They left Lianshui at dawn.
The sky was thick with pale mist, and the mountains cast long fingers across the valley. The note still rested in Wuyin's robes, its charcoal lines seared into her thoughts like a brand.
The past waits in stone.
They didn't speak much that morning. There was an unspoken heaviness in the air — not dread, not exactly. More like the hush before a wound reopens.
By midday, the path narrowed, leading them through a gorge where once, Wuyin remembered, a nameless sect had fallen during the Great Fracturing. Now, only fragments remained — moss-covered walls, shattered statues of faceless monks, and silence deeper than death.
Yujin paused at one stone, brushing away lichen. Beneath it, a symbol was barely visible — a lotus surrounded by broken chains.
Wuyin crouched beside her. "I saw this in one of the memories."
"You're sure?"
"I was wearing different hands," Wuyin said quietly, almost to herself. "But they touched this same stone. And the girl beside me said, 'They burned the truth, but some threads never catch fire.'"
Yujin's brows furrowed. "Someone's guiding us."
"Or mocking us," Wuyin muttered, drawing her blade and using the tip to pry a loose stone from the wall.
It fell with a dull clack. Behind it — a hollow.
Inside: a silk-wrapped scroll, stained at the corners, but sealed with a wax emblem she recognized.
The Silent Monarch's personal seal.
Wuyin stared at it for a long time before breaking it open.
Inside, a short passage written in tight, refined brushstrokes:
> If this reaches you, it means the mountain has fallen and the echoes grow thin. There were four chosen. Only one was true. She was the smallest — but she never lied. Trust her memory, even if it is no longer her own. The bloodline will return, not in name, but in flame.
Wuyin read it aloud, her voice low.
Yujin murmured, "There were four heirs?"
"Four candidates," Wuyin said slowly. "They must've trained them together, then chosen the next Monarch."
"And you… inherited the last one's body."
"Not by accident." Wuyin folded the scroll tightly. "Someone tried to erase her. But she left her memories behind. And now I—"
Her voice caught.
"I'm not her. But I remember enough to bleed for her."
Yujin reached out and touched her wrist.
"I know you're not her," she said. "But she chose you. Her death was not the end. It was a passage."
Wuyin looked at her — really looked — and then sat down on the stone. The scroll in her hand trembled.
"She was kind," she said. "She loved tea with cinnamon bark. She hated training with knives. She used to braid her hair every morning and leave half for her older sisters to do the rest. I don't know her name, Yujin. But when I sleep… I dream of her laughing."
"But not all memories are warm," Wuyin added after a moment.
"There was one day… her instructor said the trial had been moved up. She looked confused. Frightened, even. I remember her kneeling in a courtyard drenched in shadow. And behind her… the instructor didn't speak like a teacher. He spoke like a messenger.
'Orders are orders,' he said. And then he walked away before she even lifted her blade."
Wuyin's voice dropped. "Something felt wrong. Like it wasn't supposed to happen that way."
Yujin was quiet for a moment. Then:
"A teacher who turns his back too quickly… is sometimes hiding something."
Wuyin nodded once, jaw tight.
"I think someone wanted her to fail. Or vanish."
Yujin sat beside her. "Then maybe part of her is still alive. Through you."
Wuyin's throat tightened. She whispered, "What does that make me?"
Yujin didn't answer right away.
Then, softly, "Someone with two scars. And one heart."
Wuyin laughed quietly. "That's poetic."
"Merchant upbringing. I know how to spin gold from ghosts."
A silence settled between them. But it was no longer cold.
That night, they stayed in the ruin.
Wuyin made a small fire. Yujin poured tea. They didn't speak of what tomorrow might bring. Only the present mattered — the warmth of shared quiet, the curve of a smile lit by firelight, and the pulse of something deeper than fate beginning to stir.
Before sleep, Wuyin whispered into the dark:
"She was kind. I hope I'm not breaking her."
From the shadows, Yujin murmured, "She trusted you. That means she hoped."
----
Hi everyone!
I'm a new writer diving into storytelling as both a passion project and a way to relieve some of life's stress. Writing helps me breathe—and now, I'm hoping it can also help me support the people I care about.
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