Clutching at his side with both hands, Ravi Jie staggered alone through the candle-lit hallway. His wound throbbed with an agonising sensation like the twisting of a rusted razor at every step. He knew that it had reopened- a smeared trail of red followed along the wall as he walked against it- he knew, but carried so little energy within himself that there was no room in his mind to worry. To muster the strength enough for his impossibly weighty limbs was all that he could manage. His arms felt as though they had been strapped with metal plates, and the effort of standing was equivalent to forcing himself against a thousand invisible hands that fought to keep him down, even keeping his eyes open and focused was a fighting struggle. Growls sounded from his stomach loudly and persistently. It was a cold, empty pit of acid and stone.
A loud thwunk rang out as Ravi threw himself against the shōji and lurched it open. His breath left as a spiralling white cloud in the frigid air of the snowswept, night-shadowed courtyard. Drab rags around his waist and a bloodied dressing over his wound were all that clothed him, neither provided any protection against the sharp, uninviting conditions that he stumbled out into. Two colours dominated the landscape: the distinctly dark brown of wood from both the shrine’s structures and the bare sakura, and an immaculate white that shrouded all in its blanket of brilliance, topping roofs and torii gates alike. Ravi stepped away from the doorway and immediately collapsed in an untidy heap at the base of the veranda’s stairs. He grimaced, biting back his agony. When he managed to lift his head and surveyed the courtyard around him, his attention fell upon another solitary stranger in the night. She was a maiden sat alone at the edge of a frozen pond, motionlessly peering at the opaque, starless sky above.
Crawling through the snow was an arduous endeavour, Ravi’s hands would sink several inches into the bed of white crystals that pierced his hand with numbing cold, melting as it stole the warmth from his reddened skin. If the maiden noticed his approach, she made no attempt at acknowledgement. In truth, though she was familiar in her features, they were shared by most of her rank and gave little differentiation from the others of Hema Shrine. Only her mask gave any true indication of her identity, a mask that Ravi recognised immediately. It was from behind that carved white wood that the warning of the decay essence had been given.
“Tsuya,” Ravi said breathlessly, and tugged lightly at the ends of her red dress. She turned, startled. The Jishun fell backward in shock at what remained of her face. From the bridge of her nose to the centre of her forehead, all facial features now existed solely as a knobbled corrugation of healing flesh. Her eyes had been burned from their sockets, not unlike others he had seen before, and appeared to have been caused by the placing of large, smouldering coals atop her eyelids. Ravi cringed at the thought; the pain she must have endured during the grisly ordeal was unimaginable. Apparently aware of his reaction, Tsuya uncomfortably hid her face with an unsightly scarred hand until she had donned her mask.
“You are fortunate to be alive. What do you want from me, Ravi?” she asked tiredly, her voice slightly muffled.
“Only to ask what happened that night, though I can see it’s been quite some time since then. Did you do that? Your eyes-” Ravi motioned toward her face and immediately regretted doing so. He glanced down sheepishly.
“Please do not make mention of them, nothing good has come of their removal. Any follower of the Heavens is either a fool or direly misguided.” Tsuya’s voice was slick with condemnation.
“I’m sure you can hear the irony in your own words.”
“Ashi and I were servants by circumstance, not by faith, and we blindly followed in our mother’s footsteps. The transcendence these zealots seek so dearly amounts to nothing more than wishful thinking.”
“So you didn’t choose the Ten Heavens as your masters, but what about the man on the mountain? You knew he was there, didn’t you?”
Tsuya looked to Hema’s peak. Even lacking eyes, she found it with ease.
“His name was Seki Shinohara. Once a foot soldier serving under our previous Emperor Naga, I thought there was a dwindling glimmer of kindness in that man's heart. He proved me wrong, time and time again. It seems I was blind long before I pressed hot coals into my eyes.”
“What was he doing here? His war ended over a decade ago.”
Tsuya laughed, “His war never ended until your friend ran a sword through his throat. Shinohara was devoted to the Naga family, and he was even more devoted to his country. He maintained his post through the years even as his friends succumbed to the rotfever. One collapsed after another, and he made certain not to interfere. Shinohara ensured both he and his post were untouched by disease.”
Ravi shook his head, “But why? What was the point in remaining here? Sengoku Naga is dead. His nation was crushed.”
“Sen has grown from one volcanic city to over two thirds of its original size in the last twelve years, and while Sengoku Naga might have disappeared before the Earthen Cataclysm, his brother is still very much alive. The man that stabbed you was an informant for Sūdoku Naga.”
“Sūdoku is alive? Where?”
“That much I was never allowed to know. I visited the soldier on a weekly basis, sometimes more when I got particularly bored with the ceaseless shrine duties. We traded information, he would ask about those visiting the mountain and then write reports to his master.”
“And in return?”
“He would tell me whatever I wished to hear. After so many recitals of Sengoku Naga’s sermons, I wonder if he ever grew tired of the words he fought for. I know that I didn’t. He sang the ancient songs of Senma, a time when our war was with the demons that plagued the continent, and told of a future where we might live without the incendiary shackles of our false idols.”
Ravi felt a rising irritation within himself. “You deny the existence of the Ten?”
“Oh, I only wish that I could deny them. Their existence is so grand that it would eclipse our own given the opportunity.”
“It’s freezing out here. Hurry and make some sense.”
“I felt it, Ravi. Even from its throne on the surface of Zetian I could feel it. The Tenth of the Heavens, a bleak, branching horror that held a planet within its grasp. The only reason I still draw breath is thanks to my lack of vision.”
“Saved by blindness? Wouldn’t be so sure,” Ravi replied, shifting onto his rear to relieve the burning cold upon his knees. He shivered terribly.
“There’s nothing to be sure of. Have you seen Lin tonight?” Tsuya asked. “She might have been able to testify the same, were her mind not shattered like porcelain.”
“Lin? What do you mean? Is she safe? What about Fuu?” Ravi eyed her warily.
“Just fine, actually. A little tired though,” a voice came from behind. Ravi felt his wasting muscles relax before he had even the chance to glance back. There was no mistaking the voice of his sister. Wrapped in a thick woollen blanket, she stood mere paces away.
“Fuu,” he breathed.
At his side, Tsuya hugged her knees to her chest. “Things hide in the dark that should not be found, and our Heavens do not think highly of humanity’s prying eyes. Sio tells me that Lin’s loss of sense is a kindness, the very best that she can offer. The girl may be able to walk, speak and otherwise live a normal life as if nothing had ever happened, a chance that my sister does not share.”
“The fault for that lies with you,” Fuu replied disdainfully. “Come, Ravi, it will do you no good to listen to the words of one so lacking in sanity. Leave the poor wretch be.”
Adjusting her mask with a shivering hand, Tsuya rose to face the Jishu.
“You are not mistaken. The fault for her death indeed lies with me. All my pain is self-inflicted, though only at surface level. The events of that day were set into motion before you even arrived at this shrine. Do you even know why your brother had to fight for you at the mountain’s summit?”
The question seemed to pass straight through Fuu. She gave no reaction as she crouched beside her brother.
Tsuya continued nonetheless, “Your affliction was merely a symptom of the decay essence working its pestilent influence into your body, just as it spreads into all things. You were its food, Miss Jie. You were nothing more than a source of energy for a parasite that takes the name of Heaven. The First of Ten drove you into that sorry state, and consequently created the woman you see before you. Just as the once-emperor Sengoku Naga told it, we are all the playthings of Heaven.”
“Is that so?” Fuu asked, taking no notice. It was only when she threw Ravi’s arm over her shoulder that he realised just how weak he had become. He walked on legs that were each as thin as a drying pole, and his drooping arms wouldn’t have looked out of place on a pine tree. The skin of his chest sank deeply between the pronounced ridges of his ribcage and collarbones. He shared more than a slight semblance with a dried corpse.
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“Lady Fuu, you would do well to heed my words-”
“And what exactly would that entail? What good comes from knowing that we are haunted by Heavens? Even if I believed you, a woman that burned out her own eyes, what do you expect me to do about it?” challenged the Jishu.
“Before his death, Seki Shinohara spoke of the year of broken chains in which Sengoku Naga rejected his false belief. If you could only find his brother Sūdoku, then perhaps-”
“Then perhaps nothing. Find another to chase after your lost emperor. The path ahead of me is my own, I will not fight nor sacrifice for the idea of a greater good, only for that which matters to me. Goodbye, Tsuya.”
Ravi could feel the maiden’s stare even from behind her mask as they crossed the courtyard once more. He kept his gaze ahead, focused but wavering, struggling against the heavy forces of fatigue.
The drying smears of red that marked both wood and paper traced back fully to the room in which Ravi had awoken beside a sleeping Ai. He hadn’t roused her, the drive to see for himself what the distant night’s clash had won had been too great to even acknowledge her presence.
“How did you know where to find me?” Ravi mumbled, struggling to stay awake.
“We were still gathered in the Hall of Heavens until just now. Yu heard a noise outside, and the snowy trail of my brother’s blood served as an obvious pointer for the rest of the way.”
“What were you doing in that hall so late in the night?”
“Does such a thing as a lady’s privacy no longer exist?” Fuu flashed a smirk, but continued, “The hall hosts a small circle that discusses the near and far future. There have been a great deal of extensive plans laid out over the course of these months you spent asleep, plans that you have a significant role to play in.”
“You attended the Summit of Sanzan in my place,” Ravi croaked.
“Yes, but do not think about such things now. You were unconscious for nearly three months. Seeing you recover is all that I care for at present,” she said, stopping outside of his room and lifting his arm from her shoulder. Ravi reached to slide the door aside, but immediately found himself locked in his sister’s embrace. Her hands wrapped tightly across his back, so much so that his ribs felt as though they might collapse. The discomfort was scarcely enough to outweigh the feeling of contentment that spread like a warmth through him as he leaned wearily into her arms.
“I never gave up on you,” Ravi assured her.
“Nor did I you,” Fuu replied, pressing her face into his shoulder. They stood like that for a long while. He felt her breath upon his skin and eventually closed his eyes. For the first time he could remember, he finally felt at ease.
More company awaited Ravi behind the sliding door when the time came to retire to his room. The woollen quilt he had awoken with was still strewn beside his futon where he had left it, stretching across tatami mats to where Ai Mitsuki now sat upright, wrapped in her own quilt up to her bare shoulders. She watched with tired eyes as Fuu sat Ravi down and disappeared in search of tools for first aid, saying nothing during the wait for her return. The weak flow of blood had already ceased from Ravi’s reopened wound when Fuu came bearing a hastily prepared kit of needles, silk and ointments. With some light to see the damage more clearly, it was easy to see now that the once grievous hole through his abdomen had now receded to the size of a flat coin. He made no protest when the metal passed through his broken flesh, far too tired to truly feel the pain.
“Why won’t you cry?” Ai queried. Her mouth was hidden behind her quilt, and her blank stare betrayed no intent. Ravi met her gaze briefly as he considered an answer, unsure of how to approach a conversation with her after she had spent so much time alone, but was soon swallowed by the enveloping depths of sleep before he could manage a reply. It was a dreamless night.
Ravi awoke with his wrists bound loosely in rope and his face buried in a mane of thick mustard hair. Still in a drowsy stupor, he pushed himself into a seated position and cast his eyes around what he expected to be the floor of his room only to realise that he was no longer in the shrine upon Hema. Between his legs was a beige leather saddle, and beneath the saddle was the wide, sturdy back of a steppe horse. The mountainside opened into a white marshland ahead of them; Mogu Forest stretched out as a bleak line across the dawning horizon. This was the trail they had walked before on their journey to the mountain. Months had gone by since then, the change in seasons was evidence enough, the wind was cool and crisp and seemed to pass right through the sage-coloured coat Ravi found himself dressed with. Frost and snow laced the tips of bulrushes and tall grasses; the lowland waters were topped with a thin layer of half-solid ice upon which specks of dirt were blown by intermittent gusts of chilling air.
Another horse rode up from behind bearing a rider of ghostly white. None too pleased about Ai’s tight grip upon its proud hickory mane, it trotted along agitatedly. Her back was arched in her attempt to hold onto her mount.
“What’s going on? Where’s Fuu?” Ravi asked in a daze. He hadn’t yet decided whether she was part of a dream or reality. Ai shot upright at the sound of his voice.
“You woke sooner than I expected,” she said stiffly. “The lords and ladies have taken their leave from the shrine- all of them, including your sister. They did not deign to tell me where they were headed.”
“Then why aren’t we with them? Where do you think you’re taking me?” he replied, struggling with his bindings. The rope had been tied in a knot around his horse’s reins.
“What loyalty do I owe them? Sio has other plans for you, Jishun Ravi Jie, as do I.”
“I don’t give a damn about anyone else’s plans, she’s my sister! How can you expect me to just abandon her?” Ravi shouted, dismounting his horse. He leaned, pulling the rope to turn the beast back to from where they had come.
“Don’t waste your time, Ravi, she’s gone! She left you. They all did. None of them spared a thought for their saviour when the time came to move on.”
“A saviour to whom? That bastard put a spear through my stomach before I could even react.” Ravi leaned with all his weight, his fresh leather boots breaking the frozen earth below his feet, but still the horse stubbornly refused to move. “Stupid beast, damn it all!” he cursed, collapsing where he stood. His energy quickly waned.
“Stop struggling. Even if you made it back, there’s nobody waiting there for you,” Ai pointed out, dismounting her horse cautiously. A soft hand took hold of Ravi’s bindings. “You are a saviour, Ravi, even if you don’t know it from that overwhelming sense of weariness. Tsuya, Fuu, Lin, they all owe their lives to you.”
“And how do you figure that?” Ravi snapped at her.
“Have you forgotten that night at Hema’s summit? Our victory stemmed from you. That girl, Lin, she was fully aware of the soldier’s presence even before he made his advance. She used you as a distraction.”
“To what end?” Ravi scoffed, “Lin volunteered her help, she had nothing to gain from his defeat.” Ai gave a slight smile of concern and took her own place on the frozen dirt, sitting upon her knees.
“She won information. The two were far enough away that I couldn’t hear the questions she put to the man before she ran her sword through his neck, but I could see at least that he gave her the answers she wanted. That was the first occasion in which you protected us with your life, it cost you a grievous wound the shape of a spearhead. The second came shortly after when you alerted us to the sharpshooter atop that torii gate. The third time you saved Lin’s life, she stole your consciousness. The effects still continue to show themselves.”
“Being run through tends to leave a mark. I shouldn’t even be alive.”
“It was a terrible wound, there’s no denying that. But Ravi, it simply doesn’t take three months for someone to wake up after what you went through. When I brought you to the shrine attendants, they said that the spearhead had missed your vital organs, or at least passed cleanly enough through that the damage to them was minimal, and your treatment came soon afterwards. You were hurt, but far from dead.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that, Ai. I remember well enough what it felt like when he stuck me like he was skewering a piece of meat. That wound is still fresh enough to bleed.”
“And yet still not enough to leave you in a coma. You slept for three months because your body was drained of so much energy that you could barely keep yourself alive. After the fighting had finished, I found you ensnared in a bed of thorny vines, sapped of all strength. Once again, you have Lin to thank for that. She used your body as fuel for the strike that defeated the soldier of Sen.”
Ravi said nothing. Though he was solemnly silent on the surface, his mind was a maelstrom of thought. A part of him wanted to believe in Lin like he had before, she had never given him any cause for doubt nor concern since they had met in the forest of Mogu. However, a separate suspicion had begun to emerge to the surface- a feeling close to realisation. There had been no real trust between any of those gathered at the shrine, he hadn’t known Lin any longer than a few days when he had set out with her to the summit of Hema, and Sio was a woman that had shown less care for her own daughter than others would for a house plant.
Now that he entertained the thought, had there ever really been a good reason for Lin to have even joined him that night? It was entirely possible that she had acted on some ulterior motive, using his struggle to save his sister as a means to her own ends. What reason was there to believe in anyone other than himself?
“Even if Lin truly betrayed me, Fuu could never do the same. She only came all this way because of what she sacrificed for me in the past. Why throw away everything for me to then cast me aside with the rest?”
“For someone so familiar with burning bridges, what’s another inferno?”
“But there isn’t anything out here for her. She knows no-one else but me, where would she go?”
“You have been asleep for months. Since she woke, she has known anyone else but you. People move on, Ravi. You too shall do the same.”
He wanted to tell Ai that she was wrong, that Fuu wouldn’t abandon him for her life, but his words would have fallen weightlessly in the reality of their situation. Fuu was gone. Everyone had gone and left Ravi behind. His weakness had become more grave than ever before, so much that he strained to stand with his own strength. For his ordeals and a struggle against death itself, what did he have to show? He was alone without recourse or reward.
“Resolutions may not come today, but they shall not hold off forever. Let me see you smile,” Ai said softly, lifting his chin with a finger so that she could meet his eyes. “If you cannot hold your head high, then I shall hold it for you. If you haven’t the strength to walk, then I will stay and walk alongside you. We’ll go where time takes us together.”
Ai rose to her feet and extended a hand that Ravi took hesitantly. He still held on as the slim woman drew him into her soft bosom and shared with him her warmth. His eyes drifted shut, and he allowed himself to relax in her embrace. Embarrassment would have been a waste of energy.
“Where are we headed?” he asked when he finally broke away. Ai smiled coyly.
“The shores you once promised. Then we can see about fulfilling the duty left to you by Sio. Hanshi awaits.”