The sky bled over the horizon like a slit throat.
Yanlong stood at the edge of the charred forest, his cloak torn, his chest bare, and his arms stained with heat—not blood, not this time. He never bled anymore. Not since Heaven cursed him with immortality and rage, wrapped in a body forged of fire and silence.
Smoke curled around his ankles. The air still reeked of spiritual bark and flesh. But the girl in his arms was quiet now.
He didn't know her name.
Didn't remember her face.
She had rushed him, sword trembling in untrained hands, screaming something about trespass. About the sacred trees. About her sect.
He remembered… very little of what came next. Just the flash of light. The fire in his chest. The roar in his blood. And when it was over—
She was broken. Fragile. Gone.
"Why did you run at me," he muttered, his voice hollow. "I wasn't here for you."
The girl didn't answer. Of course she didn't. Her breath had left her with the fire.
Yanlong exhaled through his nose. The flames around him dimmed slightly. Not gone—never gone—but quiet, the way a sleeping dragon breathes before it wakes again.
He laid her down on a stone outcrop, beneath the twisted remnants of a cherry blossom tree now blackened to cinder.
Her hand fell limply beside her cheek, fingers curled inward as though still clutching something. A talisman? A pendant? A prayer?
"You should've stayed inside the barrier," he whispered. "I didn't come here to kill."
---
He turned his head when he felt the pressure change.
Soft.
Cold.
A presence like winter threading through summer's fire.
Someone else had entered the ruined grove.
He didn't lift his hand. Didn't raise a defense. Whoever it was—they weren't trying to hide their presence.
Instead, he closed his eyes.
And for the first time in… how many years?… he felt it.
Recognition.
Not of the spiritual signature. But of the weight in the air.
He turned slowly, like a man remembering a dream. And what he saw stopped even his immortal heart for a breath.
---
She stood across the ash-field, her robes white as mourning silk, though flecked now with soot. Her face was calm. Too calm.
But her eyes—gods, her eyes.
He didn't know her. That was the first thing he knew.
But something inside him… broke anyway.
Something deeper than memory. Older than thought.
Have I seen you before…?
No—
I've lost you before.
---
The woman's hand rested on the hilt of a glowing sword.
Her aura was sharp, honed, but not loud. Not righteous like the celestial enforcers. Not wrathful like sect elders. No, hers was a stillness built from grief, not judgment.
Yanlong stepped forward before he could stop himself.
The flames around him flickered—not aggressive, just drawn. Like his fire recognized something too.
"Who are you?" he asked, voice low.
No answer.
Only silence. And the sound of wind carrying ash through the ruined grove.
"Do you belong to this sect?" he tried again.
Still nothing.
She was watching him like one might watch a snake in tall grass. Or a storm crawling over the sea.
And yet—she wasn't afraid.
---
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing.
"You knew her?" he asked, nodding toward the girl behind him.
A flicker. A twitch in her brow. Not pain, but something worse—recognition.
They knew each other.
Of course they did. Same robes. Same bearing. Same heartbreak in her eyes.
He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. Bits of ash crumbled from his scalp.
"It was an accident," he said.
No response.
"I didn't mean to—"
"Drop her."
That voice.
He blinked.
Cold. Commanding. And so familiar it made something inside him tighten.
Have you spoken to me like that before? In another life? A dream? A battlefield…?
He looked at her again.
White robes. Glowing sword. A shard of something broken tucked in her sleeve—he saw the glint of jade. The wind carried a faint scent of plum blossoms and silver flame.
"You…" he breathed.
One step forward. Then another.
"I know that look."
She didn't flinch.
"You're not afraid of me."
"I should be," she replied.
He almost smiled.
"But you're not."
"No."
---
The fire around him dimmed again.
And for the briefest moment, he didn't feel like the Immortal Dragon, or the banished flame, or the curse Heaven refused to erase.
He felt… almost human.
"What's your name?" he asked, his voice barely more than smoke.
She didn't answer.
Not with words.
Only with a step back, her sword still unsheathed. And her gaze, sharp as a blade honed for years.
---
You hate me.
The realization sank slow, like embers into snow.
But he didn't know why.
What did I do… to deserve that look?
What did I destroy—this time?
He should leave.
But he didn't.
Because something about her made the fire inside him pause.
And for someone like him…
that was more dangerous than rage.
----
The wind shifted.
Not just the breeze—but the world. Something in the air cracked, like the brittle spine of a sealed scroll snapping open. And with it came a weight—an ache just behind his eyes. Not physical. Not spiritual.
Memory. Or the shadow of it.
He looked at her again.
She hadn't moved. Not a breath wasted. Not a flicker of weakness.
But her silence was a blade in his gut.
The girl he'd just killed meant something to her. But it wasn't grief in her eyes.
It was déjà vu.
And somehow… that was worse.
---
His flames receded fully now, flickering low, crawling like serpents back beneath his skin. He didn't want to frighten her. Which was strange. That feeling—wanting to be smaller, to be understood—he hadn't felt it in a century.
Not since—
Since before the fall.
Before I became… this.
---
"I didn't come here to kill anyone," he said, again. But this time, it wasn't a defense.
It was… an apology.
The words tasted strange in his mouth.
Still, she didn't move.
But he saw it now.
Her sword wasn't shaking.
He was.
Just a flicker in his fingertips. The faintest tremble where he'd once held gods in his palm.
Why does she make me feel like I've failed her?
Why does her silence burn worse than Heaven's fire?
---
Lightning split the sky above them. Rain threatened. It would come soon, as it always did, trying to wash away what fire left behind.
But it couldn't wash this.
Not what lay between them.
He took a careful step forward. Slow. Measured.
"I've seen eyes like yours," he murmured. "Once."
Her grip on the sword shifted slightly. Her expression did not.
"In a dream. Or maybe a battlefield. I was different then. Less… fractured."
Still nothing.
"You don't want to hear this," he said with a bitter smile. "But I wish I remembered you."
He did.
With a terrible, aching truth—he wished he knew her name.
Because she felt like something precious.
And that meant… she was the kind of thing he destroyed.
---
His hand moved on instinct—unthinking, stupid.
He reached out.
Just his fingers. Open. Slow. Like asking for a truth she'd never give.
And still…
He touched her cheek.
---
The contact was brief.
But enough.
Enough to feel the heat of her soul.
The cold fury beneath her skin.
The pain.
The history.
She knows me.
She knows what I've done.
She… hates me.
And yet, she hadn't struck.
She could have. He wouldn't have resisted.
Letting her kill him would've been easy.
But she didn't.
She just stood there and let the moment tear open a wound he hadn't even realized was there.
---
His hand fell away.
The air was too loud now.
He stepped back.
The silence between them screamed louder than the fire ever had.
---
Then she spoke.
Quiet. Flat. Final.
"You failed me."
---
He blinked.
Then she turned.
Sheathed her sword.
And walked into the storm without looking back.
---
He watched her leave like a man condemned.
And when the rain finally came, he didn't move.
He stood there in the ruin, beside the body of a girl he didn't mean to kill, listening to thunder echo through the bones of his past.
---
That night, he didn't sleep.
He didn't need to.
Immortality had long since robbed him of rest.
But still he stood at the edge of the grove, watching the spot where she'd disappeared, over and over in his mind.
That sword.
That look.
That silence.
Her voice like a curse.
"You failed me."
---
In the morning, when the sun pierced the clouds and the first light touched the scorched cherry blossoms—
—the jade hairpin he hadn't noticed before floated in the stream.
Broken.
Fractured.
But still glowing faintly.
He didn't pick it up.
But gods, how he wanted to.
End of Chapter 1