A low rumble rattles the battered ramparts of An’alm’s northern section. Water churns violently along the base, grinding away at mortar and stone. From a perch atop what remains of the battlements, a trembling rebel lookout shouts, voice shrill with alarm, “The wall—it’s giving way! Get back!”
Below, a deafening crack splinters the air. Chunks of masonry tumble inward, and then, as if sucked by the raging flood outside, whole sections of the north wall collapse. The ground trembles. People scattered on the rampart scramble in blind panic, nearly tumbling over one another in a bid to escape the sudden drop. A roar of water surges through the newly opened breach, sweeping away blocks of debris and any soul unfortunate enough to be in its path.
Beyond, on the south side of An’alm, the Moukopl regiments seize their moment. Under Li Song’s unwavering command, rows of disciplined soldiers scale intact battlements, locking shields, pushing methodically past makeshift barricades. The defenders here—exhausted pockets of Siza rebels—try to rally a last stand.
“Hold fast!” one rebel yells, pressing his spear into an oncoming Moukopl. The clash is pitifully brief. The Moukopl soldier parries, slams a shield forward, and the rebel drops like a broken puppet. A wave of steel and iron crushes the defenders. Within minutes, the south wall belongs to Li Song’s forces.
Thunderous footsteps echo over the crumbling streets. Civilians, dragging their children through waist-deep water, scream as Moukopl soldiers flood in from multiple angles. A teenage boy tries to protect his younger sister, flailing a rusty dagger at an armored invader. The soldier knocks him aside with casual brutality, sending him sprawling into the water. The girl’s shrill wail cuts short as she’s dragged away.
Above the fray, Li Song and Jin Na stand on the junk’s deck. Li Song’s pale gaze scans the city’s remains: the collapsing north wall, the drowned eastern quarters, and the scattered skirmishes where the rebel guard still resists. Wet wind slaps at his cloak; the cacophony of falling timbers and screaming citizens surges all around.
Jin Na calls over the clang of steel, “General! The south is ours. Should we press toward the center?”
Li Song’s reply is as cold as the floodwaters swirling around the city’s foundations. “Leave no stronghold unclaimed. Rally the columns—ensure none escape.”
A terrified rebel tries to force a group of civilians behind a toppled statue for cover, but they’re surrounded by Moukopl spears within seconds. Panic grips the refugees, and a hysterical mother tries to charge a soldier to protect her toddler. The soldier impales her without hesitation, then slices the blade free as she slumps into the water, red blossoming around her.
In the distance, a deep groan resonates, and another section of the northern ramparts crashes inward, crushing fleeing citizens in a ferocious wave of rubble. A monstrous cloud of dust and churned water rises, blotting out the morning sun. It settles just long enough to reveal more Moukopl columns marching through ankle-deep carnage—unimpeded, unstoppable.
Amidst the chaos, pockets of rebels attempt desperate standouts in debris-choked alleys. Smoke from burning rooftops and shattered beams mingles with the stench of decay. Swords clash weakly against Moukopl armor, and each rebel outcry is swiftly silenced. Someone yells, “For Siza!” a final, strangled cry before a spear rips through his chest. His body hits the flooded street with a dull splash.
Li Song, stone-faced, paces through the aftermath. Every so often, he pauses to issue an order, voice icily calm. “Send additional troops to the temple district,” he commands. “Snuff out any last pockets of resistance.” A drenched aide nods, blood trickling down his brow, and rushes to comply. Even Jin Na, hardened by weeks of siege, looks ill at the scale of devastation.
In minutes, the city’s proud fortress becomes a labyrinth of corpses and drowning souls. Screams echo through the half-submerged arches, an endless dirge for a once-mighty An’alm. Already, the survivors—those too broken to resist—begin to huddle in corners, begging for mercy from Moukopl blades that find none. Men, women, children—no distinction holds in the face of total conquest.
...
Hzal trudges through the drenched ruins, Linh slung over his back like a ragged doll. Each step sends a spike of pain jolting through Linh's limp body, his breathing shallow and rattling. Dim light slices through the haze of smoke and fog, but the weight of the city’s downfall presses hard on both of them.
“Don’t… pass out,” Hzal mutters, voice choking with effort. “If you sleep, you die. You hear me? You’re the son of Nahaloma. You’re bound to a glorious future, with or without us, you understand? You can’t die yet.”
Linh’s head lolls against Hzal’s shoulder, eyes rolling behind drooping lids. A faint groan escapes his cracked lips. “Thirsty…”
Hzal grits his teeth, eyes skimming their surroundings. Broken roofs jut from the murky flood, battered doorways half-submerged. Corpses drift in places where the water runs deeper. “Where do we go?” he demands hoarsely, hoping Linh can still guide him.
A strangled cough rattles in Linh’s throat. “Outskirts… small forest,” he manages, breath catching. “Cottage… that way.” He lifts a trembling hand, pointing vaguely into the smoldering horizon.
They shuffle through the poorest district, weaving between toppled shanties and collapsed alleyways. Flames crackle somewhere in the distance. Once in a while, a huddled figure darts from ruin to ruin, but no one looks their way—everyone is too broken to help or to hope. Soon, a rotted gate looms, barely standing, beyond which a few half-burned trees offer a meager patch of woodland.
Hzal exhales, staggering forward. His feet sink into slick mud as they enter the modest clearing. The hush here is almost eerie compared to the city’s chaos. When a squat cottage finally emerges through a screen of charred trunks, he snorts in disbelief. “This is where you lived?” he mutters to the unconscious form over his shoulder. “All these years… No wonder no one found you.”
A ghost of a chuckle rasping from Linh’s chest indicates he heard something. Then his entire frame shudders. “Mihin…” he chokes out. “She’s inside…”
Hzal shoulders open the cottage door. Water laps around the threshold, flooding the lower room to mid-ankle. Above, footsteps scuttle. “Miss Mihin!” Hzal calls, voice cracking. “Help me—he’s bleeding to death!”
Immediately, a slender figure appears at the top of a short, rickety staircase. Her blindfolded eyes give her a haunting look as she grips a railing for balance. Mihin, cheeks pale, has fear etched across every feature. “Linh…” she whispers.
Hzal wades inside, carefully hoisting Linh onto the steps. “He lost his arm. A cannon blast. Blood’s— Look, do you have bandages? Anything?”
Mihin’s face crumples, but she steels herself. “Bring him upstairs,” she says quietly, voice trembling. “The attic’s drier.”
They ascend into a cramped space still smelling of sulfur and faintly of charred wood. Broken crates and old blankets clutter the corners. Mihin scrambles to lay a coarse mat on the floor. Hzal eases Linh down onto it, trying not to jostle the severed stump. Linh’s expression twists in agony, a strangled groan slipping between clenched teeth.
“I can do this,” Mihin insists, reaching for a length of cloth. She tears at her own cloak, ignoring how her hands shake. “I know a few spells…” She gulps, remembering the day Qhuag died. Guilt smothers her chest, but she pushes it aside.
Hzal nods stiffly. “I can’t stay,” he blurts, glancing at the trapdoor as if the war below is beckoning him back. “I have to fight—some warriors may still be alive.”
Mihin ducks her head over Linh’s wound, pressing the cloth hard against the ragged flesh. Her whispered chant, half-lost to exhaustion, merges with Linh’s ragged wheezing. “Then… go,” she murmurs. Her tear tracks glimmer in the dim lamp-light. “I’ll save him… if I can.”
Hzal bends over, pressing a brief hand to Linh’s shoulder. “Thank you, for everything,” he says, though he’s not sure Linh can hear. Then he steels himself, squaring his shoulders. “If I die out there,” he adds quietly, “tell him… to keep fighting. He’s our people’s hope.”
Mihin just nods, throat too tight for words. Hzal gives Linh one last glance before he descends the ladder and sloshes out into the flood, to meet a city’s final stand.
With trembling fingers, Mihin unwinds the makeshift bandage. Sticky crimson seeps from the shredded stump. “I’m sorry,” she breathes, tears trembling on her lashes. “I should’ve done more…”
Her voice trembles through the old spells Qhuag taught her. The room flickers with a faint, uncertain glow, as though the air itself is responding to her desperate pleas. “Please,” she whispers, pressing both hands down on the blood-soaked cloth. “Let him stay. Don’t let him… slip away.”
Outside, the thunder of destruction echoes. Each tremor rattles the attic walls, dust drifting from the rafters. But Mihin bows her head, chanting softly, ignoring the roar beyond.
As Linh’s gasps subside into a strained whimper, Mihin clings to him, tears coursing down her cheeks. Her guilt for every life lost—every atrocity that’s swept through the city—threatens to drown her. But she fights it off, her voice rising to a fragile crescendo of prayer and desperation.
“Just live… Please,” she repeats, the words resonating like a vow amid the chaos, “or everything will be for nothing...” And in that desperate attic, with blood pooling beneath them, she does her utmost to keep Linh’s fading spark from winking out altogether.
...
The keep’s courtyard lies torn and ravaged. Blood smears the flagstones; debris and corpses form an ugly mosaic of broken dreams. A handful of rebel chieftains kneel in the center, their tattered cloaks dragged through bloody puddles. Their voices quiver, each trying to out-plead the next, pointing fingers at each other.
“Please, Lord,” one rasps, cheeks stained with mud. “It wasn’t us who orchestrated this rebellion!”
“They forced our hands!” another bellows, frantic eyes darting between Li Song’s calm face and the ring of Moukopl soldiers. “I was always loyal to the empire—always!”
The general stands in rigid composure, Jin Na at his side. Li Song’s gaze sweeps over the kneeling men like one assessing cattle. “Enough,” he says, voice low but carrying lethal finality.
One of the chieftains, tears shining on his scruffy cheeks, tries again. “We beg your mercy—”
Li Song lifts a hand in a slight motion, and Moukopl swords flash. Clean, practiced strokes sever heads and open throats. Blood arcs in a spray across the battered courtyard stones. The remaining survivors gasp, or break into choking sobs as their fellows slump dead. A hush quells all noise, leaving only the drip of fresh blood. The rebellion’s last hopes die in that instant.
Then a ragged shout breaks the quiet. “General!” It echoes through the courtyard’s half-collapsed arches. The Moukopl soldiers shift, parting enough to reveal Hzal limping forward, sword in hand, fury etched in every line of his battered face. His armor—stained and dented—clinks with each step.
Li Song barely spares Hzal a glance. “You still breathe,” he remarks calmly, almost as if acknowledging a stray dog.
“I ask for a duel,” Hzal snarls. He levels his blade at Li Song. “Face me if you have the spine!”
A ripple of surprise passes through the Moukopl ranks. Jin Na arches a brow at Li Song, but the general’s expression remains ice. “I’m no fighter,” he says softly, almost bored. “Lieutenant Jin Na will suffice.”
Hzal’s lips curl in scorn. “Your dog, then? So be it.”
Jin Na steps forward reluctantly, hands tightening around the shaft of a long lance. He glances at Li Song for confirmation, and the general nods, expression unreadable.
Without ceremony, the ring of soldiers widens to give them space. Hzal’s breathing comes rough; blood mats his side, but determination blazes in his eyes. Jin Na swallows, knuckles pale where he grips the lance.
“All right,” Jin Na murmurs, setting his feet. The crowd hushes again.
With a savage roar, Hzal launches himself. His sword glints in the dusty sunlight, slicing the air in a horizontal arc. Jin Na thrusts the lance, but Hzal ducks, the blade scraping Jin Na’s gauntlet. Sparks fly, rattling Jin Na’s composure.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“I’ll see you bleed,” Hzal spits, pressing the attack. He moves with a battered warrior’s desperation—no wasted flourishes, just powerful blows that crash into Jin Na’s defenses.
Jin Na staggers, barely deflecting a slash with the butt of his lance. He tries to counterstrike, thrusting forward, but Hzal pivots, driving his sword’s point into Jin Na’s side. Metal meets leather; Jin Na hisses as the blade cuts flesh.
The Moukopl soldiers watch in tense silence, hearts pounding. Li Song stands stoic, arms folded, eyes like flint.
Jin Na grits his teeth against the pain, stepping back to parry another blow. Hzal’s intensity mounts, each slash fueled by an unspoken vow of vengeance. He forces Jin Na to retreat, inch by inch. Sparks erupt whenever steel collides, and the courtyard echoes with each punishing impact.
A final, brutal clash sends Jin Na stumbling. Hzal seizes the moment, sword arcing high. “Die!” he roars, twisting his entire body into the downstroke. It seems unstoppable, bound to cleave Jin Na from collar to chest.
At the last second, Jin Na drops to a knee and thrusts the lance upward in blind desperation. The tip catches Hzal beneath the jaw, slicing upward with a horrible crack of bone. Hzal’s momentum propels him onto the blade. Blood spurts across Jin Na’s face.
A stunned hush seizes the courtyard. For a heartbeat, Hzal’s body hangs there, impaled, sword still raised. Then it goes limp. His head lolls, nearly severed, as he slips off the lance and collapses to the red-stained floor, eyes glazing in final shock.
Gasps break from the onlooking Moukopl. Then, one soldier cheers. Others join, releasing tension in a roar of triumph. Jin Na stares at the corpse, chest heaving, not quite believing what he’s done. The lance shakes in his hands.
Li Song strides forward, unwavering. He meets Jin Na’s wide eyes. “Well done,” he says, voice somehow both quiet and ringing with authority. He places a hand on Jin Na’s shoulder, ignoring the man’s trembling. “You’ve more than earned your rank this day. Your promotion stands—your loyalty and skill proven.”
Jin Na, numb with shock, bows his head. Around them, Moukopl soldiers erupt in renewed cheers, stamping boots on stone. Hzal’s body twitches once in death’s final spasm. Blood creeps across the courtyard, mingling with that of the executed chieftains.
Li Song raises his hand, silencing the crowd. He spares Hzal’s corpse a single glance, then turns to the soldiers. “The rebellion has fallen,” he announces. “Their last champion is gone.” His gaze cuts through the remains of the rebel leaders. “Moukopl stands victorious.”
His words crash over the courtyard like a final sentence. And thus, in that swirl of blood and thunderous acclamation, Hzal’s last stand dissolves under Jin Na’s blade, leaving the city’s fate sealed and the Moukopl truly ascendant.
...
Mihin crouches beside Linh in the cramped attic, the bare rafters overhead creaking under the distant echoes of battle. A single flickering lamp illuminates the makeshift bandage around his newly cauterized stump. The blood has finally slowed, leaving his skin clammy and white. Yet, despite the agony that must lurk beneath the surface, Linh’s breaths have settled into a gentle rise and fall, more peaceful than before.
Exhaling in trembling relief, Mihin presses her palm lightly to his forehead. “You’re safe,” she murmurs, voice quivering. Her fingers, still smeared with blood, brush aside sweaty strands of his red hair. She swallows the lump in her throat, choosing words as if each one might shatter him. “Linh… you can’t hear me right now. Or maybe you can.”
A distant thunderclap resonates through the half-flooded city. The attic walls rattle, water dripping somewhere below, but here in this tiny refuge, only Mihin’s trembling voice breaks the silence.
She leans in, her blindfold casting faint shadows across her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I know I haven’t done enough. I let you drag me along all this time… never strong enough to fight with you, never bold enough to stop you from becoming this.”
Her fingernails trace the edges of the dressing around his severed arm, feeling the feeble pulse beneath. Her words tumble out faster, as though compelled by a desperate need to fill the void. “They call you the Son of Nahaloma, and all I am is your blind, useless sister—if we’re even siblings at all. Just a prophecy’s byproduct.” Her lips twist in a bitter half-smile. “Imagine that.”
She laughs once, a choked sound, and lifts her head to “look” at Linh’s face, though her sightless eyes cannot truly see him. “I wish you weren’t some divine child,” she whispers, voice raw. “I wish I wasn’t forced into this madness. Scared that men, starving and crazed, would hunt us down. All because you bear a curse they call a blessing.”
She falters, pressing a hand to her mouth as a sob threatens. “I’ve… I’ve spent so long locked away, praying you’d come home each night, never knowing if you’d return soaked in blood or if some new battle would swallow you whole. Linh, that’s not living!” Her words crack like glass. “Gods, it’s a nightmare.”
Outside, the thunder intensifies as the flood rages. Mihin can feel the boards shifting beneath her knees with each jolt. She steadies herself and lifts her chin, tears threading down her cheeks. “I would’ve taken an ordinary life, you know?” She laughs bitterly, wiping the tears with the back of her hand. “I would’ve accepted being blind—happily—if it meant you and I could live in a small house somewhere, raising goats or chickens or something mundane. You and I could have been married to a good husband and wife, and we would see each other once a week or month, and I would be fine with that.”
Her breath stutters. “We could have listened to the wind in the trees, or… or boiled water for tea every morning without the taste of blood in the air.” She sniffs, frustration mingling with sorrow. “I’m so tired of tasting death on everything we eat.”
Her tears drip onto Linh’s battered torso, forming tiny wet spots on his ragged tunic. “When Auntie died, I thought, this is it—we’re cursed, that we’d never escape this violent fate.” She gestures helplessly, though she knows he can’t respond. “If only… if only we weren’t who they said we were. Maybe we could have grown old in a quiet place, sharing silly jokes, guiding me around the orchard I always dreamed of.”
She draws in a ragged breath, hands clenching into fists. “Instead, I’m here, waiting for a city to collapse around me, bandaging you up and wondering if I’ll hear your last breath.” Her voice cracks again. “I hate it. I hate this destiny we never chose.”
Slowly, she leans over Linh, brushing her lips to his clammy forehead, tears slipping onto his skin. “I’m sorry for wishing you weren’t special. But I want to live—I wanted to live. Not like this, in fear and darkness, feeding on horrors no one should endure. It’s no life at all.”
A heavy quiet falls, broken only by Linh’s soft, uneven breathing and the faint dripping of floodwater below. Mihin closes her eyes behind the blindfold. “I can’t change the prophecy,” she whispers, her voice a thread of anguish. “But I can hope, can’t I? Maybe—maybe after all this bloodshed, we find a corner of the world to hide, even if we’re crippled and blind and haunted by what we’ve done.”
Mihin kneels by Linh’s side, tears dried to a crust of salt on her cheeks. The hush in the cottage throbs with tension—any moment, the Moukopl could break down the door. She grips Linh’s uninjured shoulder, voice low and urgent. “We can’t stay,” she says, trembling. “They’ll come… they’ll find us. I won’t let them take you.”
Linh stirs, half delirious, his cracked lips moving but no sound emerging.
Mihin forces a hopeful smile, even though her blindfold hides her own anguished eyes. “When we get away, we’ll find a place far from here,” she whispers. “We’ll eat fresh bread. Real bread, with that golden crust and soft inside—do you remember, Linh?” A stuttered laugh escapes her. “We’ll have honey, dripping in sweet syrup, and maybe even grilled fish. Oh gods, I’d do anything for a fresh piece of fish…”
She rises on shaky legs. The flood-damp attic boards protest, and another shudder echoes in the distance as some part of An’alm likely collapses. Mihin tries to ignore it, tries to focus on the fantasy she’s weaving for him. “We’ll share all of it, Linh,” she murmurs, breath hitching.
She pauses to snag Linh’s traveling cape from a bent iron hook. “I’ll keep you warm,” she mumbles. “We’ll get out of this city… a day’s walk, maybe, if—”
Her voice catches as the cape drags something from the shadows of the hearth: the small sulfuric-smelling leather pouch, half-concealed behind smoldering coals, Linh had left behind in a hurry. She senses the faint scrape but doesn’t realize what it is—until the pouch tumbles into the fireplace and the smell floods her nostrils.
A heartbeat of silence. Then—
BOOM.
A blinding flash detonates from the fire, rattling the entire cottage. Mihin’s scream rips free, but it’s lost in the roar of exploding gunpowder. Flames blossom into a hungry maelstrom, engulfing the pitiful furniture, the walls, her. She’s thrown back by the force, arms flailing as she slams into a table that splinters under her weight.
Smoke and embers choke the air, the flames devouring every corner of the dwelling in seconds. The heat becomes unbearable, blistering Mihin’s exposed skin. “Linh!” she shrieks, voice frayed and desperate. Her hands scrabble on the watery floor, trying to find the stairs, trying to stand despite the agony. Another explosion—smaller, but enough to split a timber beam overhead. Sparks rain down like burning meteors.
In the attic, Linh’s eyes flutter open just long enough to glimpse the orange inferno racing up through the floorboards. The world pulses in a hellish glow. He tries to move, tries to speak, but pain clamps his lungs. The rush of flame and collapsing wood overpowers his senses, leaving him paralyzed.
Mihin fights to crawl upstairs, coughing violently as smoke sears her lungs. The intensity of the blaze makes every breath agony. Timbers snap and groan around her—cascading like a fiery avalanche. Her screams twist into anguished cries for Linh, for mercy. For anything.
Above, Linh’s battered body slumps in the flickering chaos. His breathing is shallow, half-conscious. The sweltering heat scorches his face and shoulders. Flames lick at the rafters, devouring them with crackling triumph. The cottage itself seems to wail, beams tearing free in a crescendo of destruction.
A final support post buckles. Walls tilt inward. Mihin’s last ragged scream knifes through the uproar, and then the roof caves with a splintering crash. Smoke billows in a black wave, swallowing up her voice. The entire structure crumples, sending shards of flaming timber spearing the air.
Amid the rubble, Linh’s hand twitches—gasping for life. Glowing embers drop across his back, searing flesh. His consciousness flickers in and out, a nightmare of pain and suffocating blackness. Thunderous echoes of wood collapsing drown any final pleas. In that catastrophic cacophony, the cottage dies—enveloping Mihin’s cries, her very existence, in a cocoon of fire.
When the last beam gives way, all that remains is a roaring pyre. Orange tongues of flame dance into the night sky, painting it with ash and despair. Heavy smoke pulses upward, carrying the stench of scorched flesh. Linh, half-pinned under debris, hardly breathes. His skin is ravaged, blistered, ashen.
...
Tendrils of smoke drift from the charred remains of the cottage. A small contingent of Moukopl soldiers picks through the rubble, gingerly overturning scorched beams and debris in search of survivors or spoils. Their torches glow weakly in the half-light, sending plumes of ash swirling into the cold air.
Standing at the edge of the wreckage is Li Song, his armor battered, his hair tousled from battle. His eyes, once burning with unquenchable zeal, now hold a strange stillness. The stench of burned flesh mingles with the damp odor of the receding flood. He observes in silence as his men probe a collapsed section of the cottage wall, the embers still hissing with residual heat.
“General,” one soldier calls, flinching as a warped beam breaks under his boot. “There’s… something here.”
Li Song’s gaze sharpens. He steps forward, boots grinding the ashen remains underfoot. Two soldiers strain to lift a cracked roof timber, revealing a huddled, blackened figure beneath. Gasps ripple through the troops. The figure’s skin is charred in places, left arm reduced to a ragged stump, face contorted in agony. Yet, impossibly, the chest still rises and falls in shallow, ragged breaths.
The soldier almost recoils at the sight. “He’s… alive?”
Li Song crouches, his expression tightening. Slowly, he extends a gauntleted hand to brush aside fragments of broken wood. The boy—no, the young man—shudders in pain. His hair is singed, half melted onto the raw flesh of his scalp, and his body is ravaged by cuts, blistered burns, and grievous wounds. Despite it all, his remaining eye flickers, milky and unfocused.
An officer sucks in a breath, grimacing at the horrifying spectacle. “Should I… finish him?” he mutters, swallowing hard.
But Li Song ignores him. A strange tremor ripples through the general’s shoulders, something like awe or dread. Memories rise unbidden: the teachings of the White Mother, the old prophecies whispered among the temples. That face—twisted by fire—somehow resonates with an unearthly light in Li Song’s mind, like a faint halo cutting through the smoke.
He exhales shakily, dropping to one knee. “White Mother of the Turquoise Pond…” he murmurs, his voice barely audible. A sensation swells in his chest, part fear, part reverence. The child of destiny—the words pulse behind his eyes. The scorched figure twitches, mouth shaping a soundless groan.
The youth’s ravaged features strike Li Song with a clarity that cracks the ice around his heart. He sees not the monstrous rebel, not the butcher who devoured men, but an instrument, a vessel of some cosmic plan—an echo of the White Mother’s own prophecy. He can almost feel a divine pulse, an otherworldly presence radiating from this dying man.
“Stand aside,” Li Song orders in a hushed tone. Soldiers around him falter, exchanging uneasy looks. He leans in, sliding his arms beneath the charred remains of the rebel. Linh’s body spasms weakly. Blood and burned flesh cling to Li Song’s gauntlets, yet the general lifts him with surprising gentleness.
“G-General,” one of the men stammers, “that’s a Siza fiend—he—”
Li Song’s gaze snaps to him, and the soldier silences at once. The usual steel in Li Song’s eyes is tempered now by something akin to wonder. Holding Linh’s broken body against his chest, Li Song rises. A hush falls over the company; the only sound is the wind rattling the skeleton of the ruined cottage.
“Send for a medic,” Li Song says, quietly but firmly. “Fetch blankets, water… anything we can use. Quickly.” A ripple of disbelief crosses his men’s faces, but none dare question him.
As they scramble to obey, Li Song stands motionless with Linh cradled in his arms, gazing at the rebel’s ruined face. Thoughts tear through his mind—the unstoppable hunger for blood, the doctrine that drove him to drown this city. And in an instant, all that rage and certainty shatters.
Could this truly be the White Mother’s child? The question surges like a wave. The old texts spoke of a child born to unify suffering souls, to guide mortals to a final paradise… and Li Song, in his quest for conquest, may have just destroyed the very place where that child once lived. The irony buries itself deep in his conscience.
Linh’s cracked lips move silently, his breath rasping. Despite his agony, some flicker of life remains in his single unburned eye. Li Song, transfixed, whispers in a trembling voice, “Enough slaughter.” A hush seizes his chest, tears lurking behind his hardened gaze.
Where before he commanded armies to commit atrocity after atrocity, now a profound calm envelops him, as if all the bloodshed matters little compared to saving this one boy—this mythic presence. He feels the White Mother’s gaze upon him, judging his next choice.
Carefully, he turns away from the wreckage, from the stunned soldiers. Step by step, he carries Linh through the smoky dawn. Each footfall echoes a vow: No more carnage. A sense of solemn redemption tightens his heart, a penance for all he unleashed.
Somewhere behind them, an officer dares to speak: “Should we finish clearing the forest, General?”
Li Song doesn’t pause. “No,” he murmurs over his shoulder, tone clipped but resolute. “We’ve done enough. Tend to the survivors.” He presses Linh closer, mindful of every ragged breath. The vow resonates in him like a tolling bell.
In that moment, the rest of the Moukopl troops sense something shift—Li Song’s rampage has ended. A holy hush settles around them, as if a new chapter has been opened. By cradling the battered rebel prince, Li Song seems to cradle the entire legacy of this war, holding it precariously between life and oblivion.
No one stops him. The White Mother’s child—charred, broken—has found an unlikely savior. And as Li Song walks away, carrying Linh through the ruin, a single spark catches a Moukopl banner—its dark fabric igniting with a sudden flare, the flames racing up the pole before it crumbles to the ground.