Red was the color of sorrow, of the setting sun and endings. The color of blood draining down into the earth. It was the color of the banners raised over the casket of his grandson, fluttering in the breeze.For the first time in many decades, Sun Shao’s gnarled hands shook like the old man he appeared to be as his Great Granddaughter clung to his shaking hand.

To live was war, to war was to sacrifice.

But it always hurt. It always had to hurt, if you were to remember your purpose in the sea of blood. If only Ce had been equal to the task he had been given. Sun Shao had placed so much hope upon his grandson's sturdy shoulders, been so certain that he would be the one able to bear the weight of the Sun family.

He had been wrong.

The blood of the east is not enough. I waste my strength, though the solution is before me, has always been before me.

The sons of his body were gone. The sons borne to him by his wife,whose face he could not remember, only the smear of blood it had become on the walls of his burning manor. Her face was gone, but some splinter of the man he was borne in his chest still insisted its importance.

“Grandpa, why is Papa in the box,” His Granddaughter whispered as the shame faced men who carried the palanquin set it down before them and threw themselves on their faces in shame before his judgment.

Even in defeat, his men, his family were not afraid of him. Failure brought not dodging and avoidance as in the east, but a deep and abiding shame at their own lacking merits. To be of the West was to be strong, and there was no loss heavier than to fail your kin and comrades. They wept for the young lord as if he were their own brother by blood and he their grandfather.

That was the army he had built.

He looked down at Liling, his great granddaughter, and closed his eyes. The quaver in her voice and the set of her shoulders told him that she knew the answer. Even a child in their ninth summer knew death in the west.

She sniffled, and tears welling at the corners of her eyes. “Papa can’t die. He was strong.”

“Not strong enough,” Sun Shao said quietly, squeezing her hand.

She looked up at him, confusion and a hint of betrayal in her eyes. Eyes so like other daughters and grandaughters, sacrificed all. “There is no such thing as strong enough. Your father was strong, and we must be stronger still in his absence,” he said gently. “The world is cruel, and we will fight it forever. He fought for you, and I and all of us. As I do. As you will.”

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She sniffled, not quite comprehending but buried her face in his robes. He gestured to the men on the ground, spoke some words of mourning and sorrow and absolution, but it was a mechanical thing, detached from his mind. They left, renewed fire in their eyes. These men would fight and die like demons.

Was he spending his men poorly? Had he spent his grandson poorly?

Lub-Dub

The heartbeat never went away. It thrummed beneath the streets of Kailasa. It beat in the silence of palace chambers at night. It beat in his own chest and underlaid the war chants of his men. He had closed the temples, shattered the altars, but the heartbeat never ceased. Though it had not been his intention, he had built new temples and new altars, her worship was every shedding of blood. The Goddess of the Sunflower fields was with him always.

Yet he could not take the last step.

Their faces were crimson smears. His wife, his sons and daughters. Even Ce’s face would fade in time. A year, a decade or two. There was so little of the man who was Sun Shao left.

He could end these sacrifices, these casualties at any time. The Queen of the Red Jungle, the Goddess of Ceaseless Struggle, longed for her King of Carrion, Devourer of the Dead.

Verdant hair, and crimson eyes, a smile like flensing blades. A lover’s breath in his ear, warm and hot, smelling of the carnage of burning cities.

Red smears where faces once were. The marching and songs of men. Kin and family. He could not submit to her. It would destroy an important objective. Even if he couldn’t remember what it was. And his army was strong, the Imperial Court still favored him. He did not need her. He did not need her.

They would conquer everything she was, and make it theirs.

He ignored the soft laughter that only he could hear. The smile of knives, and winsome eyes full of teeth that begged him to try.

“Grandpa?”

He blinked, looked down to Liling and crouched down, resting a hand on her head. Her hair was just as bright and red as his had been, all those centuries ago. “I’m sorry little one. I was remembering.”

She nodded, still sniffling. And he gathered her into an embrace.

He had promised himself to break the world for his family if need be. When the child in his arms finally broke into sobs, he remembered why he did not want to. Why it was his last plan.

Poor child. Her life would only grow harder. Her mother was a soft and petty thing of the court, and would be gone in a fortnight with the marriage broken. Only she could bear their future now. She would need to grow strong indeed. Stronger than he. Stronger than Her.

Such a cruel thing to lay on a child.

“Everything for family,” he said quietly, brushing her hair.

“Family is everything,” came the muffled reply.

Scooping his great granddaughter up into the crook of his arm, he stood, and with one hand lifted the coffin onto his shoulder. “Let us lay him to rest, little one.”