But Zhao Wei knew better.
It was not a warning. It was a memory.
The sky bled scarlet as the moon ascended like a slit throat in the heavens, and beneath its watchful eye, shadows stirred in places even the wind dared not linger.
Tonight, she walked toward the Lantern Grave where the light of the fallen never dies.
The path was narrow, paved with worn stone and scented with lingering incense. Old paper lanterns flickered in silence, some still bearing names scorched into their bellies from wars past.
Zhao Wei wore a simple black cloak.
No sigil. No crest.
Just resolve wrapped around her like steel.
She stopped at the entrance to the Grave.
There, nestled between two crumbling shrines, three figures waited—hooded, still, but unmistakably bound to her soul by fire, rebellion, and betrayal.
One stepped forward, dropping the hood.
Li Xian.
Older. Scarred. One eye blinded, but his voice remained steady.
“We thought you died. That they fed you to the dogs and buried your name with shame.”
“I did die,” she said softly. “But not enough.”
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A beat of silence.
Then,
He saluted. Not the bow of a servant. Not the nod of a peer.
The clasped-fist salute of an Ember soldier.
“Then we await your command, General.”
Before Zhao Wei could speak, a flicker broke the moment.
A fourth figure emerged from the mist beyond the shrine gates, face covered, aura laced with cold energy. The others stepped back, hands on hilts.
But Zhao raised a hand.
“I knew you’d come,” she said quietly.
The figure stilled.
Their voice was soft, male, and oddly reverent. “Even in death, you kept your promise.”
Zhao narrowed her eyes. “Do I know you?”
“You once did,” he murmured. “But you ordered me to vanish.”
He tossed a talisman to her feet, a black token carved with a dragon entwined in flame.
She froze.
Only one man ever bore that symbol.
The Blade of Dawn, her former right hand… and the only one who dared disobey her final command.
Before she could speak again, Li Xian drew his blade.
“Prove your loyalty,” he demanded of Zhao Wei. “We’ve bled and waited in silence for years. You might be a shadow, or worse, a trap they’ve crafted from memory and smoke.”
Zhao Wei didn’t flinch.
Instead, she walked forward and knelt at the heart of the Lantern Grave, pressing her hand to the stone that bore no name.
Then she spoke, not to them but to the ghosts who never left her side.
“I remember Yuelan’s fall. I remember every order. Every death. Every soul I led into hell for peace that never came.”
“If my return is a trick, let the spirits tear me apart.”
“But if my blood still burns the way it once did then follow me.”
A sudden wind surged through the Grave.
Dozens of lanterns ignited at once, flames dancing blue, not gold. The mark of souls who heard… and approved.
Li Xian dropped to one knee. So did the others.
But the fourth figure did not kneel.
Instead, he turned and vanished into the trees, whispering only:
“There are others who remember. Some will not forgive.”
High above, perched on the broken arch of a forgotten shrine, a fifth figure watched.
Silver hair bound in ribbon. A mask half-broken, revealing a sharp jaw and eyes like molten gold.
He said nothing.
But in his hand, he held a rusted war medal, one once pinned by Zhao Wei’s own hand before her betrayal.
He closed his fingers around it.
“Let’s see what kind of General you’ll be this time, Wei Ning.”