The crows lay dead in Tian's Watch, but rumor crawled deeper — like root-rot under pine bark, patient and hidden. Master Tian watched the villagers drag the bodies to the far terrace where the soil stayed sour from old charcoal pits. They buried iron with frost-bitten prayers, no markers but the bite of the wind.
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By dusk, smoke rose again — not from the pyres, but from Tian's crooked hut.
Inside, Li Shen crouched beside Master Tian's battered floor chest. The old man's hands trembled as they unhooked the rusted latch. Yue Lan's threads curled around the hinges, flicking away dust that might betray sharp ears.
When the lid lifted, the dark inside breathed out a smell of old pine pitch and dried rice straw. But deeper still, a corner of silk — black, frayed, embroidered in thread so dark it swallowed lantern light.
A banner. Folded tight enough to hide an oath.
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Li Shen didn't touch it. He only watched Master Tian's knuckles hover above the silk, as if the cloth might bite him after all these years.
"You swore to bury it," Master Tian rasped. "You swore no crown would find it."
Li Shen's jaw tensed. "I did."
Yue Lan stepped closer, her eyes catching the faint sigil hidden in the folds — a shape older than the Nine Heavens, older than the chains Li Shen broke.
A black chain coiled around a wolf's head, stitched in silk so dark it seemed alive in the guttering lamp glow.
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Tian's Watch had been a haven for runaways, woodcutters, children who escaped the sect lords' salt mines. But before that — long before that — it was a hidden clutch of blades that called themselves Wolfchain.
A brotherhood that cracked open the iron tithe caravans, fed starving hills, and vanished before the crowns could bleed them dry.
Li Shen had been their last cub — the youngest to bind blade to oath.
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Yue Lan's threads brushed the banner's edge. "Why keep it here?" she murmured.
Master Tian's eyes lifted — clouded but sharp.
"Because rumor forgets," he rasped. "But iron remembers. If you stand with no crown, you stand alone. If the Wolfchain breathes again—"
He did not finish. His hand dropped. The banner trembled where it lay.
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Li Shen reached in — lifted the silk with both hands, slow and deliberate. Old ash dust drifted off in faint gray wisps. He held it to the lantern, the wolf's head glaring through the flicker.
He looked at Yue Lan — at her threads ghosting in the dark.
"This is what the crows fear," he said. His voice was quiet, rough with a promise older than rumor. "Not me. Not my name. This."
Master Tian laughed — a dry bark that cracked the hush.
"Then give them reason."
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Outside the hut, the village dogs barked at shadows gathering where the ridge path broke the pines. Li Shen stepped through the doorway, banner folded under his arm, blade strapped across his spine.
The frost crackled underfoot like dry bones snapping.
A crown could drown in silver.
A chain could choke in iron.
But a banner beneath ash could feed a storm.
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⚡ End of Chapter Fifteen — The Banner Beneath Ash
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