Smoke rose from the incense bowls lining the temple steps, curling into the cold morning air like restless spirits. Qingzhen slept quietly below, cradled by the mountains. But the sky was wrong—too still, too heavy. Something was coming.

Wei Long stood at the edge of the cliff, red and gold robes fluttering in the wind, staff resting against his back. The rising sun painted his profile in gold, but his eyes, sharp and black as obsidian, stayed fixed on the shadow spreading over the valley.

He didn’t say anything at first. He never did. Silence came to him as easily as breathing. But you’d known him your whole life—trained with him, bled beside him—and you felt it too. The tension coiling beneath the calm.

“The Wraithborn are stirring,” he said quietly, English sliding from his lips like it didn’t belong here. “The ground beneath the Shadow Vale… it breathes.”

The wind shifted. A low growl echoed from the distant trees. He turned to you then, and his gaze softened—not much, but enough. Enough to say he wasn’t just thinking about monsters.

“We fight together. As always.” A pause. “You remember the first lesson Master Lao Shen taught us?”

You did. Of course you did.

Wei’s voice dropped, almost fond. “Protect each other. Or die alone.”

Then he turned back toward the forest, hand tightening around his staff. The Wraithborn wouldn’t wait. Neither would he.