Dawn broke over the northern ridges like a blade drawn in silence — sharp, pale, and deadly. The wind was colder here, brushing over ancient stones that hadn't felt footsteps in years.
Lin Wuyin stood still beneath a dying pine tree, her eyes on the horizon. She felt it — a qi signature threading through the air like smoke before fire. Unfamiliar, yet eerily resonant. Like a song once heard in a dream.
"She's close," Wuyin murmured.
Yujin, beside her, adjusted the grip on her fan. "Someone from the cult?"
"No," Wuyin said. "Something older."
They walked for half a li before the clearing revealed itself. A quiet valley, choked with mist. And in the center — a figure cloaked in grey, meditating atop a blackened pillar. Raven feathers scattered at her feet.
She looked older than Wuyin — twenty-five, maybe twenty-six Her posture was poised, her aura burning in slow, coiled embers. And when she opened her eyes, they glowed with the hue of dying coals.
"You've grown," the girl said.
Wuyin's hand drifted to her blade. "Have we met?"
The girl tilted her head. "Not like this. But I remember holding your hand. You were the youngest. Quiet. Always watching."
Wuyin froze.
A memory fluttered up — dim, fragmented — of a warm hand brushing her hair back, of being cradled under a moonless sky.
"You're one of them," she said, voice low.
"I am Mei Ruhen," the girl said softly. "First Flame of the Monarch's Trials. Candidate of the Red Ember Path."
Yujin stepped forward, frowning. "And what do you want?"
Mei Ruhen's eyes didn't leave Wuyin. "Justice."
Wuyin's grip on her blade tightened. "You were there when the youngest candidate died."
"She was too kind," Mei said. "Too pure. She trusted the wrong one."
"Was it you?" Wuyin asked, gaze steady.
Mei's smile was bitter. "If I had been, you wouldn't be standing here. I tried to stop it. But I wasn't strong enough. And by the time I found her… she was gone. You had already taken her place."
The air trembled. Not with killing intent — but grief.
Wuyin didn't lower her blade. Instead, she asked, voice cool and sharp:
"Are you the one who wears a crown of ashes?"
Mei blinked slowly. For a breath, the silence seemed to stretch across lifetimes.
"No," she said. "But I've seen her. And she weeps for what she lost."
Wuyin studied her. No lies. No guilt. But sorrow. Deep and quiet.
"Then someone's stirring the past on purpose," Wuyin murmured. "Trying to pit us against each other."
Mei gave a grim nod. "He always said the last test would be the cruelest. That the true heir would have to overcome the others. Not by strength — but by surviving their hate."
Yujin narrowed her eyes. "A test of faith."
"A test of division," Wuyin corrected softly. "But I've seen what real division looks like. I won't fall for it again."
Mei's expression softened.
She rose, light and graceful, like flame dancing on oil. "The second and third candidates are coming. They'll try to kill you. But not out of malice — they believe what they were told."
"Then I'll ask them too," Wuyin said, sheathing her blade. "About the crown. And I'll look them in the eyes."
Mei stepped closer and pulled something from her robes — a thin slip of parchment, yellowed with age and sealed in the ink of the Monarch.
"The real inheritance isn't just martial techniques," she said. "It's fate, carved across lives."
Wuyin took the slip, eyes scanning the contents.
A map. A hidden chamber. A pulse of memory stirred in her blood.
"When you're ready," Mei said, "go there. If you survive what lies within… the others will have no choice but to acknowledge you."
"And you?" Wuyin asked.
"I've already acknowledged you."
She turned, her cloak fluttering.
"Just don't die," Mei whispered. "She wouldn't want that."
Then she vanished into the mist.
---
Back at camp, Yujin brewed tea in silence, her eyes never leaving Wuyin's face.
"She didn't seem like an enemy," Yujin finally said.
"She's not," Wuyin replied. "But the others will be. Not because they want to be — but because they think they must."
Her fingers closed over the parchment. Her next steps would not just be her own. They were the echoes of a child's death, the weight of another life's pain.
But this time, she would walk them as herself.
And she would not die easily.