I did not fall into the water.
The water fell into me.
Cold stabbed through my ribs, then through thought, then through memory. Shen Yue's scream stretched thin as thread, distant, torn away by the darkness swallowing me whole. The world tightened into a narrow corridor of sound—distant ringing, like the echo of a bell heard from underwater.
Then everything inverted.
I was standing.
Not on stone.
On nothing.
An endless plane of black glass stretched beneath my feet. Above—no sky, no clouds, only the faint pulse of something enormous pressing down.
The bridge.
I felt it before I saw it.
A massive root, or vine, or tendril of something older than language. It writhed lazily in the darkness like a serpent dreaming under deep water. Its surface shimmered between bone and metal, flesh and shadow.
It saw me.
A pressure tightened around my skull.
Child.
The voice wasn't sound—it was weight. It sank through my bones, through the blood, into the wound of the first cut.
"You're not my father," I said.
No.
A ripple passed along its length.
Your father is merely the one who carried me.
"You're a parasite."
It laughed, and the laughter cracked the glass under my feet.
I am a bridge across the void. A path between what is and what must be. You are not my vessel. You are my doorway.
"I don't belong to you."
Another ripple. Amusement.
Everything belongs to something. Even you.
The ground split. A line of light hissed upward—blinding, jagged, painful. The bridge coiled around the crack, feeding, drawing the light inward as if drinking.
My breath caught.
The light was memory.
My memory.
Faces I half-knew. Voices I once loved. Years I didn't even know I had lost.
"Give that back," I said.
It coiled tighter.
It is not yours. It is the price.
"For what?"
For surviving.
The crack widened beneath me.
Something pulled.
I dropped to one knee, fighting the pull with everything inside me.
"No," I hissed. "Not again."
The bridge uncoiled, towering above me—a pillar of ancient intent.
If you continue the third cut, it whispered, you will cease to be my doorway.
"Good."
You will cease to be anything.
I looked up at it—at the god or wound or bridge or monster that had lived inside me since before memory.
"If dying means you die with me," I said, "then maybe that's a fair trade."
The bridge froze.
Then it struck.
A tendril lashed out and wrapped around my throat, lifting me from the ground. I clawed at the invisible weight, breath burning white in my lungs.
The darkness around us trembled.
The bell above rang again—louder, ripping through this world and the real one.
The bridge hissed:
You belong to the one who built the tower. Not to yourself.
My vision blurred.
My fingers dug into the tendril.
"Wrong," I rasped.
I reached inward, toward the second cut, toward the place where the scholar had split the anchor.
And I pulled.
Pain tore through me so violently I saw white.
The tendril snapped.
The bridge reared back in shock.
I collapsed onto the glass, coughing, throat burning.
Then, for the first time since this thing entered my life—
the bridge faltered.
It recoiled.
Impossible.
I forced myself up, trembling. "Get used to it."
The world shuddered. Cracks spidered outward in every direction. The darkness above began to swirl—and something else stirred behind the bridge. Something vaster. Something waiting.
The third cut had awakened it.
And it was not on the bridge's side.
Ling An's palace shook as the bell's echo rolled through stone, tile, bone.
Ministers fell to their knees. Zhou soldiers gripped their spears in sudden terror. The lanterns flickered with black fire.
Wu Jin ran into the main hall, shouting:
"Seal the tower's gates—NOW!"
Guards scrambled. Priests scattered. The sound traveled through them like cold water.
Wu Shuang stood at the base of the tower, watching it pulse with growing light. She felt each wave ripple through her ribs like a heartbeat mimicking her own.
The Lord Protector appeared behind her without warning.
Shuang didn't turn.
"You're ringing it," she said softly.
Her father stepped beside her, hands clasped behind his back.
"No," he murmured. "It rings itself. I am merely encouraging clarity."
"And the bell?" she whispered.
"Is hungry."
A chill slid down her spine.
"And Wu Jin?" she asked. "What will you do with him?"
The Lord Protector smiled faintly.
"He will stand where I place him."
"And if he refuses?"
"He won't."
His tone was absolute.
"Fear makes kings obedient," he said. "And obedience makes kings disposable."
Shuang inhaled sharply.
She did not ask about Wu An.
She did not want the answer.
Far south, the Emperor of Liang's procession slowed as scouts returned breathless.
"Your Majesty," the lead scout bowed. "Northern clans gather on the ridge. They watch us like hawks."
The Emperor glanced up. Dark figures lined the distant cliffs—dozens, perhaps hundreds, barely visible.
"Let them watch."
The Southern King bowed, but doubt flickered behind his eyes.
"Your Majesty," he ventured, "these clans… might not accept your return."
"They will accept what survives," the Emperor said calmly.
The King swallowed. "We stand with you, as always."
The Emperor returned the nod—but his gaze lingered on the King a hair too long.
The King stiffened.
He knew that look.
He had seen it before.
On men who measured livestock.
And executioners.
In the sandstorm city, Shen Yue shouted into the pool of black water.
"AN! AN, ANSWER ME!"
The hooded guide watched without expression.
"He lives."
"If he dies," Shen Yue hissed, "I will kill every single one of you."
"You cannot," the guide said simply.
Shen Yue lifted her blade.
"I will try."
The guide bowed. "Then you will die. And he will wake alone."
Shen Yue's breath faltered.
She lowered the blade but did not sheathe it.
"Bring him back," she whispered.
The guide inclined his head.
"He is bringing himself back."
In the bridge's world, the darkness peeled away.
Not by my will.
By another.
A presence approached.
Older than the bridge.
Older than Heaven.
Older than kings and towers and thrones.
The bridge recoiled violently.
No—no—NO—
Fear.
It was afraid.
The cracks widened beneath me. Wind howled through the void. A shape formed in the swirling darkness—unseen, but felt. A pressure like a thousand hands pushing on my back.
The bridge wrapped itself into a tight coil and hissed.
You should not see this.
I steadied myself.
"Then show me."
The presence leaned closer.
Everything went white.
For one heartbeat, I saw—
A tower taller than mountains.
An Emperor crowned in blood.
A river running backward.
A bridge breaking.
A world splitting.
A man with my father's face—
and another with mine—
standing on opposite sides of the fracture.
Then—
I was falling again.
Falling out of the bridge.
Falling into my body.
Falling into breath.
The darkness snapped.
I gasped awake, drenched in cold sweat, half in the pool and half out.
Shen Yue grabbed me, hauling me upward.
"An—!"
I coughed out water that wasn't water.
"I'm here," I rasped.
The hooded figure exhaled in relief.
"You have survived what should kill kings."
Shen Yue glared. "Will he survive what comes next?"
The figure lifted his hood fully, revealing eyes shaped by centuries of watching the world break.
"If he chooses correctly," he said.
"And if he fails?" she demanded.
He looked at her.
And the city itself seemed to hold its breath.
"Then the bridge will not be the only thing that dies."