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They balk at the Burial Mounds. How could they not. Wei Ying remembers the first time. The biting cold as they approached the mists. The way that even Wen Zhuliu’s blackbird had chattered as they flew above it. How it had felt to plummet through them, and feel the connection between him and Ying-er go utterly silent. Ying-er caws loudly, dropping from the sky to land on his shoulder, resentful energy streaming from her wings. He presses a hand against her feathers, closing his eyes for a moment just to feel her there.
No. He cannot blame the Wens for their hesitation. It’s just – they don’t have time for this. There is one breath trapped in Wen Ning’s lungs, and just a smattering of golden dust still clinging to his clothes. There is Wen Qing, curled on a waggon with the promises Wei Ying had made to her. There is the Jin and the entire cultivation world who could be catching up to them at this moment. They do not have time for this.
“It’s okay,” he said to the uncertain mass of Wens, peering up at him with dirty, trusting, exhausted faces. “I know the way through. You just – the Jin won’t be able to follow us in. No-one will. It’ll be safe.”
“Keep hold of your human,” Ying-er instructed the rustling crowd of daemons. “And stay close to us.”
At the foot of the burial mounds, surrounded by resentful energy, her red eyes glowed with an unnatural light and her feathers blended into the darkness that surrounds them. It is very impressive. During the war, she and Wei Ying had taken full use of her intimidating aura. There were some Wen cowards who had turned to flee just seeing her swoop across the battlefield. It was not, perhaps, the most reassuring thing to see now. He nudged the horse with his knees, forcing it to take the first few steps into the Burial Mound, and then he wheeled around to see if they followed.
There is a low murmur of shock from the group, all but the little child who is clinging to his grandma and does not seem to know what is going on. The others however do. Wei Ying is in the Burial Mounds, and his daemon is at his side.
But even with this they hesitate, shifting, uncertainly, looking between each other. He would ask Wen Qing to speak for him. Ask her to make them trust him. But Wen Qing is still curled around her brother’s corpse.
“Ack,” the exclamation comes from the back of the group and then and elderly man pushes himself off his horse, ignoring his fellow riders cry of ‘grandfather’ and her grasping hands. On the ground he is bend almost double with age, thick lines creasing his face and the barest patch of snow-white hair plastered against his scalp from the rain. The binturong in his arms is more grey than black, eyes gummy and unfocused. The hands that hold her are knobbly, arthritis swelling at the joints.
“I’ve lived a good life,” the man said, stomping to the front of the group. “If this goes wrong at least there’s that.”
He pauses, only for a second at the border, pressing his hand against the binturong’s head and smiling gently down at her as if in acknowledgement that this could be the last time. And then he steps through. It is rather anticlimactic. Nothing happens – the old man and his daemon pass through without issue. Wei Ying sees the rest of the Wen reaching for their daemons, clutching them close and then stepping through. One woman even goes to far as to climb onto the back of her wild ass daemon, by far the largest there, nimble enough to ease around the surrounding Wens without being touched. By the time the last Wen has fully crossed over, some of the tension and fear sitting high on Wei Ying’s shoulders has eased.
The path that Wei Ying and his Tiger Seal blasted out of the Burial Mounds is wide and unsophisticated. He had been half out of his mind at the time, living off tree bark and roots and the few berries that survived here, desperate to get back to Ying-er. He would have to do something about that. Perhaps a maze? All it would take was for one lucky Jin to stumble into the safe zone and they would have a path right to where he and the Wens were.
He leads the group up the mountain to the cave that he had slept in during his time here. It was wide and deep and importantly, provided more shelter from the pouring rain than the skeletal trees outside. Even more importantly, it had the blood pool. Wei Ying had found it during his first week in the Burial Mounds. While he did not think that the crimson waters were actually blood, they were rich with resentful energy. He directed two of the Wens to move Wen Ning’s body onto the rock at its centre, watching carefully as he was laid to rest. Wen Qing uncurled herself, wiping her hands across her cheeks and just smearing the tears and dirt further across them. Her hands themselves were pricked from clinging so tightly to Qing-er who had been trapped between her body and Wen Ning’s. The porcupine daemon did not seem any more well off, spines dropping and muzzle prodding helplessly at Wen Ning’s body as if expecting Ning-er to leap from it and curl on his head as she always had done before.
“Right,” Wen Qing said, pushing herself upright and settling the cloak of strict dignity back around her shoulders as though it had never left her. “Right. We need to decide what to do now.”
“Yes,” Ying-er agrees, settling down to perch on Wei Ying’s knees.
With so many bodies in the cave it is impossible for her to fly. Fifty Wen, fifty daemons. The two with larger daemons are exiled to the entrance of the cave, the wild ass and the water deer lying in the entrance at the mercy of stray gusts of wind and spitting rain. The rest of them are forced to clutch their daemons close, and attempt to find a comfortable place to sit. It will do for the night. But not forever.
Wen Qing and Wei Ying talk long into the night, long after even the most fearful Wen has drifted into an uneasy sleep. Long enough to come up with a plan.
The next morning Wei Ying, Wen Xui, Wen Mo, and a surprisingly cheerful man who insisted on being referred to as Uncle Four walk into town and sell the horses. Wen Mo remained with the cart, his cockerel daemon, bold, bright and unescapably male, hidden in his robes, the tips of his azure tail feathers just barely poking out. Wei Ying sympathised. Ying-er had settled in a high tree at the edge of Yilling, hidden among the foliage. Wei Ying made sure to pat his sleeve from time to time, and occasionally whisper to it, every time a shop keeper looks as though they are getting suspicious of her absence.
They sold the horses. Wen Xui, a stately woman with streaks of grey in her tightly braided hair, granite eyes and whip-crack tongue, managed the negotiations. She got double what Wei Ying would have managed.
“I used to be a merchant, dear,” she explained absently, patting him on the head. “This is nothing.”
“She was the scourge of the Dafan markets,” Uncle Four whispered behind her back, his red panda snickering from his shoulder and tumbling down to land in his arms when Wen Xui’s yellow-throated martin scree’d angrily at them from her pocket.
They bought food first. Bags and bags of rice that Wen Mo dutifully piled into the cart. Then as many cheap vegetables as they can, the radish seeds that Wen Qing had requested and the tools that the Uncles had. Uncle Four took over there, examining the hoes and spades and saws and nails with an expert eye, before handing over to Wen Xui to negotiate a deal. They traded Wei Yings robes for a simpler pair, as well as rolls of their cheapest fabric and thread. Then Wei Ying led them to a musty shop selling paper and inks. He got as many as Wen Xui’s strict budget allowed and, despite the expense, managed to wheedle half a stick of cinnabar out of her.
When they finished there were still three small pieces of silver left. Wen Xui secreted them among her clothes and told them that it was time to leave. They were just in the nick of time. They’d barely passed over into the safety of the Burial Mounds when Ying-er swooped down to land on a sack of beans and curtly inform Wei Ying that a group of Jin cultivators have arrived in Yilling.
The first thing that Wei Ying did, once they returned to the cave, was use his Tiger Seal to weave the mists surrounding the Burial Mounds into a complex maze.
Ying-er watched the four men attempt to force themselves through the mists. The bravest of them managed eight steps before breaking and dashing back to the crying wasp daemon hovering on the other side of the line.
With a satisfied nod, she swept into the air, startling the Jin who screeched in alarm at her sudden appearance. She flew in a circle above their heads, making sure they could see her dark feathers and distinct silhouette, and then she winged her way back to the cave, where her exhausted human waited.
Xxx
The Wen were good people. Wei Ying had known that they were innocent. But in the months that followed their escape to the Burial Mounds it was a relief to learn that they were good, too.
The aunties and uncles took to clearing the area around the recently dubbed Demon Subdue Place with a startling tenacity. Barely seeming to care that their only reward for their efforts was a small bowl of congee and a few rapidly depleting vegetables.
Uncle Four and Shu-er took over the building of houses, clearing a large area around the cave for Wen Qing’s radish fields. The soil was dark and tough and occasionally the hoe would reveal a long yellowed-bone that they would need to burn, which always made the resentful energy seethe and writhe across the mountain.
Few of the Wen escaped this backbreaking work. Popo, the oldest of them, looked after A-Yuan, their youngest. The young toddler was her eldest granddaughter’s son and the only surviving child of her blood. Wen Lan, the old man with the binturong, carved spoons and bowls and other useful odds and ends, and constantly attempted to get up and help with the building only to be firmly rejected.
Wen Xui, who reportedly had a notorious black thumb, and Wen Lan’s granddaughter, Wen Li, spent most of their time either sewing or rationing their supplies. The latter’s thigh had been broken and left to set badly in the Jin’s camps, and she hobbled like a woman four times her age when she tried to walk. Aside from A-Yuan, she and Wen Mo were the youngest, in their early twenties. She had had a sister, and he had had a wife, though neither liked to speak much of them.
Wei Ying knew more of them from Wen Xui. Her youngest daughter had been Wen Mo’s wife. They had been childhood friends. Both bonding over being the only people nearby with misaligned daemons. His Mo-er had finally settled into a cockerel only a day after hers had settled into a hen and that had been that. At least, until the Jin had come.
Months in the Burial Mounds passed quickly. Chopping down the trees, storing supplies for winter, shoring up their ramshackle huts in preparation. Wei Ying spent much of his time locked in the Demon Subdue Palace, pouring over his notes and Wen Ning’s body. His situation did not get any worse, but it did not get improve either. He did not wake up.
Occasionally Ying-er or one of the Wens could convince him to come outside, either to visit town, join in the farming or create some talisman to sell in town. He suspected that either Wen Qing or Popo had latched onto his affection for A-Yuan. If Wei Ying went too long without food or sleep, they would send the boy in, Yuan-er nestled in his arms as a baby panda, or a pika kit or sometimes a fuzzy, fluffy owlet. Ying-er would always melt when they chose the last one, cooing over them relentlessly grooming the grey puffball’s feathers.
They lost Wen Lan to the first chill of winter. Uncle Four had woken to find him sitting by the fire, eyes closed and golden dust still settling against his clothes. Wei Ying had raged against it, bitterly disappointed at the promises he had broken. He had promised them safety. He had promised Wen Ning’s return. He had failed on both counts. The rest of the Wen however, seemed to see it as a kindness. Wen Lan had a wife and five sons waiting for him on the other side.
Winter passed without further incident, though food grew shorter and shorter and Wei Ying found himself spending less and less time with Wen Ning. Instead he invented new talismans and devices to sell in town for as much as Wen Xui could bargain for, never as much as they needed.
Wei Ying was not the only one to breath a sigh of relief at the first sign of spring. It wasn’t a salvation, not entirely, but it was a start. There was the promise of food in the future. Even if food was still scarce for now. Before Wei Ying knew it, and entire year had passed. And Lan Zhan came to the Burial Mounds.
Xxx
There is a child clinging to his legs and crying.
Lan Zhan looks down, frozen. This is not…something that he has ever experienced before. The children in Cloud Recess do not frequent the library or training rooms that Lan Zhan does. And those that he does encounter are accompanied by parents and minders, that quickly chivvy them away from him.
Someone in the watchful crowd snorts scornfully, “How shameful, he does not even know how to comfort his son.”
“Ai, have pity on him,” his fox daemon said, snickering. “Don’t you remember how anxious you got with your first. He is clearly a new father.”
Lan Zhan twitched, wanting to open his mouth to correct them. But not quite sure how to. The child cried louder. His daemon flickered from a bat, to squirrel kit and then settled on something that looked a little like a golden duckling but stretched out longer. Only when Zhan-er cooed, sounding completely disarmed, did Lan Zhan realise that it had taken the form of an infant crane.
The people surrounding him were talking to him, and each other, asking him about the child, and the mother. He was still frozen. Unsure what to do or how to answer.
“Lan Zhan!”
Lan Zhan’s breath caught in his throat. Beside him Zhan-er gasped, looking up.
“Wei Ying,” she crowed, looking around eagerly. “Where is Ying-er?”
“Ah, she’s here,” Wei Ying said, touching his sleeve. Lan Zhan frowned. She could not fit. “Clear out!” Wei Ying said to the crowd surrounding them. “There is nothing to see here.”
The crowed grumbled but dispersed. Zhan-er was craning her neck in an attempt to look up Wei Ying’s sleeve and Lan Zhan waited until no one was listening do drop his voice and ask. “Did she change?”
Wei Ying frowned, puzzled and then his face cleared. He smiled, tapping his nose and also dropping to a whisper. “Ah, no, no. It’s a secret, Lan Zhan. I can’t really bring her into town with me, you know.”
Zhan-er’s feathers drooped. “She isn’t here?”
“No, she’s back in the Burial Mounds,” Wei Ying hissed, before raising his voice. “What are you doing here anyway, I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Night hunt,” Lan Zhan answered, ignoring Zhan-er’s guilty shuffle. They had been on a night hunt. It had just been the night before and one village over. “The child…”
“This child?” Wei Ying grinned, picking up the boy and dusting him down. The daemon flickered into a squirrel, clambered up onto his shoulder, and then turned back into a crane. “This child is my son,” Wei Ying declared proudly. “I birthed him myself.”
Lan Zhan paused. His eyes flickered over the child and then back to Wei Ying. He was perhaps, four. Which mean that he was conceived before Wei Ying first came to Gusu. But in all his talk of home, Wei Ying had not mentioned a child. And he would have. Though perhaps he had only found out later and…
“No, you didn’t,” Zhan-er said bluntly, frowning up at him. “Lying is prohibited.”
Wei Ying laughed joyfully, sounding more free than Lan Zhan had heard him since before Lotus Pier. “Aiya ai, your face, Lan Zhan. A-Yuan is my,” he paused, tilting his head as he tried to think it over. “Ward. I and the aunties and uncles look after him, isn’t that right A-Yuan?”
A-Yuan stuck his fingers into his mouth, apparently uncaring that they had just been on the floor and nodded. The daemon became a baby panda, and then some kind of rodent, to young to identify between a dozen that started life almost identically.
“What did you do, anyway?” Wei Ying asked. “Why is he crying?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Lan Zhan said. Somehow, he was desperate for Wei Ying to believe him. Desperate for Wei Ying to believe that he truly had done nothing to the child that Wei Ying clearly loved.
“Ah,” Wei Ying said in instant agreement, face switching back to teasing. “It must be your face. You are very pretty –” Zhan-er managed to stifle her startled caw, and through sheer force of will Lan Zhan manged to stop his ears from burning. – “but your face is very serious, all the time. You look quite scary. The child is too young to know that is just how you are, and you are not mad at him.”
He hoisted, A-Yuan in his arms, pinching his cheeks and starting to walk away. Beside Lan Zhan, Zhan-er shifted back and forth on her feet, watching as Wei Ying led A-Yuan over to a toy stand.
“He is too skinny,” she said worry thick in her voice.
Xxx
Wei Ying had consented to have lunch with them.
The inn that they had found was not, perhaps of the best quality, however it was the one that Wei Ying had chosen. The child was settled at the table between them, eyes wide as glanced around between hurried spoonfuls of soup. He looked as though he had never been in an inn before.
Zhan-er sat beside Lan Zhan, folding her long lags beneath her and settling so close to him that he could feel her body pressed against her knee. She kept glancing towards the windows, as though waiting for Ying-er to appear.
The child held out a spoon of soup and Wei Ying smiled, leaning forward to take it.
“It’s good,” he declared, reaching down to pinch the child’s cheek. “So, you do know what filial piety means.”
A-Yuan laughed. At his side, the daemon changed from a crane to an owl. Wei Ying reacted instantly, moving around the table so that his body hid the daemon from view and pulling A-Yuan close to him.
“Ah, A-Yuan, Yuan-er” he hissed, shooting a terrified glance at Lan Zhan and then around the room. “Remember the rules. Not in town.”
A-Yuan’s face crumbled as though he was about to cry, and the daemon obligingly transformed into a kitten. Wei Ying relaxed. “Good boy,” he said, ruffling A-Yuan’s hair. “If you are good for the rest of dinner and eat all your soup, maybe we will see about getting desert.”
A-Yuan perked up instantly, returning to his soup with renewed purpose.
Wei Ying laughed, awkwardly, keeping one arm tucked around A-Yuan’s shoulders. He looked sheepishly at Lan Zhan. “I’m not teaching him bad ways, I promise,” he said. “I don’t even know how Yuan-er knows how to take that shape. I just looked down one day and there she was.”
“Ah,” Lan Zhan said. He should perhaps say more. It was just. With her wide eyes, white fuzz and disproportionately long legs, Yuan-er had just been so…cute.
“Why did you come to Yilling, anyway,” Wei Ying said, drawing the subject away from A-Yuan and his daemon. “If you came for something in particular, I can help. I would be a very good guide.”
Lan Zhan paused, sharing a glance with Zhan-er. The real reason that they had come pressed behind his lips. Waiting for Lan Zhan to find the right words to say them. He should know that his sister was going to be married. Lan Zhan just couldn’t think of the right way to tell him. Although perhaps he already knew. The Jiang clan had officially disavowed him, but Lan Zhan had seen Lady Jiang and Jiang Wanyin in those months when Wei Ying was missing. Surely, they must have some contact with them.
Lan Zhan opened his mouth to speak. To say…something… and was interrupted with Ying-er cshing into their table.
There were screams from the other guests, a happy laugh from A-Yuan and Zhan-er’s delighted call of ‘Ying-er!”
Ying-er managed to right herself, looking at Zhan-er with complete surprise. “Zhan-er, what are you doing here?” tumbled out, and then Ying-er shook it off, turning back to Wei Ying. “A-Ying, you have to come quick! It’s Wen Ning!”
Wei Ying didn’t hesitate, Ying-er had barely finished speaking before Wei Ying was scooping A-Yuan into his arms and sprinting from the inn. Ying-er took off after him, and Zhan-er took off after her. Lan Zhan barely had time to scramble for a piece of silver before the bond began to pull and he found himself stumbling after.
“Explain!” Wei Ying called up to Ying-er who was soaring above his head as a dark blot against the sky, the glow of her eyes dimmed by the sun. Zhan-er followed close behind.
“He’s woken up,” Yin-er called down, banking sharply to the side and wheeling lower. “The talismans are working for now, but they were starting to fray. His agitation is disturbing the resentful spirits in the blood pool. I do not know how long they will be contained for. Wen Qing and Popo have –”
Lan Zhan didn’t hear the rest. A desperate, agonising hole had opened up in his chest and it was all he could do to curl around it and gasp at the pain. Zhan-er screamed, dropping to the floor, her legs and wings failing to hold her up as she attempted to drag herself closer to Lan Zhan and failed. Zhan-er, Zhan-er, Zhan-er!
“Wei Ying,” she called desperately.
Wei Ying spun around, and swore loudly. Ying-er dropped to land beside Zhan-er and nudge her upright, pushing her around some invisible barrier. And then there she was, glowing bright and warm in Lan Zhan’s chest. She launched herself from the ground, colliding with him and twining her long neck around his own, murmuring his name again and again and again. His hands cupped her close, trying to get her impossibly closer still. As if they could be one body and never, ever feel that sickening ache of separation again.
“Stay close to us,” Wei Ying ordered, grabbing Lan Zhan by the wrist and seemingly uncaring of how his fingers almost brushed against Zhan-er as he did so. He tugged, pulling Lan Zhan back into a run, “Don’t let go of her.”
Lan Zhan certainly had no intention of doing so. It felt like all he could do was cling to her and follow after Wei Ying, his hand burning like a brand around Lan Zhan’s wrist. Wei Ying dragged them in a strange, circular route up the hill, occasionally doubling back on himself. Halfway up he paused, readjusting his hold on A-Yuan so that he could fumble in his robes and withdraw a talisman without letting go of Lan Zhan. The talisman sparked and then burst into flames and Wei Ying swore again, more violently.
He pulled Lan Zhan forward, finally clearing the mist and revealing a ramshackle village. The houses were lopsided and made from rough timber, and there were patches of tilled earth, sprouting small shoots of green. Through it all swirled black smoke, striking out at the men and women that ran through the camp. Through the centre of the village a man in black lurched. He was dressed in rags leaking resentful energy and clearly struggling beneath the weight of the ropes and talismans that attempted to restrain him. He grabbed a young man who was attempting to corral him back towards a cave, and lifted him high above his head, tossing the young man through the wall of a house. His cockerel daemon squawking in alarm.
“A-Ning, A-Ning!” Wen Qing’s voice rang through the camp, echoed in the rougher tones of her porcupine daemon. Lan Zhan jolted. Staring again at the fierce corpse. He was ashamed to say that he had not recognised the man. Although, considering everything, that was not perhaps surprising. There was very little of the many they had once met at Cloud Recess. His hair was down and splayed messily around his face which was contorted into a snarl. Thick black lines ran up his neck and his eyes were white.
“What happened,” Wei Ying asked, handing A-Yuan over to an elderly woman who took him and disappeared into the woods. “Who touched the talismans? I told you to stay out of the cave.”
“No one went in the cave!” Wen Qing and Ying-er snapped at the same time.
“He just came out,” The porcupine continued, peering anxiously at Wen Ning. “Do you think the dust looks thicker?”
Lan Zhan frowned, looking closer at Wen Ning. He hadn’t seen, amidst the ropes and paper, but there was dust clinging to him, cumulating at the centre of his chest and starting to form a cloud. “What is that?”
“We have been healing him,” Ying-er explained, swooping to the side to avoid a billowing cloud of resentful energy. “This is the final stage.”
“Don’t let him leave the village,” Wei Ying snapped, shooting a talisman towards Wen Ning that the man shrugged off as though it was nothing. “I don’t know what will happen to Ning-er if he steps into the mist. She’s too fragile.”
The corpse of Wen Ning leapt, jumping for the trees. For less than a second, Lan Zhan considered letting him go. Allowing him to step into the mists and move on. But Wei Ying had asked for his help. Finally, Wei Ying had asked for their help.
The sound of his guqin rang out loudly through the village, the sound humming through the air long after it should have fallen silent. Wen Ning stopped, snarling furiously but unable to move forwards. Lan Zhan kept playing, blue energy pouring from his fingertips as Wei Ying leapt forwards and began to press talismans against Wen Ning.
“Hanguang-Jun, don’t hurt him!” Wen Qing shouted, looking desperately between him and her brother. Lan Zhan ignored her. Wei Ying was very close to the corpse now, if Lan Zan stopped playing, he might be hurt.
Around the village, Wens were starting to appear from where they had hidden themselves. Old men and women, with greying daemons and weak bodies. Not the army Jin Guangshan had promised. The closest they came to a fighter was the boy that Wen Ning had thrown, picking himself out of the rubble with a scowl on his face and submitting with poor grace to the fretful grooming of the cockerel.
Finally, Wei Ying slammed one final talisman into Wen Ning’s chest and leapt away.
“Everyone back!” Ying-er called, not taking her own advice and remaining in the air above Wen Ning. The villagers hurried to duck behind the closest shelter they could find. All but Wen Qing, who remained where she was, her heart-shaped face pinned in the direction of her brother. Wei Ying gestured for her to step away and the porcupine rattled dangerously in refusal.
Lan Zhan stopped playing.
Wen Ning was completely frozen. Not moving. Not breathing. Lan Zhan found himself thinking that he had never looked more like a corpse than in that moment. The cloud of dust surrounding Wen Ning grew darker, thicker, swarming over his shoulders to collect at his chest, becoming more and more solid.
Something gold fell from the cloud, landing hard on the floor, and Wen Ning opened his eyes.
“Ning-er!” Ying-er exclaimed, joyfully, swooping down and crashing into the ground so hard she sent up a shower of dirt. “Ning-er, you’re back!”
“Impossible,” Zhan-er breathed. So quietly that only Lan Zhan could hear it.
Wen Ning blinked, looking around. His face was no longer blank. He appeared confused. Perhaps a little afraid, as he looked at himself and then at his surroundings as though he did not recognise them. At Lan Zhan’s side, Zhan-er shifted uncertainly. Glancing between the squirrel and Ying-er. And then she took a step back, half hiding behind Lan Zhan’s legs.
There was…there was something very, very wrong with Wen Ning’s daemon. And not just the way she was curled in a tight ball. Barely seeming to react to the way Ying-er attempted to nuzzle against her. Her body was gold. Not the gold of a colour variant. The gold of a creature made of dust and barely holding themselves together. Lan Zhan could see the tip of Wen Ning’s shoe through the gaps in her body. The most solid parts of her were the black lines, thick and snaking across her. From her nose to the tip of her tail, they formed a cage, that stopped the dust of her from flying away.
“Ah,” the corpse looked down and then dropped to his knees, scooping her up with hands that were clumsy and stiff. “Ning-er,”
The squirrel uncurled and then threw itself at Ning’s face, pressing as close as it could, tail curling around itself. “A-Ning, you’re here!”
“Where did you go, Ning-er,” Wen Ning said, quietly, fingers curling up until only the barest hint of gold peeked through.
“I don’t know, I wasn’t here, and you weren’t there, and I wasn’t with you!” The squirrel keened. “Don’t go let me go away again, A-Ning.”
Both Ying-er and Zhan-er shuddered at the same moment and Lan Zhan saw an echo of his own horror reflected on Wei Ying’s face.
“Well,” Ying-er chirped, clearly planning on gliding right past that. She tilted her head back to bestow upon Wen Ning one of her bird smiles. “You’re back now. How do you feel?”
There was a pause and then a small, pointy face appeared looking down over Wen Ning’s cupped fingers. “Strange,” she said after thinking about it a moment.
Wei Ying laughed in delight, shooting Lan Zhan a proud, delighted smile that, despite everything, Lan Zhan could not help but return. Wen Qing ran forward, clutching her brothers arm, and pulling him into a hug, sobs wracking her body. The squirrel scrambled down Wen Ning’s clothes to land on the floor next the porcupine. The porcupine leant forward, nuzzling her all over. The squirrel chirped, and clambered onto the porcupine’s head, curling into a tight ball between his ears.
Around them, the Wen and their daemons burst into delighted cheers.
Xxx
The next time they see Wei Ying it isn't the end.
He was laughing, eyes rimmed in red, flute sharp and piercing as hundreds of the dead converged on the people of Nightless City. Ying-er a dark shape overhead, to high above the battlefield for even Zhan-er to reach. Her body flickered, resentful energy streaming from her wings until her silhouette was consumed by it. Until the only piece of her they could see was those glowing red eyes. She did not return to herself until after Jiang Yanli’s kingfisher dissolved into gold. Not until Wei Ying staggered, and allowed himself to fall. Until Lan Zhan caught them.
The stone of the cliff was jagged beneath his stomach, his arm aching from the wound and the weight even as he desperately tried to keep hold of Wei Ying. Blood and sweat dripped across their joined hands and Lan Zhan held tighter, refusing to allow them to slip Wei Ying’s hand from his own.
Ying-er was still impossibly out of reach. Even as she hovered in the air above Wei Ying’s head. Zhan-er stumbled as close as she could to the edge, one wing injured and useless. She stretched her neck forward as far as she could, pleading.
“Ying-er,” she keened, voice more desperate than Lan Zhan had ever heard it. “Ying-er please, please come back. Please come back.”
Ying-er sobbed, wings stuttering in the air. Beneath them, Wei Ying’s smile was soft and filled with so much regret that Lan Zhan ached to see it. For a second, just a second, Wei Ying’s hand clenched tighter against Lan Zhan’s wrist, and it looked like it might work. Like Wei Ying would allow them to pull him up. Would allow them to take him back to Gusu with them. And then Ying-er’s eyes fixed on something over Lan Zhan’s shoulder.
“No,” Zhan-er keened, following her gaze, “No, don’t.”
Lan Zhan had not thought that it was possible for this moment to feel worse, and yet, it did. Dread rising high in his throat to choke him as he turned his head. Jiang Wanyin was storming towards them, sword drawn and the icy-grief on his face consumed by anger.
“A-Cheng, A-Cheng, don’t,” the otter said, darting around him, trying to get in front stop him. Her voice was desperate, shrill, cracked from tears and screaming their sister’s name. “Stop it, don’t.”
Jiang Wanyin stepped over her, barely seeming to hear. There was blood on the chest of his robes, the slight glimmer of dust caught in his hair. “Wei Wuxian!” he roared, raising the sword.
“Don’t,” Lan Zhan begged. Bichen was at his side, but he could not reach for it without letting go of Wei Ying. And that was something he could not, would not do. Zhan-er flared her wings, trying to step between him and Wei Ying, but Jiang Wanyin merely redirected his blade, so that it hit rocks instead of her.
“Jiang Cheng!” Ying-er said in shock, fluttering closer to Zhan-er. Jiang Wanyin struck out with his sword again, and Ying-er darted backwards before she could be hit.
“Go to hell, Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Wanyin screamed at them, lashing out with the sword again, this time at their joined hands. Wei Ying smiled up at Lan Zhan, nine parts sorrow, one-part resolve. And then he tore his hand free.
“Wei Ying!”
“Ying-er!”
His scream and Zhan-er’s scream intertwined, ringing so loudly in his ears that Lan Zhan barely noticed that the otter was screaming too. Good. Let her. Ying-er did not fall with Wei Ying. She remained, hovering above the cliff for a moment longer, eyes drifting from Lan Zhan, to Jiang Wanyin, to the otter, as though wanted to imprint their image on her mind. She looked to Zhan-er last. And then, with a sob, she dived down to where Wei Ying was falling.
She did not try to save him. There was nothing she could have done. But she did not try. Merely folded her wings and landed on his chest, his arms coming up to hold her close. Their heads pressed together, so close that the could have been one body, instead of two. And then they disappeared into the mist.
“Ying-er!” Zhan-er wailed, starting forwards as if she was going to leap from the cliff after them. May have done, if Lan Zhan had not caught her. The grey on the tips of her feathers was growing darker, spreading, staining the exact same shade of black that Ying-er’s own feathers had been.
By the time they learned that Jiang Wanyin had scoured the base of the cliff for Wei Ying’s body and found nothing, they had already been locked into their seclusion in the gentian house.
They did not see a body. And they had not seen Ying-er dissolve into golden dust and return to the world.
In the years that came, Lan Zhan was never sure if that was a mercy or an unkindness. Perhaps, perhaps if they had seen her die, they could accept that she was dead. As it was, no matter how many seasons passed, there was always a piece of them watching the door. Waiting for Wei Ying to come back.