Choices and Consequences

Embers Beneath the Ashes

The war is over but its ghosts remained.
Ash still drifted in the air, falling like snow over the charred remains of the outer provinces. Forests once green were now blackened skeletons. Rivers ran thick with soot. Villages that once bustled with life were reduced to cinders and silence.
But life—fragile, defiant—pressed on.

And among that life, in the shadow of smoke and memory, Mojing, Nainai, and the child moved ever northward.
They had no name to travel under. No destination save distance. But they had purpose.
It had been weeks since the fall of the capital.

Nainai walked slower now. Her strength had begun to return, but exhaustion clung to her like a second skin. Still, she held the baby girl to her chest with the fierce protectiveness of one who had lost everything else.

Mojing bore the rest. The weight of survival. The burden of decisions. The quiet vigilance of a man who expected danger around every bend in the path.
They had found shelter in an abandoned shrine on a hillside. The roof was cracked, but it kept out the rain. Inside, the scent of damp stone and burnt incense lingered—like the memory of prayers once offered by villagers long gone.

Mojing set down a bundle of firewood he had gathered and returned to check on the child.
She was sleeping—small, warm, swaddled in a blanket that Mojing had stolen from a roadside trader's unattended cart. Her tiny brow furrowed in sleep.
"She is strong," Nainai whispered. "She didn't even cry today."
Mojing nodded. "She has to be."

He didn't say what they both knew—that babies who cried too loudly in a world at war didn't live long.
They ate a meal of foraged roots and dried rice Mojing had bartered for with a silver hairpin Nainai still carried. It wasn't enough, but it kept them going.
That night, the wind howled across the shrine's broken walls.
And Mojing dreamed.

He stood again in the palace. The fires blazed around him, but he did not run. Fenghuang screamed in pain, Tang shouted through blood, and the enemy surged like a tide of black armour and void eyes.
But then something changed.
The room slowed. The colours dulled.
A figure appeared in the shadows—tall, cloaked in grey, face hidden beneath a veil of mist.
It did not speak, but Mojing could feel its gaze settle on him. Then lower, to the child he cradled in the dream, now grown—her hair dark as ink, her presence radiant and terrible.
"You run," the voice said at last, though the figure's mouth did not move. "But you are not forgotten. She is not forgotten."
Mojing tried to speak, to ask what it meant—but the figure faded like smoke.
He woke with a start, breath caught in his throat.
Outside, the wind had stilled. The fire had burned low.
And the child... was awake. Watching him.
Not crying. Not afraid. Just... watching.

⸻

Refuge of the Forgotten

They left the shrine at dawn, and three days later, crossed a mountain ridge and entered a valley shrouded in mist. There, nestled between weeping pines, they found an old mansion. The gates hung partially open, vines crawling along the stone walls. The once-grand residence stood weathered by time but intact.
An old man stood at the edge of the courtyard, sweeping fallen leaves. His long robes were plain but well-kept, and a sword, rusted in its sheath, rested against a nearby pillar.

Mojing bowed low. "Forgive us, elder. We seek only shelter for the night."
The old man turned. His face was etched with deep lines—grief had carved its history there—but his eyes held quiet clarity.
He studied them. The soot-stained baby. Nainai's hunched shoulders. Mojing's protective stance.
"You may stay," he said simply.
That night, he prepared them food—thin porridge and wild greens—and brought fresh cloth for the baby.
"My name is Old Master Wei," he told them as they sat before the hearth. "Once I had a wife. A daughter."
He stared into the flames.
"They were taken—slaughtered—by shadow-cloaked men who did not bleed. They came from the mist, walked through my guards like smoke through silk. I heard they attacked the capital soon after."