He once told me "the culmination of life's purpose and meaning can only be found in the circumstances of one's death: what we left behind, and whether this world the Creators bound us to is better in the wake of our passing."
It haunts me still. What was the purpose of my life? What will I have left behind?
Will this world be better because I have lived?
— Excerpt from Meditations, by the Red Emperor
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Winter's Sorrow was nigh, and the city of JiangXi itself seemed to be holding a collective breath. Citizens still milled about in large, roving crowds, huddled together for warmth, but the telltale signs of shops and stalls closing down was unmistakable. The prediction of IceMourne's arrival had spread long before even the first herald had shouted the news. No one wanted to be unprepared for the long wait for Spring's Blessings to arrive.
Primrose stalked the edges of one of these crowds, wrapping the black cloak she had borrowed from Molam around herself. She approved of Molam's choice; the cloak was not too heavy yet provided a good buffer against the cold. They said that Hjornheim, the ancestral home of the Northern Tribes, was steeped in an eternal Winter's Sorrow as a punishment from IceMourne for their participation in the killing of DuskWing, and Primrose could scarcely fathom their insistence on living in such a condition. If the very area you lived in was cursed to never feel warm, shouldn't you leave and seek better soil?
But she had little time to think on these matters as she shuffled her way past the crowds, tucking away a strand of her auburn locks. Everyone had a task that suited their skills, and now it was her time to perform what she was best at. Yet, the situation she had temporarily left behind was dire and creeped itself back into her thoughts as she made her way to the garrisons.
There was a traitor. They had contained the information as much as possible, yet the city guards were making preparations that were too directly correlated to their plans to be coincidental. Though she did not know Molam for long, the white aura that clung to him was the unmistakable color of the Oracle's approval. And while she would have liked to vouch for the others…it made sense that City Lord Agytha would have long known about the Dao. Molam himself was proof that her Charm could be resisted.
The alarming speed at which the events were developing scarcely gave her a moment to organize her thoughts even as she was going through the motions. It felt so long ago that the Oracle had told her to sow the seeds of tomorrow in JiangXi and wait for her to send help, but when that help had arrived in the form of Molam everything had been put into motion. Primrose understood his logic, but the speed at which he grasped opportunities left her with trepidation. It had only been days since they met. Why was everything progressing so swiftly? Where did that sort of confidence come from? Why was he so eager to move this quickly?
Could she trust him at all?
She could only hope that his perceived intellect and skills were capable of backing the confidence he had in directing such a fast paced endeavor. To fail here would be to undo three years of work. The Bloody Prince's century-long history of reclaiming Empire territories after the Fracturing in the wake of the Red Emperor's death was well known. She had seen Kamisukawa's crumbling ruin in passing, a standing reminder of the fate of a city that had turned against the Bloody Prince.
Failure here meant the city of JiangXi would suffer a similar wrath.
Wait, she corrected herself. Failure at any time from now on meant dragging innocent lives in. Tonight, they announce themselves in a bid for freeing JiangXi from the Empire's control.
She stepped aside with the crowd as several men passed by, carrying a large crate in the direction of the docks on their shoulders. To lose a strategic city with control over trade like this one would be a critical blow to the Empire's economy and boost the possibility of uniting the Free Cities as a concerted force.
And still, the enigma. Why did she only See the Oracle's white aura around Molam?
He had burnt the ropes, that much was evident even if one could not See. He seemed to be more tolerant of the cold. Characteristics of a red auramaster. Yet, she hadn't Seen a hint of red.
Of course, it could be a blend. Primrose had never Seen another person with the Oracle's color, and had no idea what to expect. It was entirely possible that the Oracle's color of approval masked the color of the person's natural aura.
Questions, questions, and more questions. Primrose decided that all of it could wait as she came upon the garrison doors and palmed a dagger from within her sleeves. She could consider him at leisure after all of this, but it wouldn't do for her to be distracted when she went about her task.
The setting sun told her it was almost suppertime and the guards would be rotating shifts with hungry stomachs. There was not much she could do about the ones that were out on patrol, but all they needed was to incapacitate enough guards for them to do what needed to be done.
She lowered her breathing and masked her presence even more as she slipped into the garrison, the vials clinking silently under her dress. The kitchens would be easy to find if she just followed her nose.
***
Molam looked about at the members gathered by Shurra. Less than fifty total gathered in the largest room they had, what had been an empty tavern at the edge of the city but before the docks. All of them had been gathered with little preparation and based on Shurra's expression, not all of the ones she trained had shown up.
Perhaps they couldn't.
Perhaps they wouldn't.
The members that did show up shuffled in place, seemingly uncertain about the situation as Shurra explained that they were going to hasten the plan to tonight. Several members asked where Primrose had gone, and seemed even more nervous when they were told that Primrose needed to accomplish a task on her own to incapacitate the city guards.
Lyka stood in silence to his right, her spear cradled against the crook of her arm. Kalle leaned against a wall to his left, and the three of them watched Shurra as she struggled to explain the plan by pointing to the map and the areas Molam had circled out for them.
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"She's terrible at this." Lyka shook her head, and Kalle nodded.
This one's battlefield is in blood and blade, not in front of others. The spirit observed.
Molam agreed, but these were members that Shurra had trained and he didn't think it was his place to step in. Yet as Shurra droned on, nearly matching what Molam had explained to her earlier, Molam could only see their members frown and struggle to understand what they were doing. He had seen a Master Alchemist and a Mursa give speeches to a group in the past and they had not lost control of their audience's attention the way Shurra meandered at this very moment.
As Shurra blundered through another lengthy discussion of the exact routes certain members should take, Molam felt his body clam up with worry. He looked at the gathered members and saw only people staring with unfocused eyes, trying to commit what Shurra said to memory only to have Shurra correct herself or repeat herself. Molam hesitated, but he could not risk the group's members not understanding what they were about to do and more importantly, why they were doing it.
Molam stood forward and tapped on Shurra's shoulder, stopping her mid-sentence. She turned around and looked down at him, then seeing his look, cleared her throat and stepped to the side. "In Primrose's absence, our strategist will take over."
"Thank you, Shurra. And I have one announcement." Molam straightened his back as he looked at the gathered members, meeting several of their eyes and seeing their perplexed expressions. "At Primrose's request, from tonight we are known as the Dao."
Eyebrows raised and lips became pressed together; many even frowned, but Molam was undeterred. This was just another battle, one that he had seen others do before. A battle to win the hearts of those that followed.
What had Flangel the Wise said? Humans are curious things. We like to think we are beings of logic, yet emotion rules our actions. Rule the heart, and the mind will find the logic to justify any action. Molam had agreed, but only because he had seen what desperate humans were willing to do. To others. To him.
He wouldn't allow the ones gathered in front of him to do the same. He couldn't, and so he must rule them.
Molam clasped his hands together in front of him with a resounding clap as he stared at them. "Some of you may think of me as new to the group. That is correct. But make no mistake; we share a common goal."
"Who here remembers the JiangXi from before Agytha's time?" He raised his arm, and saw that several people hesitantly raised their own, but he didn't wait long. "Who remembers when Winter's Sorrow was bearable, and the city took care of its own? The Empire takes and you were fine with it then because you could trust it to give back when you needed it to. There was trust." He punched a hand into an open palm. "Was. No longer."
"Did you think that things would change if you just waited? That if you just stayed quiet and allowed Agytha to do what she wanted, she would suddenly turn around and apologize? That's long gone, my friends." He paced about slowly, taking care to not turn his body fully so they could see his face as he spoke. "If she really cared, she would show it. But she hasn't, and Winter's Sorrow starts tonight! Where is the wood? Where is the food? Where is the implicit promise between citizens and the government?"
A man shouted his agreement, and a chorus of voices joined him. Molam held up his hands, calming them down as he nodded to the one that had shouted. "Primrose gathered all of us here and I believe you all understood why. Perhaps part of you thought of it as a fallback plan. Perhaps you were curious, or participated only out of resentment in something that felt rebellious in nature but didn't actually draw the Empire's ire. Perhaps you were convinced that it wouldn't happen; that it was just a way to get warming stones and feel like you were doing something, without actually needing to do something."
"But I'm here to tell you that tonight, we are doing something. I won't lie: there is no going back. And it's not because you wanted this, no." He looked at the audience, seeing their eyes glimmering back at him. "You didn't want this; you were forced to do this."
He borrowed a sentence seared into his memory from a long time ago, his voice becoming lower and the audience leaned in to hear him. "For you and for your loved ones, you don't have a choice."
"JiangXi needs change, and I have always believed that change does not come to those who wait. No, change comes to those that make it happen. Three years you've suffered Agytha — and now it is time to say: Enough!" He held out a hand in front of him and then clenched it tightly in front of the crowd. "The Empire of the Sun has lost its way if the likes of Agytha can be appointed City Lord, and it is time to make your resentment known."
"We won't set fire to the city. We only need to free our siblings from their unjust imprisonment and distract the city guards away from the City Lord's Mansion. Then the leadership," he pointed to Shurra, Kalle, Lyka, and then at himself, "Will go to the City Lord's Mansion and capture Agytha. With her in our hands, the city guards will have no reason to fight their own fellow citizens, not for a City Lord that never cared for them."
He pointed to the map, at the lines and the circles he had drawn, then stepped to the side so that the audience could see it. "The plan is just a guide. It's fine if you can't memorize it, I don't expect you to! What really matters is remembering what we're trying to accomplish; and seizing opportunities when they arise. So keep this in mind: what we're trying to accomplish is distracting the city guards and keeping them away from the City Lord's Mansion for as long as possible. Break as many people out of the jails as possible; cause havoc, but kill no one and don't be killed or we will invite lethal violence."
He looked at them, focusing on the more heavily armed members with a stern gaze. "None of us should be the first to draw blood, understand? I won't ask any of you to risk your lives because that is not your responsibility. Your lives are you own, and you're not here because you want to risk it but because you want something better — I understand that." Molam exhaled. "I understand that more than you think. No one needs to put themselves in danger besides those of us capturing Agytha."
Molam walked back to stand next to Shurra before swiveling around to look at the gathered members again. "Tonight is the night we succeed and announce the Dao to the Empire. The Empire has lost their way." He grinned at the members, showing teeth. "Are you ready to show the Empire the Dao?"
***
Lyka shook her head in silence as Molam finished his speech to the cheering and applause of the gathered members. She grudgingly admired Molam's skills in both planning and speech-giving. Both sides of the man marveled her; the cunning tactical mind that discussed the strategy in the room with just the five of them, and now the way he spoke not in the way Shurra had with telling the members what to do, but why they should be doing it.
She found herself nervously fingering the jade talisman hidden in her pocket, wondering if her agreeable feelings towards Molam were the result of the man's hitherto unknown ability to Charm.
Fidgeting with the shaft of her spear, Lyka wondered how things could have been different if she had managed to convince them to wait until after Spring's Blessings. She and Agytha had almost managed to complete their duty. Part of her regretted not killing Molam initially, when Kalle had first brought him into their hideout. She chased the thought away; she could not be blamed for not foreseeing that Molam would have become such a problem.
Lyka followed him with her eyes as he seemed to be awkward in front of the crowd again, shaking a few hands and receiving words of encouragement. She decided that she liked him more than she would vocally admit. Against her own inclination, Lyka could understand why the Oracle had chosen him. For a brief few moments, he reminded her of the Shield of Oasis.
A shame she had to kill him.