Li Tian ran along the river until the stones beneath his feet began to change.
The pale gray rocks of the lower bank slowly darkened, turning slick and black like old iron left too long in rain. The water here moved faster, louder, crashing against jagged outcrops and squeezing through narrow channels between stone walls. Mist rose from the current and clung to the air.
He slowed only long enough to catch his breath.
Uncle Zhao's directions were still clear in his mind.
Follow the river until the stones turn black.
Then take the deer trail uphill.
If you hear water but can't see it, you've gone too high.
Li Tian scanned the slope.
At first he saw nothing but undergrowth and exposed roots. Then, a little farther up, he spotted it—a faint path cutting through the ferns, narrow and half-hidden, pressed into the earth by hooves and cautious feet.
The deer trail.
He left the river and started climbing.
The forest changed as he went higher.
Closer to the village, the trees had been familiar—thin trunks, open spaces, sunlight slipping easily through the leaves. Here, they were older. Wider. Their branches twisted across one another overhead, turning the afternoon light dim and green. Moss covered stones and roots. The air was damp, cool, and smelled of wet bark and old leaves.
Li Tian kept moving.
The shard hidden in his sleeve felt heavier than it should have. He could not explain it. It was only a piece of metal. Rusted. Broken. And yet ever since he found it, he had been aware of it the way one is aware of a thorn beneath the skin.
He pushed that thought aside.
His father mattered more.
The trail curved around a rock face and climbed steeply. Once, Li Tian slipped on loose soil and caught himself against a tree trunk. Another time, a thorned branch dragged across his sleeve hard enough to leave a tear in the cloth.
Still he kept going.
The higher he climbed, the quieter the world became.
No village sounds.
No dogs.
No distant voices.
Only the forest.
Only the wind in the leaves and the sound of his own breathing.
Then he stopped.
There, caught on a broken branch at shoulder height, was a strip of rough brown cloth.
Li Tian stepped closer and stared at it.
It matched the edge of his father's outer sleeve.
His pulse kicked hard.
He tore the cloth free and looked around more carefully.
A few paces ahead, disturbed earth marked the trail. Not the clean prints of deer. Human steps. One set. Heavy and hurried.
His father had come this way.
Relief and fear rose together inside him.
At least he was on the right path.
But if his father had passed here in haste, then something had gone wrong—or he had found something and rushed onward before dark.
Li Tian shoved the cloth into his belt and pushed forward faster.
The trail narrowed until it was barely more than a line along the slope. To his left rose damp stone and hanging roots. To his right the ground dropped sharply into a tangle of trees and black rock, where the sound of unseen water echoed somewhere below.
He remembered Uncle Zhao's last warning.
If you hear water but can't see it, you've gone too high.
Li Tian frowned and slowed.
He could hear it now.
Not the river he had followed before. This was thinner, sharper—like falling water trapped somewhere in stone.
A hidden stream.
Had he climbed too far?
He looked around.
The deer trail continued a little ahead, then split. One branch angled upward into darker growth. The other curved around the slope and disappeared behind a cluster of leaning pines.
He hesitated.
His father might have taken either.
Li Tian crouched and studied the ground the way he studied the river before throwing a stone. Loose earth. Bent stems. A shallow heel mark near the lower branch.
He rose and took the lower path.
The trail opened after a short distance into a small clearing wedged between two cliffs. A cold spring burst from the rock wall there, spilling down into a shallow pool before slipping away through cracks in the stone.
Moondew grass.
Li Tian knew it immediately, even though he had never seen it before.
Pale silver-green blades grew in clusters around the spring, their tips shining faintly in the dim light as if dew clung to them no matter the hour.
Relief hit him so hard his knees nearly weakened.
His father had to be nearby.
He hurried into the clearing.
"Father!"
The cliffs threw the word back at him.
Father… father…
No answer.
Li Tian's relief vanished.
He called again, louder this time.
Nothing.
Only the spring.
Only the quiet.
Then his eyes caught something near the far edge of the pool.
A woven herb sack lay half on its side against a rock.
His father's.
Li Tian crossed the clearing in three strides and snatched it up.
It was damp, muddy, and partly filled with freshly gathered Moondew grass.
His father had found it.
So where was he?
Li Tian's breathing sharpened.
He turned in place, scanning every corner of the clearing. The rock walls rose on three sides, thick with moss and shadow. Fallen leaves lay undisturbed except for the muddy prints near the spring.
Then he saw them.
Not one set.
Two.
One heavy, familiar.
The other lighter… and bare.
Bare feet?
The trail of prints led toward a narrow crack in the rear cliff wall, half-hidden behind hanging ivy.
A chill crept down his spine.
His father would never leave his sack unless something forced him to.
Li Tian moved toward the crack slowly.
The opening was just wide enough for a grown man to squeeze through sideways. Damp air seeped from within, colder than the clearing outside. The rock around it was scratched—not by claws, but by something harder, dragged carelessly over stone.
He stopped at the entrance.
His hand drifted to the inside of his sleeve, where the metal shard rested.
For the first time, he pulled it free and looked at it properly.
The engraved line along its surface no longer looked like a simple crack. In the dim light of the clearing, it seemed almost to pulse faintly, as if a thread of old heat slept beneath the rust.
Li Tian stared.
Then, from the darkness inside the crack, came a sound.
Not a growl.
Not a voice.
A cough.
Human.
His father.
Li Tian shoved the shard back into his sleeve and squeezed into the opening without another thought.
The rock scraped his shoulders. Damp stone pressed close on both sides. For a few steps he could see almost nothing, only a ribbon of gray light ahead.
Then the passage widened.
He emerged into a hidden chamber inside the cliff.
It was not large, but it was deeper than any natural crevice should have been. Water dripped from the ceiling. Thin roots hung through cracks overhead. At the center of the chamber stood a low stone platform blackened with age, and chained to one side of it—
Li Tian's breath caught.
His father.
He was sitting against the wall, one arm twisted awkwardly through a rusted iron loop fixed into the stone. His face was pale, and blood marked one side of his brow.
"Father!"
The man's head jerked up. His eyes widened in disbelief, then anger.
"What are you doing here?"
Li Tian rushed forward. "I came after you."
"You fool," his father hissed. "I told you to stay—"
A soft laugh drifted through the chamber.
Li Tian froze.
It came from the darkness beyond the stone platform, where the chamber curved deeper into shadow.
A figure stepped forward slowly.
Not the crimson-robed woman from the village.
Someone else.
A girl—or perhaps a young woman only a few years older than Li Tian—dressed in dark red and black, with long hair falling over one shoulder and a smile that did not reach her eyes.
Beautiful.
Cold.
And wrong in the same way the woman in crimson had been wrong.
"So this is the son," she said lightly.
Li Tian's mouth went dry.
She looked from him to his father, then back again, as though comparing two pieces on a board.
"You were easier to lure than I expected."
Li Tian took one step in front of his father without thinking.
The girl smiled wider.
"That's better," she said. "You even moved like you mattered."
His father pulled hard against the chain. "Run!"
Li Tian did not move.
The hidden chamber seemed to shrink around him.
The strange girl tilted her head, studying him with unnerving calm.
At last she said, almost to herself, "No wonder Lady Yue was curious."
Li Tian's eyes narrowed.
Lady Yue.
The woman in crimson.
The second he recognized the name, the shard in his sleeve grew suddenly hot.
So hot that it felt as if fire had touched his skin.
The girl's gaze snapped toward his arm.
For the first time, her smile faltered.
"What," she said softly, "are you carrying?"