### Chen Wei
Mud filled his mouth. Cold and gritty. Chen Wei coughed and rolled onto his back. The sky above was gray, empty of birds or sun, just clouds that looked like old bruises.
He had no memory of the past three days. The last thing he remembered was walking through a forest, then a sharp pain in his chest, then nothing. A void. A hole in his mind.
His whole body ached. Every muscle screamed when he tried to sit up. He pressed his palms against the wet ground to steady himself, and that was when he saw it.
A golden mark on his right palm. It glowed faintly, like embers buried under ash. Strange lines twisted into shapes he had never seen before. He touched it with his other hand. The skin felt warm, not burning, just alive somehow.
"What the hell is this?" His voice came out cracked and dry.
He needed water. He stood up on shaking legs. His clothes were torn and dirty. He looked like a corpse that had clawed its way out of a shallow grave. Maybe that was exactly what happened.
A stream ran twenty paces away. He dropped to his knees and drank. The water was cold and tasted like iron, but he didn't care. He drank until his stomach hurt.
When he finally sat back, he looked at his reflection. A stranger stared back at him. Dark circles under his eyes, a fresh cut on his forehead, and that strange golden mark glowing against his dirty palm. He tried to remember how he got the cut. Nothing. Just emptiness.
An old farmer walked by on the road, leading a donkey cart. The man saw Chen Wei sitting by the stream. Then he saw the mark on his palm. The farmer's face went white.
"Dawn Fargement," the old man whispered. Then he hurried his donkey and disappeared over the hill, not looking back.
Chen Wei stared at his palm. Dawn Fargement? He had no idea what that meant. The mark pulsed once, slow and warm, like a second heartbeat. He had never seen anything like it. He had never heard those words before.
His stomach growled. He hadn't eaten in days. The road led east, so he started walking. One foot in front of the other. That was all he could do.
---
### Huang Zhen
The tavern smelled like cheap ale and old sweat. Huang Zhen sat alone in the corner with a wooden table, one cup, and one pot of tea. The tea was bitter and cold, but he drank it anyway. He had been sitting here for three hours, waiting for nothing in particular. Patience was a weapon. Most people forgot that.
The door creaked open. A man walked in, mid forties with a scarred face and hard eyes. A sword hung from his belt, and his hand rested on the grip. He walked straight to Huang's table and stopped.
The man drew his sword and placed the blade against Huang's throat. Cold steel pressed into skin. A small bead of blood rolled down Huang's neck.
"You," the man said. His voice shook with rage. "You burned my village. You killed my wife. I watched her die. Twenty years ago. Do you remember me?"
Huang said nothing. He just looked at the man with empty eyes.
The man's hand trembled. The sword pressed harder. "I trained for twenty years. I lived in a cave. I ate rats. I fought beasts. All to kill you. And you don't even remember my face."
Huang moved one finger. That was all it took. A thin line of fire shot from his fingertip, red and quiet, no bigger than a thread. The flame cut through the man's neck like a needle through wet paper.
The man's eyes went wide. His sword clattered to the floor. He grabbed his throat, but blood poured between his fingers, hot and dark, splashing onto Huang's sleeve. The man opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He fell forward. His head hit the ground first, then his body landed two feet away.
Huang looked at the blood on his sleeve. He pulled out a cloth and wiped it clean. Then he picked up his tea and took another sip.
The door opened again. A woman entered, mid thirties with a hard face and a sword on her hip. She saw the body on the floor, saw the blood, saw Huang sitting calmly in the corner. She bowed low.
"My king," she said. "I have news."
Huang set down his cup. "Speak."
"We found a hero," she said. "A young man with a Dawn Fargement. He appeared at the Eastern Temple three days ago. The priests confirmed it. The mark just showed up on his palm. No one knows how."
Huang's eyes turned cold. "A hero?"
The woman nodded. "Yes, my king. A true hero. The Dawn type is one of the rarest."
Huang stood up from his chair. He walked toward her slowly. She stayed bowed, but her knees started shaking. He stopped in front of her and looked down at the top of her head.
"You called an insect a hero," he said quietly.
She looked up, confused. "My king?"
He slapped her across the face. The sound cracked through the empty tavern. She hit the floor hard, and blood dripped from her split lip.
"No one is a hero in my kingdom," Huang said. His voice was still quiet, which made it worse. "He is an insect. A pest. A bug that crawled out of the dirt. Call him that again, and I will burn your tongue out of your mouth."
The woman knelt on the floor, trembling. Blood dripped from her lip onto her hands. "Forgive me, my king. The insect is at the Eastern Temple."
Huang turned away from her and walked toward the door. He stepped over the dead man's body without looking down.
"Prepare the prison," he said over his shoulder. "I want the insect alive. I want to see what this Dawn mark can do before I crush it."
He walked out of the tavern. The night air hit his face, cold and damp. He headed toward the Eastern Temple.
---
### Chen Wei
The village appeared out of nowhere. Millbrook, according to the cracked wooden sign at the entrance. Twenty houses at most, one well, and a tavern called The Rusty Nail. Smoke rose from the chimneys, and the smell of baking bread made Chen Wei's stomach twist with hunger.
He pushed through the tavern door. Heads turned toward him. Four tables, eight men, all rough looking and armed. A woman stood behind the bar, forty years old with a muscular build and a scar across her nose. She wiped a glass with a rag that looked dirtier than the glass itself.
"You need something?" she asked.
"Food and work," Chen Wei said.
"You got coins?"
"None."
She set down the glass. "Then you need to leave."
A big man at one of the tables laughed. He was bald with a wolf tattoo on his neck, at least six and a half feet tall, all fat and muscle. "Look at this kid," he said. "Got nothing. Let him stay. It's funny watching beggars beg."
Chen Wei kept his eyes on the woman. "I can clean tables. I can carry barrels. I can fight if I have to."
The big man stood up, and his chair scraped loudly against the floor. "Fight? You couldn't fight your way out of a coffin." He walked over to Chen Wei and poked his chest with a thick finger. "Trouble found you, boy."
The other men laughed. The woman behind the bar sighed. "Leave him alone, Gunter. He's not worth the mess."
Gunter grinned, showing yellow teeth. "I'll clean it up after." He pulled a knife from his belt, a short blade with a serrated edge.
Chen Wei looked at the knife, then at Gunter's eyes. His heart pounded in his chest. His hands shook. But something else moved inside him, something that was not fear. The golden mark on his palm blazed with heat.
Gunter swung the knife.
Chen Wei's body moved before his brain caught up. He grabbed Gunter's wrist and twisted hard. The knife clattered to the floor. He drove his knee into Gunter's stomach, and the big man folded with a whoosh of air. Chen Wei grabbed Gunter's head and slammed it onto the table. Wood cracked. Blood sprayed from Gunter's nose. The big man slid to the floor, unconscious.
The other men stood up, hands on their weapons. Chen Wei raised his palm, and the golden mark glowed bright, spilling light across the room. Everyone froze.
The woman behind the bar watched with narrowed eyes. "Sit down," she said. The men sat.
Chen Wei looked at his palm. The glow faded, and his hand started shaking again, harder this time. He turned to the woman. "The job. Still available?"
She stared at him for a long moment. "Clean the back room. Pay is two coppers a day. Food included."
"Done."
He walked behind the bar. The woman handed him a bucket and a rag. "You got a name?"
"Chen Wei."
"I'm Marta." She leaned closer and lowered her voice. "That mark on your hand. I saw something like it once, a long time ago, on a dead man."
Chen Wei's blood went cold. "What happened to him?"
"He got hunted," Marta said. "By a king who does not leave witnesses."
She walked away without another word.
---
### Huang Zhen
The Eastern Temple was empty when he arrived. Huang walked through the gates and found bodies scattered everywhere. Guards and priests, all dead. But not by his hand. Someone else had been here before him. He knelt beside a priest's body and examined the wound. A clean cut across the throat. Professional work.
He stood up and walked into the main hall. Candles still burned on the altar. The air smelled of incense and blood. A young man lay tied up on the stone altar, his face bruised, his clothes torn. No mark on his palm. Wrong one.
A scout ran in from a side door, smiling and bowing. "My king! I captured the insect for you. I brought him here to wait for your arrival."
Huang looked at the prisoner, then at the scout. "Where is the real one?"
The scout's smile faded. "I thought this was him. The description matched. Young, dark hair, found near the temple."
"The description did not include a golden mark on his palm."
The scout's face went pale. "No, my king. But I assumed..."
Huang turned to the prisoner. The young man's eyes were wide with terror, tears rolling down his cheeks. "Please," the prisoner begged. "I am just a farmer. I came to pray. I do not know anything about marks or kings. Please let me go."
Huang raised one finger, and a small flame danced on his fingertip. "You are not the one I want," he said. "But my scout wasted my time because of you. That cannot go unpunished."
He touched the farmer's face. The man screamed as his skin blistered and melted. The smell of burning flesh filled the hall. The farmer thrashed against his ropes, then went still. Dead.
Huang turned to the scout. The scout fell to his knees, begging. "Mercy, my king. Please. I made a mistake. I will find the real one. I swear."
Huang grabbed the scout's head and held it still. "You made me look stupid. You killed an innocent man. And you wasted my evening." He pressed his thumbs into the scout's eyes.
The scout screamed. Blood ran down his face. He clawed at Huang's hands, but Huang did not move. When it was done, the scout lay on the floor, blind and moaning.
"You are not dead because I want you to remember this," Huang said. "Find me the real insect, or I will burn your family next."
He walked out of the temple. The scout crawled after him, blind and begging. Huang did not look back.
He headed toward the next temple. The hunt had just begun.
--