With the second breath, the world will no longer die.
It will be consumed.
The wind swept across the ramparts, carrying flakes so dense that they resembled ashes falling from the sky.
Beneath this pale shroud, the palace of the Nobutsune house lay dormant.
The stone walls had turned to ice; the roofs sagged under the weight of silence.
In the canals, the water no longer flowed.
The birds had stopped singing.
Only the breath of the Nobutsune house remained, heavy, ancient, and close to extinction.
Each gust of wind seemed to whisper their name.
The world, frozen in immobility, held its breath.
In the great hall of the palace, a fire was slowly dying in the hearth.
Its blue, unstable flames cast pale shadows on the walls, like the spectres of forgotten ancestors.
Patriarch Nobutsune sat in a large ebony armchair, staring at the fire that refused to die out.
For weeks, he had hardly slept.
And when he finally did fall asleep, he was always caught up in the same haunting dream.
He saw a child with a sickly, almost translucent complexion.
Her tears were golden, and wherever they fell, wilted flowers bloomed again, grasses stood tall, and dust turned to light.
The child spoke no words, but the whole world seemed to listen to her.
When Nobutsune reached out to her, his flesh began to burn.
The pain was unbearable, but he couldn't look away.
He longed to touch her, just once, to feel what she carried within her.
Then everything faded away.
He woke up gasping for breath, drenched in sweat, his heart pounding, the fire at his feet cold and weak.
That night, once again, the snow had turned to ashes on his doorstep.
The silence of the world seemed full of hope, as if it were waiting for something to happen.
The Nobutsune clan was now a shadow of its former glory.
Once, their banners had covered the mountains of the north.
Now, only two heirs remained, two sons born of cold and pride.
To the patriarch, neither was worthy of the throne.
The elder, Shigeo, was greedy and cunning, quick to flatter and quicker still to betray.
He dreamed more of gold than honour.
The younger, Renji, was fierce, consumed by anger and blinded by ambition.
Both seemed destined to destroy what their ancestors had built.
They are the ashes of my blood, Nobutsune thought, not its flame.
He saw the wars they would wage, the oaths they would break, the alliances they would tear apart for a stone throne.
In the icy solitude of his nights, he understood that the world would not fall to the gods, but to his own children.
He knew he was dying.
Each morning, his breath grew shorter.
Each night, his heart beat weaker against the ice forming in his chest.
The monks had predicted that he would not live to see the end of winter.
Yet Nobutsune refused to give in to death.
He sought remedies, prayers, and forbidden spells.
He called upon herbalists, priests, alchemists, and healers.
He offered gold, land, even lives in exchange for a single extra day.
No prayer was answered.
The gods remained silent.
Then, in his pride and fear, the patriarch turned to one last path, one that no man dared to take.
In the eastern lands, rumours spoke of an order of priests from overseas, capable of reading destiny in ashes and blood: the Yànshī.
Men dressed in white, their faces veiled, who could see death before it came.
Nobutsune sent messengers through the snow, bearing promises and gold.
He ordered them to find these priests and bring them before him.
If they truly existed, they would know how to speak to death, or deceive it.
Months passed.
Winter tightened its grip.
Then, one evening, when the wind had died down, a servant entered the throne room and bowed deeply.
"My lord," he said, "they have arrived."
The patriarch looked up.
Beyond the wide-open doors, white figures moved slowly across the snow-covered courtyard.
Their footsteps made no sound.
Even the snow seemed to part before them.
A flame flickered in the hearth. In the flickering light, Nobutsune saw his own reflection... and behind him, the end of the world.