Chapter Text
He doesn’t realize it the first time they meet.
The footsteps that draw closer are no different than any of the others that have approached his silent prism of confinement. He never catches sight of them, never hears a word; his food is provided in the inky black shadows and his books are exchanged at random intervals during his sleep. This has never changed.
His cell is scentless. Or maybe he just can’t tell the difference, because he’s never scented anything else—and he realizes this the moment the barriers come down with a quiet sizzle, when the footsteps continue to approach, when something new encroaches on what feels like every single one of his muted senses, for the first time in his meager existence.
Helpless against his curiosity, he raises his head. His chains rattle in the silence.
Knowledge gleaned from books and disjointed memories can never hold a candle to something real. In his solitude, he has longed for many things: the wind he can still feel through his hair; the warmth of another shoulder against his; the sound of laughter, one he joins in, quiet to his ears but brimming over in his heart, made sore with yearning. Sometimes it makes him sad. More often it makes him angry—that he’s shut in here, that he’s stuck with the ghost of a life he will never know for himself.
The stranger before him reminds him of all these things. He recognizes those eyes, that face, that messy fall of hair.
But it’s the stranger’s scent that lurches him awake. It erupts in the roof of his mouth, sparks fire in his blood, and this feeling he can’t recall; this feeling he can’t comprehend. It’s the yearning in his memories in brilliant resolution, a pressure in his chest even more constricting than the corallium around his torso. His heart slams against his rib cage. He thinks it might explode.
The stranger, too, takes pause.
And then he’s freed, and led outside, and he forgets. The whole world unfolds before him, bigger and more wondrous than texts could ever convey. There is too much to remember.
In the years that follow, Dan Heng moves on. He doesn’t think back to the Shackling Prison if he can help it, that icy darkness. Nothing’s ever compared since, not even the rumbling, stale cargo holds of merchant ships.
Only once does he linger on it. Only once: when the overwhelming, metallic scent of blood coats the flat of his tongue, when the near-silent tap of footsteps reaches his ears—and Blade’s low, unsettling voice, five degrees to the left of familiar, a cold shard of fear wrenched through Dan Heng’s ribs. An alpha on the hunt, murderous beyond reason. Surely safety, however confined, is better than this.
That was a long time ago. That was before Himeko, Welt, the Astral Express, and everything Dan Heng has come to care for and would never abandon.
He would never abandon them. The Luofu emerges a magnificent sight in the pall of space, and for only a second does he let his fear override his instincts, every sinew in his body screaming at him to stay away. But he can’t let anything happen to them. He can’t let anyone he loves fall to Blade.
And, unbidden, he thinks to that stranger again. Arbiter-General Jing Yuan, he’d learned, but only after climbing out of the Luofu’s depths, where a small contingent of Cloud Knights and Ten Lords judges had awaited them. Arbiter-General Jing Yuan, who had escorted the prisoner out alone.
Even after so many years, the general leads on. Over the decades, Dan Heng has kept an eye on him through news articles and radio broadcasts. He can’t seem to help it, no matter how hard he runs from his past, no matter how much time has wandered by.
Gold cradles his thoughts. He’s long since stopped asking why.
To Dan Heng, Blade has always smelled like blood. Freshly spilled, like a warning, like a death sentence. The danger is inherent, setting off every siren in Dan Heng’s mind, raising his hackles like nothing else. Kafka, too, smells like danger, like a live wire, a subtle acrid note that lingers on the palate. Both of them alphas, easy to discern even as far away as Dan Heng stands.
At the same distance, he can’t identify anything off Yanqing except for the salty tang of the sea. A beta, then, as all betas are; a less obtrusive, kinder existence. Ice drips off the edge of his sword as he catches his breath.
Dan Heng feels sorry. But his pulse has also begun to race, teetering on a razor-thin edge of unease. The only alpha he enjoys standing close to is Himeko. He trusts her. He does not trust the Stellaron Hunters that still overwhelm his senses, sharp and bitter, like pressure from all sides.
Kafka’s soft voice buries needles in his brain. Dan Heng barely reins in the urge to snarl.
“Now, now,” she says, amused. “I can’t have you two misbehaving in front of the Luofu’s hotshot general.”
As if on cue, a laugh drifts into Dan Heng’s ears. He turns just as Jing Yuan approaches from downwind, his face as kind and ageless as the last time Dan Heng saw him, so long ago.
Yanqing’s expression crumples at the edges. He looks as Dan Heng feels: tense, exhausted, skin drawn too tight over emotions too large.
Then the wind changes, and Dan Heng feels his heart seize.
“My task is complete,” says Blade.
“That it is,” says Jing Yuan, coming to a stop over Yanqing’s stooped form. They exchange looks, before his cool gaze cuts to Kafka. “Thank you for your assistance. You may take him away. Just this once, I'll pretend I didn’t see anything.”
Dan Heng can’t breathe. The world has narrowed down to the roar of the ancient sea around him. He barely notices Kafka and Blade take their leave; and then they do, smoke and violence dissipating into the breeze, and Dan Heng rips his eyes away to some indeterminate space to the left, away from Jing Yuan, away from what can only be—
Is it even possible? Could he be mistaken? He’s only ever read of such a thing in books, educational ones and—whatever fanciful stories Pela has authored, shoved into his hands by Stelle. You’ll just know, they all said, more or less. Some kind of physical compatibility, some kind of chemical, emotional, soul-deep bond, the science of which still isn’t fully understood, or in layman’s terms—
A storm shrouds Jing Yuan’s shoulders. He smells like wind and lightning, like rain on a sunny day, like dark soil and the life that blooms from it. He smells like… like the Luofu, that very first time Dan Heng stepped into the sunlight, that very first time he beheld the world with his own eyes.
Saliva fills his mouth. His stomach churns now as it did back then, trepidation warring with a longing so sudden and fierce that Dan Heng can’t think of anything else. This feeling—it can’t be anything else.
But then Jing Yuan says, “It’s been a long time, old friend”—and the candlelight in Dan Heng’s chest hisses out.
“I’m not him,” he says.
Jing Yuan should know this. He would’ve known the moment he stepped into Dan Heng’s cell, the very moment they were close enough to assess each other. The presence of an alpha sticks like tar to an omega’s senses, the way a beta or another omega rarely does. It goes both ways.
“Mm,” says Jing Yuan. The unaffected smile never leaves his face. “I’m sorry.”
This is nothing like Pela’s stories. Not that Dan Heng ever believed them, but…
He’s never… only very, very rarely, has he ever considered the thought. The possibility that even Dan Heng—for all he is a Vidyadhara, who cannot reproduce, who cannot provide any of the things omegas are meant to provide, who drags behind him an unfathomable weight, an unshakable, life-threatening danger—that even he might have a soulmate, too, somewhere out there in the infinite universe.
It is, he’s gathered, normal to hope. The desire for companionship is unerringly human. The very idea of a soulmate is hopeful, even as it is despairing. The stellar sea is so large. Statistics favors no one.
And yet, just like everyone else, Dan Heng has wondered. And in his worst moments, his wonder inevitably turned pragmatic, turned cruel.
How does one just know? Is there truly someone just for him? Is it another Vidyadhara, a century into reincarnation? Is it another Vidyadhara, moments away from wading into the sea? Is it a short-life species, far away at the very ends of the galaxy, who’ll waste away long before the Astral Express ever docks on their shores? Are they already dead?
Would they even want him?
Jing Yuan’s head tilts. His expression remains demure, but his gaze sharpens. Abruptly, Dan Heng can’t stand to face it. Can’t stand another round of these—these messy old relationships that don’t belong to him, that should have been cut loose ages ago. Doesn’t know what he’ll do if Jing Yuan turns into another Blade, who can’t seem to smell anything but Dan Feng reeking off Dan Heng’s skin even hundreds of years later, secondary gender be damned.
Because that’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? The fact that Dan Feng had been the High Elder, the pride and joy of the Vidyadhara and one of the most powerful alphas their people has ever known. That all of that glory and notoriety should have been washed clean the moment Dan Heng opened his eyes, a new man, an omega, not an alpha, and if that isn’t proof enough for Blade, and the Preceptors, and the judges, and Jing Yuan, then what the hell is?
There are more important things at hand. Dan Heng refuses to linger, not even for this.
“You cannot leave yet,” says Jing Yuan, when Dan Heng moves to step around him, (to flee). His voice is mild, and it does nothing to stymie the tide of Dan Heng’s aggravation. “Your friends are waiting for you in Scalegorge Waterscape. Shall we go and see them together?”
Dan Heng closes his eyes. Jing Yuan’s scent lingers like ambrosia in his lungs.
So be it.
Phantylia rises like a mountain from the mist, bejeweled in lotus petals and the unnatural light of the Ambrosial Arbor. Her laughter rakes over Dan Heng’s spine like talons; in his periphery, he sees March’s hands go white-knuckled around her bow, and Stelle’s shoulders tense.
But before them all, Jing Yuan stands tall. The Dozing General, the citizenry call him, when they have never before seen him like this: hawk-eyed, wreathed in lightning, his cape billowing behind him like crimson banners of war.
Welt and Stelle keep glancing over at Dan Heng. He can feel their eyes on him now, again, silently questioning, a little alarmed, as they all brace themselves for Phantylia’s first strike.
Dan Heng ignores them. He doesn’t know what they’re picking up from him, or even if he wants to know—can’t think about it now, his vision dialing in on the enemy they face, the sweep of her massive fan, the way Jing Yuan had said, calm and unafraid: Dan Heng, I entrust my back to you—
The way he had said: If I don’t come back.
The lotus flowers bleed with sickly power. Behind Stelle’s fiery defense, Dan Heng rains down Cloud-Piercer’s fury, roiling tides giving way to March’s shattering ice. There’s nothing to think about. There’s only instinct, fierce adrenaline, his lips numb with it. Protect, it screams. He has to protect them all.
“March, careful!” Welt shouts, and March ducks just in time to avoid the scrape of Phantylia’s nails over her head.
“All this borrowed power,” says Jing Yuan, his silhouette nearly lost in the brilliant flare of Starfall Reverie, “from the Ruin Author, from the Plagues Author. And yet you use it to so little effect.”
He is utterly transparent—but perhaps not to Phantylia, who rears back with a sneer. “Oh, little general. Your arrogance will be your downfall.”
Dan Heng throws out his hand. With a savage roar, his cloudhymn manifests into the great maw of a dragon, liquid scales coruscating with light. It bears down upon Phantylia just as her fingers crook, just as gnarled roots erupt from the nebulous clouds upon which they stand, caging Jing Yuan between wicked spires that curl out, that pierce in.
No. His wordless command ripples through the surging sea. The dragon descends with the force of a typhoon; Phantylia staggers. Flames ignite across her bosom as Stelle rips through her and her flowers both, trailing smoke.
Dan Heng’s heart thunders. Sweat sticks his collar to his neck. This is a different kind of fear. This is a fear he catches on Stelle, too—on March, on Welt, as they weave over, under, past each other. Not fear for the self, but fear for each other.
It’s hard to focus through the fog. Jing Yuan, he thinks. Jing Yuan, Jing Yuan.
The roots split open. Jing Yuan brandishes his glaive, electricity arcing off its intricate filigree in a hundred crackling filaments, none too worse for the wear.
“Is that all?” he says, like he hadn’t damn near given Dan Heng a heart attack. “I’ve pulled tougher weeds out of my garden.”
Over seven hundred years of warfare, Dan Heng reminds himself. Jing Yuan has seen battles that have lasted longer than Dan Heng has even been alive.
It doesn’t matter. Dan Heng will protect him. Dan Heng must protect him, for the Luofu, for his own sanity, for that simmering, burning something that still lingers beneath the cracked sheet of his uncertainty. Even now, he can’t shake himself entirely of hope.
“Hm?” Vicious delight streaks across Phantylia’s features. “What’s this? A Scion of Permanence? And…”
Her gaze turns to Jing Yuan just as he strikes, a single blow of Starfall Reverie dissolving into a flurry of ten, twenty flashes of light.
“Dan Heng,” he says, and Dan Heng is already there, looming over the battlefield, visions of the past overlapping behind his eyelids one century after another. He is a dragon, cold as the statue guarding the Dragonvista Rain Hall; he is the clouds, swelling with rain and hail and thunderous applause. His cloudhymn twists around him in a writhing, refulgent torrent, and when he lets it loose upon the heavens, it crashes down upon the earth like a falling moon.
But even then Phantylia rises again. Welt’s black hole implodes in her chest and she rises again. Stelle and March bombard her with fire and arrows one after another, and she rises again. Her skin goes gold with fury, the color of ginkgos, the color of mara. Her flowers disintegrate and return, again and again.
Stelle’s shields hold up, though perspiration slicks her brow. Welt has already begun to slow. March shakes her hand out whenever she can.
They are so, so human. Jing Yuan, too, is only human, stripped down to his core; one blessed by the Reignbow Arbiter, but fallible nevertheless. His words draw blood. It should come as no surprise, then, that Phantylia focuses all her furor upon him, using her giant body to her advantage behind a relentless assault of cosmic blasts.
Through a curtain of lightning, one of them finally hits. Jing Yuan stumbles to Stelle and March’s cries; Dan Heng’s damnable heart surges to his throat, setting all of his nerve endings alight. He’s moving before he even has the faculties to think, the dragon within him erupting again into material form, but it’s too late. The earth trembles in a violent plume of smoke and destructive power, and above them all Phantylia laughs, Jing Yuan slumped in her grasp.
“I wonder,” she says, in a voice like silk, “what would befall the Luofu should I turn their esteemed general into a Void Ranger?” Her eyes are gemlike daggers upon the crown of Dan Heng’s head. “I wonder what would befall you, little dragon. How obvious you are. Did no one teach you propriety?”
Panic is ash in Dan Heng’s mouth. The waters beyond the Arbor seethe and convulse with the rage beneath his skin. He’ll kill her. He’ll kill her.
He thinks he hears Stelle call his name, but there’s nothing left in him to acknowledge her. There’s only Jing Yuan, the sight of him limp, the blood-red ribbon trickling in his hair; only Jing Yuan, his soulmate, and Dan Heng doesn’t care if it isn’t reciprocated, if it’s pointless, if a millennium of life means Dan Heng is already centuries too late. He lost his heart the day they met, deep in that lonely darkness.
“Dan Heng,” says Jing Yuan. Dan Heng jolts. Clarity slams back into him. The red haze recedes.
Light blazes across Jing Yuan’s shoulders, radiant as the sun. Fist raised, chin aloft, he is every bit the avatar of the Reignbow’s Hunt, as fearsome and vengeful as the Aeon to which he has devoted those thousand years of life. Phantylia shrieks in pain. In her shadow, the Lightning Lord parts the stars.
“Now!”
They’ve never fought together. They’ve barely even spoken. And yet—
I entrust my back to you.
Dan Heng leaps into the sky, Cloud-Piercer’s icy haft coalescing in his hand.
Phantylia falls with a crash of thunder. So does Jing Yuan.
Stelle, March, and Welt are quick to surround him. Their presence is a balm in a way it wasn’t prior, when they’d all stunk of worry and unease. They still do, but it’s quickly fading now that the immediate danger has subsided.
His pulse pounds against his skull, relentless. He’s still breathing too fast, burning too hot. His hair is a damp tangle against his nape, an off-putting weight he’s no longer used to.
But Jing Yuan is safe in his arms. In the smoke still blistering across the field, he’s close enough to scent, even through the sweat, the burnt ends of his clothing, the blood. Rain and ozone, and something warm and floral underneath. Dan Heng resists the urge to press closer.
He should let go. They’re still strangers. He should let go.
A squeeze of his shoulder, so gentle Dan Heng almost misses it. Jing Yuan’s palm is dry and cool where it rests against Dan Heng’s bare skin.
He emanates calm. Literally, Dan Heng realizes. Purposeful, deliberate calm, the kind that sinks deep into Dan Heng’s bones, soothing the frayed ends of his nerves. That very same warm, comforting scent that—that Dan Heng wants nothing more than to bury his face into.
He stills. Only bonded pairs can influence each other in such a way. Only soulmates.
Jing Yuan knows.
“General,” says Stelle, hesitant. Her eyes flick between the two of them, the way they remain propped against each other. “Are you okay?”
Slowly, Jing Yuan straightens. Dan Heng follows him up. Their hands return to their sides.
“I’m holding on,” says Jing Yuan. There’s a joke in there, somewhere. Despite the roughness of his voice, he offers Stelle a reassuring smile, then offers it, too, to Dan Heng.
Silence roars in Dan Heng’s ears. He sees Stelle open her mouth to speak, then Welt. The four of them talk and talk and talk and Dan Heng hears absolutely none of it.
What now? What now??
How in the world does he begin to navigate this?
Had… had Jing Yuan and Dan Feng been soulmates, too? He can’t remember. It would’ve been rare, but not impossible—especially for Xianzhou natives, who have a tendency to outlive short-life partners.
It’s the way Jing Yuan looks at him. The way Jing Yuan speaks to him. Old friend, he says, in that gentle, fond voice. But Dan Heng is nobody’s old friend. Dan Heng is Dan Heng—a Nameless of the Astral Express, beholden to no one, no nation.
“Wait,” March exclaims. “Don’t fall asleep here!”
With a start, Dan Heng finds Jing Yuan swaying dangerously on his feet. He lurches forward just in time to catch him again, and this time the force of it takes them both fully to the ground. His knees sting. His arms cradle Jing Yuan’s shoulders. Terror nearly splits him open. Jing Yuan is dead weight.
Oblivious, his crewmates crowd in. Welt kneels down beside him, and—Dan Heng goes rigid, fangs bared, his grip around Jing Yuan tightening, bruising, drawing him closer to his chest, away. March and Stelle both recoil.
To his credit, Welt only pauses. “I want to check his pulse,” he says, tone even.
…Right.
Dan Heng’s temples throb. Shame fills his face with heat. “Sorry.”
“No need.” Carefully, Welt closes the distance. He tugs Jing Yuan’s wrist guard aside to press two fingers to the thin skin beneath.
The ensuing pause is endless. Dan Heng’s hands tremble. He feels overstrung, overwhelmed. Jing Yuan’s head is far too heavy against him. A lock of hair tickles his cheek. Far off, he thinks he can make out the clatter of footsteps.
“He’s asleep, after all,” says Welt, perhaps unnecessarily, though he sounds surprised. “But he’s clearly injured. We need to take him to a healer.”
“Didn’t we meet a healer earlier?” asks Stelle, inching closer. “That little girl?”
“The High Elder,” replies Dan Heng. Yes, those are footsteps. He raises his eyes. “We have company.”
Exhausted or not, Stelle whirls around, her lance blazing to life again in her hands. March summons her bow without hesitation. Of them, Dan Heng is absurdly grateful.
But it’s only Fu Xuan who sprints from the depths, her contingent of Cloud Knights hot on her heels. “Jing Yuan!” she shouts. “General! Is he—?”
“He’s alright,” says Stelle. She banishes her weapon in a scatter of light, shoulders slumping in relief. “Mostly.”
“Just asleep,” says March. She shakes her head. “I can’t believe he actually passed out standing…”
Welt sets down Jing Yuan’s wrist. “I wouldn’t be so hasty. The method used to seal the Arbor was by no means gentle. He must be seen to, and quickly.”
Fu Xuan gives a curt nod. She beckons her hand. At once, the Cloud Knights behind her step forward. They are unidentifiable, faceless strangers, near scentless—artificially so, as is wont among lower military ranks.
Dan Heng’s fingers convulse over Jing Yuan’s armor. His blood roils in his veins. He doesn’t move.
Welt’s voice is soft. “Dan Heng.”
It’s said that too much time spent together breeds similarities. Fu Xuan’s scrutiny shares familiar flavors to Jing Yuan’s own, but it’s not as calculating, not as patient. She’s an alpha, too; the redolence of incense sticks to Dan Heng’s throat, not nearly as unpleasant as Kafka, or Blade, but still unwelcome. Not even the safe, familiar presence of his friends can supersede it.
As an alpha, she can force him to let go. She can try. Dan Heng is not so easy to control.
“They know the way,” says Stelle, breaking the silence. Her expression is placid, but knowing. “They’ll get him there faster than us. You know they will.”
March chimes in. “Yeah! Don’t worry, Dan Heng. He’ll be okay.”
Dan Heng exhales. It is… a bad day, when Stelle and March are voices of reason.
“Thank you,” says Fu Xuan, once he allows the Cloud Knights to retrieve their commander. She says it to them all, but Dan Heng still feels the weight of her sole consideration. “I know there’s much to discuss regarding the Stellaron, but I hope you’ll understand if we table it for later.”
“Of course,” says Welt. “The Astral Express will remain docked until the Stellaron is sealed. Do what you must.”
Every one of Fu Xuan’s movements tinkle with bells. She casts one more glance at Dan Heng, who doesn’t meet it. “The general will be taken to the Dragon Lady. Rest assured; she is the Xianzhou’s most skilled healer.”
Something within him twists. “Thank you.”
“Likewise,” says Fu Xuan. “The Luofu owes you a great debt.”
That’s not for Dan Heng to judge. He doesn’t reply. Instead, he watches as her entourage recedes into the mist, Jing Yuan motionless in their hands.