I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this.
Like, a real one. Not the "ugh, I'm bored" kind. More like the kind that sits heavy in your stomach and doesn't go away no matter how many times you tell yourself you're being dramatic.
We've been walking forever. Trees, more trees, and then — surprise — even more trees. I've stopped counting how long ago the path got narrower. At some point the ground changed too. Less dirt. More stone. And not the nice, smooth kind.
Broken stone.
Like someone had taken a hammer to the whole road and just... left it.
I kick a piece with my shoe. It crumbles apart.
"Hey." I try to sound casual. "You guys think we're almost there?"
Liu Hao doesn't even glance my way. "You asked that five minutes ago."
"Yeah, well." I rub the back of my neck. "A guy can hope."
Chen Wei's a few steps ahead of us. She's always been hard to read — calm face, steady walk, like nothing in the world could touch her. But something's different now. She's quiet in a way that feels wrong. Like she's holding her breath.
I watch her back, feeling that weight in my stomach get heavier.
"You think we're going the right way?" I ask.
"We're close," she says, without turning around.
Right. That's what she said yesterday.
I shove my hands in my pockets and keep walking.
The trees are massive out here. Old. The kind that look like they've been standing since before anyone alive was born. The air feels thick, heavy — not hot, just... off. And it's too quiet. Even the birds have gone silent, like they decided this stretch of road wasn't worth their time.
I slow down.
"Hey," I say again, quieter this time. "You guys feel that?"
Liu Hao doesn't roll her eyes. She looks around, her face serious, and edges closer to Chen Wei without a word.
That's when I see it.
Past the last line of trees, the path opens up.
And beyond it —
Nothing.
I mean — not nothing. There's something there. Walls. Rooftops. Gates.
But all of it is wrong.
The walls are cracked down the middle. The rooftops have caved in. The gates are hanging off their hinges, one of them flat on the ground, half-buried in rubble.
I stop walking.
For a second, none of us say anything.
Then Chen Wei takes one step forward.
And stops.
She doesn't make a sound.
That's the part that gets me. She just... stands there, completely still, staring at what used to be — I don't even know. A home? A whole world she came from?
"No," she whispers. So quiet I almost miss it. "This isn't... this can't be."
She takes a step forward. Then another. Her eyes move over everything — the collapsed buildings, the scattered debris, the broken stone — like she's searching for something familiar to hold onto.
"Grandmother?" Her voice cracks at the edges. "Uncle? Is anyone here?"
Nothing answers her.
Liu Hao makes a sound like she's been punched in the chest. "This was fine," she says, barely above a whisper. "Months ago, this was all — I was just —" She stops herself, jaw tight, eyes wide. Her hand finds Chen Wei's arm. "Young Lady. Be careful."
But even Liu Hao's hands are shaking.
I stand a few feet behind them, completely useless.
I don't know this place. I don't know their people. I don't know what any of this means to them or how long they've known it or what memories are buried under all that rubble. And I can't fix any of it.
Chen Wei keeps walking, slow and mechanical, like her legs are moving on their own. She passes a collapsed wall. A doorway with nothing left behind it. A pile of broken roof tiles.
She stops at one of them.
Crouches down.
Picks up a piece of carved stone — small, about the size of her palm — and just holds it.
She doesn't cry. Not yet. But her shoulders are shaking, just slightly, and I have to look away because watching her feel something that big in silence is worse than if she'd screamed.
I drift a little to the side, not really thinking about where I'm going. Just giving them space. Just moving.
That's when I see it.
A glint of metal, half-buried under a collapsed beam.
I almost walk past it. But something makes me stop.
I crouch down and push the beam aside — it's lighter than it looks, already rotting — and there it is.
A sword. Small. Ornate. Nothing like anything I've seen before. The blade is still clean somehow, like the debris around it refused to touch it. The hilt has a symbol carved into it, something I don't recognize, all clean lines and sharp angles.
And beside the hilt, still wrapped around the grip —
A bracelet. Small. Woven, dark cord with a single bead threaded through the center.
I stare at it for a second. There's something about the way it's been kept — almost deliberately, like whoever held this sword kept that bracelet close on purpose.
My chest feels weird.
I'm about to call out to Chen Wei when my foot catches on something else. I look down.
A piece of stone. Flat, like a sign. Cracked almost clean in half.
I brush the dust off it.
There are characters carved into it — the cultivation-world script that I've slowly been getting better at reading over weeks of traveling. Most of it is broken off, but the part that's left is still clear.
Wei Clan Estate — under the protection of Her Royal Highness, Princess —
The rest is gone.
I stare at it.
Princess.
I look up slowly.
Chen Wei is still standing in the middle of the ruins, her back to me, holding that piece of carved stone.
I look back down at the sign.
Princess.
"...Huh," I say, very quietly, to absolutely no one.
I stand up slowly, the broken sign still in my hand.
Okay. So.
Chen Wei is a princess.
I turn that thought over a few times, like maybe if I look at it from a different angle it'll make more sense. It doesn't. She's just been walking next to me this whole time, telling me to stop slacking during training and stealing the better bedroll without asking, and she's a princess.
I set the sign down carefully.
And then — from somewhere deep in the ruins, past a collapsed wall I haven't looked behind yet —
A sound.
Quiet. Uneven. Like something shifting under rubble, slow and deliberate.
I go very still.
It comes again. Closer this time.
Liu Hao hears it too. She spins around, one hand already moving toward the weapon at her side. "Young Lady—"
"I heard it," Chen Wei says. Her voice is different now. Flat. The grief is still there but something else has come up through it, something harder.
She's already turned toward the sound.
The rubble at the far end of the ruins shifts.
A piece of stone rolls off a collapsed beam and lands with a crack that echoes through the silence.
Something — or someone — is in there.
And it's moving toward us.