man who had saved him, buried him in dirt and affection, sung lullabies, and kissed away tears.
No one was here to wipe away his tears now.
“Good,” Junfeng said slowly, lowering the blade from Weining’s face to his throat. “I’ll just hold onto this one for insurance until it is done.”
His mind was racing, but he was so lightheaded and so tired. He could not find some way out of this nightmare.
Senior Wei would have.
His Xian-Gege, his father, could fix anything.
At least that’s how it felt.
Lan Sizhui picked up the knife, tuning out the whimpers of his fellow juniors.
He mourned that even in death, he would be kept from his birth family and lost to them.
On shaking legs, he knelt. His hands trembled as he picked up the knife.
“Four slashes across your wrist,” Su Junfeng explained.
Sizhui drew back his sleeve.
There was already so much blood.
He hoped he didn’t have enough left to give for the ritual. But if he failed, would they simply take Jingyi or Lan Su or Lan Weining next?
Useless sobs burned in his throat.
He was going to die.
He hoped it was not in vain.
The tip of the blade bit into his forearm. Fresh crimson bubbled up.
Lan Sizhui had never been squeamish at the sight of blood. Now he struggled to keep his meager meal down.
He closed his eyes and dragged the knife across his flesh, feeling hot blood spill from the gash.
‘Forgive me, A-Die,’ he thought as tears spilled down his cheeks.
A sudden wind picked up, and Lan Sizhui could feel resentful energy pooling. The ritual began.
“Keep going,” Su Junfeng barked.
There was a rustle of fabric and another whimper from Weining. Sizhui kept his eyes screwed shut as he dragged the dagger across his arm a second time.
He had not called Zewu-Jun anything but his title in years, but now he found himself crying for his uncle and wishing he could have said goodbye.
He had not even see the man since his seclusion after Guanyin Temple, and the months had been long.
Sizhui could taste his blood in the air now.
The resentful energy coiled tighter, like a snake squeezing the life from its prey.
The knife met his skin a third time.
Sizhui had no great affection for Sandu Shengshou, but Jiang Wanyin was dear to Jin Ling and to Senior Wei. Sizhui did not want to see the man killed.
One more cut.
Sizhui did not want to die.
“Please,” he choked. “Please reconsider.”
“Finish what you started, boy.”
Lan Sizhui could hear Jingyi’s sobbing. He wanted to reassure him, but nothing was okay.
Nothing would ever be okay again.
Sizhui lifted the knife for the last time.
The resentful energy in the air stretched thin; he lowered the blade toward his bleeding arm.
The air snapped.
The knife was knocked from Sizhui’s hand by the force of the blast as shadows leapt off the walls and burst outward, wrapping everything and everyone in their net.
Sizhui blinked, his sluggish brain trying to figure out what had transpired when, between one instant and the next, Senior Wei was there.
There wasn’t a way for Sizhui to describe it. He seemed to have materialized from nothing but the shadows cast by dropped torches.
For a moment, there was an unnatural silence. The air was still, pregnant and waiting. In Senior Wei’s hand, Sizhui saw the butterfly talisman he had sent.
Senior Wei’s eyes snapped open, and they glowed crimson.
In theory, Lan Sizhui had known people feared Wei Wuxian.
His Xian-Gege was clever and powerful and charming. No one doubted his ability to achieve the impossible.
Now, Lan Sizhui understood why his name was uttered with equal parts awe and fear, even after the truth of his actions was known.
Xian-Gege’s eyes glimmered like twin pools of blood.
Chenqing was gripped so tight in his hand, Sizhui wondered how the bamboo did not break.
“A-Yuan!” Their eyes met, and the panic and anger slipped into relief for a split second until Xian-Gege saw the blood and the array. Horror and worry raced across his face, chased by a slow, dangerous kind of fury.
The cave grew colder, like the shadows were sucking up the heat of the torches and leaving nothing behind.
“Yiling Laozu!” some of the men cried. “Kill him!”
Xian-Gege whirled toward the charging assailants and threw three small blades in succession.
Two of the three targets died instantly. The third choked on the blood bubbling up from her slit throat. It was easy to forget that even after he’d given up the sword, Wei Wuxian had remained nearly unparalleled in martial skill. Lan Sizhui had seen the record books of every inter-sect competition, after all.
“What did you do to my son?” Xian-Gege snarled at the charging crowd, sounding vicious and cold enough to burn.
Sizhui’s heart leapt in his chest. He shook it off and looked around the cave, unable to focus on anything. Jingyi and the other juniors. He had to get them out.
Su Junfeng was still holding Lan Weining, but his knees shook as the full force of Xian-Gege’s wrath enveloped the room, filling the very air they breathed.
“You,” he hissed. With a sharp whistle, the three fresh corpses rose, followed quickly by several more who fell to Xian-Gege’s knives.
“Stay back,” Su Junfeng warned. “I’ll kill this boy if you try anything!”
Xian-Gege tilted his head, and his expression, even in profile, was so menacing that Sizhui’s skin prickled with goosebumps. “Oh?”
He snapped his fingers, and Su Junfeng went rigid.
“Fun fact about resentful energy,” Xian-Gege began in a cold parody of his teaching voice, “the more you mess with it, the more of it is in your veins.” He flicked his fingers and Su Junfeng’s sword fell from his forced-open hand. The man looked at his fingers in horror as the bones snapped one-by-one with every jaunty note of Xian-Gege’s whistling.
“Monster,” Su Junfeng snarled, panting and writhing through the pain.
Xian-Gege leaned closer and whispered, “I’ve been called so much worse.” He stood and forced Su Junfeng to kneel. “Lan Weining, close your eyes,” Xian-Gege commanded.
Sizhui heard a whimper from the younger boy, but he obeyed. In a heartbeat, Weining was safely behind Xian-Gege while Su Junfeng choked around the new grasp of a corpse’s grip on his neck.
The remaining Moling Su members advanced as one after taking out the handful of corpses. They raised their swords and cried out.
They were fools. Xian-Gege had not killed 3000 people at Nightless City, but he had certainly killed that many during the war.
Sizhui shut his eyes when the screams started. He wished he could shut his ears, too.
“A-Yuan! A-Yuan! You can’t fall asleep.” He felt frantic hands against his arm, and he moaned. “I know it hurts. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve got you.”
The voice was different now than it had been 14 years ago, but the memories layered over each other. “Don’t go.”
“I won’t. But right now I need you to stay awake and stay with me.”
He blinked up at the first man who had cradled him close at night and sung him to sleep. This time, he wouldn’t let go.
“‘M awake,” he mumbled, clinging to a soft sleeve.
“Good.” Senior Wei rubbed his forehead, his fingers not quite touching the silk. “Good boy. Stay with me, little radish.” There was movement and the hum of activating talismans followed by an itchy feeling where his wounds were.
“I’ll be okay, Baba.”
His father made a wounded noise and carefully pulled him into his arms and began sharing his qi.
Sizhui moaned a little when the motion jostled his injuries.
“Jingyi! Can you fly? Good. Go get Lan Zhan. He’s two li south. Weining, help your shijie walk. Follow me and stay close.”
“Baba?”
“He’s on his way, A-Yuan. Just hold on.”
“But you’re right here,” he mumbled, confused.
“I’m here,” Baba agreed, wiping his face so, so gently with a sleeve. “Now be a good little Lan and listen to your senior, eh?”
He hadn’t realized how cloying the scent of blood and death was until they stepped into the dappled sunlight of the pine forest.
His eyelids were so heavy, but he needed to listen to Baba. He needed to stay awake.
Cradled in his father’s arms, he felt safe. He tucked his head under Baba’s chin and inhaled the scent of spice and sulfur. It felt as much like home as sandalwood and snow.
The voices grew hazy and muffled, but Lan Sizhui kept his eyes open long enough to see his A-Die’s worried face.
He felt the cool stream of A-Die’s qi flowing into his meridians alongside the warmth of Baba’s.
“He is not concussed.”
“Really? Thank goodness.”
Fingers pressed to his hair, and Baba murmured, “It’s okay now. Rest, A-Yuan. We’re here.”
“Mm.” He hummed and let his eyes drift closed, ensconced between his fathers.
…
Lan Sizhui awoke in the medical pavilion. He recognized the ascetic, sharp cleanliness from many childhood scrapes spent holding Jingyi’s hand as one of both of them were patched up.
He blinked his eyes open, taking in the soft, pre-dawn glow as he flexed his fingers and toes.
His body ached in the way that meant it was healing but not fully repaired. He drew on his core to ease the ache.
“Sizhui,” Hanguang-Jun said, leaning into view.
“A-Die,” he rasped, the term of address slipping out carelessly. The elders never liked it.
Something softened in his father’s eyes, and then there was a strong arm around his back and a cup against his lips.
“Drink. You have been asleep for two days.”
The cool water washed away the lingering taste of blood and resentment that clotted in his throat. When the carafe was empty, he asked, “Where are the other juniors?”
“They were released from the pavilion yesterday after their wounds were treated. Jingyi wished to stay, but he is writing up the report at present.”
“We need to send aid to the remains of the Moling Su Sect and their tithed lands.”
“Mn. It is being overseen now,” Hanguang-Jun said, setting the empty cup down and replacing it with a bowl of broth.
Sizhui drank the soup until his stomach protested and his father relented.
“How do you feel?”
“I’m alright, A-Die. I am sorry to have worried you.”
“No apologies.” Hanguang-Jun ran a hand through his hair, stroking his thumb across the silk ribbon. “It is the job of a parent to worry.”
Sizhui flushed, his eyes sliding to the side. His breath caught.
There, in the dappled sunlight of the maple tree, Senior Wei slept hunched over in the adjacent chair. In his surprise, he started to say, “Ba-“ The word caught in his throat and refused to be washed down, though he wasn’t sure he had the right to it.
“Wei Ying and I have not left your side.”
Senior Wei’s eyes were bruised underneath. He looked tired and unkempt. But he was there.
Sizhui’s eyes burned, and a soft sob escaped his lips.
“He saved me.”
“Mn.”
“I almost brought Su Minshan back to life,” he whispered in horror. “They wanted to kill you both. Bobo and Sect Leader Jiang, too.”
Hanguang-Jun sat beside him on the bed. “You are not responsible for anything that you were forced to do in that cave.”
“But I—“
His father’s eyes hardened. “Lan Yuan.”
“Yes, A-Die.”
Hanguang-Jun sighed. “You are a junior disciple. There were 4 of you, taken by surprise by hostile disciples of a foreign sect. Under the circumstances, you performed admirably and mitigated the injuries to those in your care.”
Sizhui looked at the sleeping face of his senior.
“He saved me,” he said, once more.
“Yes. He got your talisman and tracked the resentment.”
Lan Sizhui shook his head softly and looked into his father’s eyes. “No. I— Seeing him like that… I remembered flashes the first siege of the Burial Mounds.” He could almost smell the smoke and hear the screams. “The wards cracked and shattered. Then the arrows came. He picked me up. Told me we were playing a game.” His voice broke as he looked at the new face of his other father. “He was crying when he hid me in the tree. Told me to be good and hold the talisman until he or Granny came to get me out.”
“A cloaking talisman,” Hanguang-Jun said. “It was beside you.”
“Why did he hide me? He could have escaped.” Sizhui raised his voice to a horse whisper. “I saw him teleport! He didn’t have to stay and fight.”
“You are his child. They were his family; he never would have left.”
Fresh tears spilled down Sizhui’s cheeks. When the next sob left his lips too loudly, Senior Wei startled awake, his eyes widening.
“A-Yuan!” He practically flung himself across the gap between his seat and the bed. “What’s wrong? Lan Zhan, did you call a doctor? Where does it hurt?”
“It doesn’t hurt,” Sizhui choked out. “I’m okay, Baba. I’m okay.”
“If you’re okay, then why are you crying?” Senior Wei frantically dabbed at his cheeks with careful thumbs and felt his forehand, always careful, as if he couldn’t bear to touch the silk there. “A-Yuan, I’m serious. What’s wrong?”
“I was scared,” he sobbed, dropping his forehead to one of Senior Wei’s narrowed shoulders. Steady hands stroked his loose, tangled hair. “I was so scared. And then you—“
Senior Wei made a low, wounded sound and pulled away. He tried to paste a smile on his face, failed, and wrung his hands.
“A-Yuan.” He could hear the tears in Senior Wei’s voice. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to see me like that, but I couldn’t let them get away with hurting you.”
“No,” he sniffled, reaching out and catching Senior Wei’s sleeve. “I wasn’t scared of you. Never of you. I was scared until you arrived. Then I knew it would be okay.”
Tears spilled down his father’s cheeks, because, really, what else was Wei Wuxian? He was as much Lan Sizhui’s parent as Hanguang-Jun.
“You always make it okay, Baba.”
Senior Wei blinked down at the hand on his sleeve and then up at Sizhui. “Baba?”
“Mn. That’s who you are to me.”
“But… but you had a father. You have Lan Zhan.”
“My birth father died before I was born. I have prayed to him and my mother with Ning-Shushu.” Sizhui squeezed his hand and drew it up until it was hovering over his ribbon. Senior Wei’s eyes went wide. “They would have been happy to know that I have not one, but two fathers who have raised me to be righteous and kind in their stead.”
Senior Wei smiled, and then his fingertips traced the white silk edge and mapped the blue clouds. Father and son. It was what they had always been, even if the words hadn’t been spoken sooner. His father laughed, cupping his cheek with a calloused hand and wiping Sizhui’s tears as if his own face weren’t emulating a waterfall. “I could never have asked for a better child than you.”
Sizhui grinned back, laughing through his tears.
Hanguang-Jun met Sizhui’s eye over Senior Wei’s shoulder. His eyes softened with the impression of a smile.
Sizhui reached out, and his other father came closer, folding them both into his arms.
“Baba, A-Die,” he murmured into the dark cloth of Senior Wei’s robes, “with you I really do feel safe.”
Senior Wei kissed his forehead as Hanguang-Jun held them impossibly closer.
Lan Sizhui was not scared.
He was safe.