The border was a breath away.
Wuyin and Yujin walked a narrow mountain pass at dawn, the clouds below their feet and the wind sharp against their robes. The forest had faded behind them, swallowed by shadow and memory, but its echoes still followed Wuyin like footsteps too quiet to place.
They hadn't spoken of the voice in the chamber. Or the robe that had rejected her touch.
But Wuyin hadn't forgotten.
The further they traveled, the more she felt it — something inside her stirring. Not her own memories, but those buried deep within the bones she now called her own.
Each time she closed her eyes, a fragment appeared.
A girl with pale hands. A woman in silver robes smiling as she placed her palm on the child's forehead. A sense of peace… followed by betrayal. Then darkness.
"Run."
That voice again. The child's last thought before the forest claimed her.
"Wuyin."
She turned. Yujin had stopped several steps ahead, her hand resting near the hidden blade at her waist.
"There's someone up ahead," she said quietly.
Wuyin's senses sharpened. Qi — faint, disciplined, and well-hidden — flickered beneath the rocks along the pass.
Bounty hunters?
Or something worse?
Then, a step echoed from behind them.
They were surrounded.
Wuyin drew her blade in one smooth motion, stepping to shield Yujin as a figure in a hooded white mask emerged from the stone arch ahead.
"Lin Wuyin of the unnamed path," the masked figure said. "And Bai Yujin of the Bai Clan caravans. The bounty on your heads is generous."
Yujin narrowed her eyes. "Which sect sent you?"
"No sect. Just coins and contracts." The hunter tilted their head. "But you've walked too close to something forbidden, girl of the forest. You should have died with the one whose bones you wear."
That made Wuyin's breath still.
She moved before Yujin could speak — her blade flashing like silver light, aimed not at the hunter's heart, but their mask.
Clang.
The strike was parried — but barely.
The hunter stumbled back, laughing. "Ah. So the rumors are true. You are her shadow now."
Wuyin's eyes were cold. "I'm no one's shadow."
But the words tasted hollow.
Because she remembered that mask now — not the hunter, but the style. The curved hilts, the awkward pauses between movements — it matched one of the fragmented dreams she had seen.
A friend. A sparring partner.
Someone the original girl trusted.
"Did you know her?" Wuyin asked, her voice sharper than her blade.
The hunter's smile flickered.
"I knew the real heir of the Silent Monarch," they said. "And you are not her."
Wuyin's qi surged.
Their blades met again — and this time, Wuyin didn't hesitate.
One strike broke the mask. A woman's face stared back at her — older now, scarred by grief, eyes haunted.
"She was a kind girl," the woman said softly, staggering. "She wasn't meant to die."
"She didn't die alone," Wuyin said. "I was with her in her last breath."
That stunned silence lingered.
The woman dropped her sword. "Then… protect her legacy. Or leave it behind. But don't wear it half-heartedly. You'll shame her otherwise."
Then she vanished into the mist.
Yujin stepped forward, her fingers brushing Wuyin's hand. "Are you alright?"
Wuyin didn't answer immediately.
"I don't know what I'm carrying anymore," she murmured. "Her will? Her power? Or just… her regrets."
Yujin looked at her. "Do you want to stop?"
"No." Wuyin closed her eyes. "I want to finish it. I just need to learn… how to make it mine."
Yujin's grip tightened. "Then I'll walk with you. All the way to the end."
The wind howled across the peaks.
But their footsteps didn't falter.
—
Meanwhile, in a sealed chamber beneath a crumbling ruin, Yan Zhaoxing knelt before a lake of glass, its surface as still as death.
"Your daughter grows too quickly," murmured the elder behind him.
The cult master didn't respond at first. His gaze remained locked on the unmoving water, watching something only he could see.
"She has her mother's cunning," he said at last. "But she carries my blood."
"And the vagrant girl?"
Zhaoxing's lips curved faintly.
"She stole a legacy." A pause. "I wonder… will she choke on it?"