"Your highness, this chamber won't last long for a long time. This was only standing due to master's powers. We need to evacuate...immediately." Xie Yuan, the shadow commander of the black phoenix battalion said, bowing before little LiuYan. She only nodded at him.
The dragon empress Long Xiao Yue has fallen. Her beloved, emperor Shen JinHai was to blame for her death. But now the royal kids has run for their lives from the monster himself.
The clad walked through a narrow passage which lead them to a hidden tunnel that opened into a silent forest just beyond the palace walls, where shadows stretched long beneath the cover of night. With the Empress's final spell, the passage behind them had collapsed, sealing their escape route. There was no turning back.
Only twenty elite phoenix guards, two loyal maids, and Commander Xie Yuan now stood between the two princesses and the blades of the emperor.
Shen LiuYan, just five years old, carried in one arm by Lady Ruohua, the chief maid of the late empress, didn't cry. Not even once. Her small fists clenched around the warm cloth wrapped over her baby sister, her expression already etched with the grief of loss.
"We move by the shadow paths," Xie Yuan commanded. "No fires. No signals. Every trace must be erased."
Each night they traveled under moonless skies, and each day they sheltered in mountain caves or thick forest glades. Xie Yuan, despite injuries from the palace, never faltered. But the hounds of the emperor — demonic trackers cloaked in shadow — were never far behind. The demonic princess always feared the empress's powers, thus wanted to kill her two kids by any means.
The survival clad only manage to take a small amount of food. Even though LiuYan was forsaken, she was undaunted. Her lips were parched; her limbs thin and bruised, yet her eyes—so young yet already forged in loss—remained unbroken. She chewed slowly through half a burnt grain cake, saving the other half for the wounded guard who had carried them for miles on trembling legs, while Lady Ruohua fed baby LiuHua.
By the tenth day the group had taken shelter in a ruined monastery deep within the ravines of the White Ash Mountains. The wind whispered through broken stone pillars like the murmurs of forgotten monks. A faded statue of the Moon Deity loomed in the shadows, its face half eroded but still dignified, watching over them in silence.
Lady Ruohua rocked the infant LiuHua gently beneath her cloak, shielding her from the night wind that clawed like fingers dipped in frost. Her hands trembled from fatigue, but her movements were calm, tender. LiuYan sat close beside her, rubbing twigs together in a desperate attempt to coax a spark. Her fingers were raw, but her determination did not yield.
Outside, the howls of demon hounds echoed faintly, distant but drawing closer with every night. Their scent lingered in the air—blood and decay. Xie Yuan leaned against a shattered pillar, his shoulder freshly bandaged. Blood still seeped through the cloth, yet he kept watch, sword across his lap, eyes scanning every shadow.
That night, the moon bled crimson. They knew they had been followed.
And just before dawn, the darkness moved.
LiuYan, eyes half-lidded, was leaning against Lady Ruohua.
Suddenly — the sound of a blade unsheathing. Too fast. Too close.
A cloaked figure darted from the darkness — one of the emperor's shadow assassins, eyes glowing red, blade aimed for LiuYan.
Lady Ruohua reacted without thought.
"Y-Your Highness — RUN!"
The blade pierced her back with a sickening sound; the second aimed at LiuYan was caught mid-air by Xie Yuan who struck it away with his last strength. Blood spilled over the LiuYan's robe as Lady Ruohua crumbled, still holding LiuHua protectively.
"No…" LiuYan whispered, crawling to her side on scraped knees. "No, no, no—Aunt Ruohua—"
The older woman coughed a thin line of crimson trailing from the corner of her mouth. "Y-Your Highness—p-p-protect— your sister—" she rasped, her trembling hand reaching out to place LiuHua gently in LiuYan's arms. Her eyes, once stern and watchful, softened with maternal warmth in their final moments.
" huh—I'm sorry, I couldn't -- couldn't stay longer—"
LiuYan shook her head violently, tears now streaking down her dirt-streaked cheeks. "Please don't say that. Don't go. Please don't leave me…"
Lady Ruohua smiled faintly—a smile of pride, not regret. "You were born— to lead— m-my child. Be fierce… be kind—" Her breath hitched, faded. "Never kneel—"
Her fingers, still stained with the warmth of LiuHua's swaddling cloth, brushed against LiuYan's cheek one last time, whispering as blood poured from her lips.
"You will-l… s-s-shine— brighter than a-a-all of them. You---"
LiuYan sat frozen, cradling LiuHua with one arm, her other hand still wrapped around Lady Ruohua's cooling fingers. Her shoulders trembled, but she didn't scream. She didn't wail. Not here. Not yet.
She simply sat there.
Like a statue carved from grief and steel.
And when she finally looked up, her eyes no longer held the wide, fractured light of a child.
Only fire.
Only resolve.
Xie Yuan killed the assassin, but four of the remaining guards died that night. The rest left hastily before the demonic reinforcements could arrive.
The days bled together like ink in rain—indistinguishable, merciless, and bitter.
The wind howled through jagged canyons and frost-laced valleys, never offering rest, only reminders that the world cared little for orphans or oaths. The makeshift band dwindled under constant pursuit. One by one, the guards fell—some in valiant last stands, others in ambushes too swift for defense. There was no time for mourning. No time to bury the dead. Only whispered names etched into memory and promises carved in bone-deep silence.
Starvation clung to them like a shadow. They scraped moss from stone, chewed bitter roots, drank from puddles half-frozen with grime. LiuYan never once cried for food. Her lips cracked, her limbs shook, but her eyes—those cold, unwavering eyes—remained still as ice.
On the twenty-fourth night, under a sky choked with smoke and snow, only three remained:
Xie Yuan, bleeding and broken, his right leg useless and ribs crushed from shielding the girls. But still, he was carrying the two girls on his back.
"Uncle Xie" LiuYan called.
"Yes, my child"
"You can put me down. Just hold Xiao Liu. I'll walk beside you" LiuYan said with a tiny voice.
Xie Yuan was dazed. The child was only 5, yet she remained stoic and tenacious, which was unbelievable for a kid at this age. He put LiuYan down then held her tiny hand, while carrying LiuHua in his other hand.
LiuYan, gaunt but unbowed, her gaze hollowed by loss but sharp with purpose, followed the elderly, ragged man who stood by her side at her lowest moment.
LiuHua, wrapped in furs far too large for her tiny body, cradled in the man's arms—silent, sickly, unaware.
Xie Yuan had no more strength left for swordplay, so he lit the last of the soul-erasing incense, a rare artifact smuggled from the empress's vaults. It cloaked their presence like moonless fog. Then—without hesitation—he burned the last remnants of his own cultivation to mislead the demon trackers, scattering his essence across the ridges to buy them a ghost of a chance.
They walked. Or rather, they dragged themselves through the final stretch.
On the thirtieth dawn, after seven days without sleep and two only with water, the endless White Plains finally broke open into the gold-flecked grasslands of the western frontier.
The light hit first—golden, too pure for the tragedy behind them. The air was warm with the scent of dry earth and wheat. But none of them saw it.
Xie Yuan collapsed first, his knees hitting the soil like stone. Blood stained his mouth, but his arms never loosened. He fell forward with both girls in his grasp—shielding them even in unconsciousness.
LiuYan stirred barely, her fingers still clutching Liuhua's cloak, the ghost of her mother's lullaby trapped in her throat.
When the guards at the border outpost rushed out to the cries of the sentry, they found only a tattered warrior, two dying children, and a trail of blood across the snow-lined grass.
The border outpost of Western border had seen its share of war, but never had it witnessed something so quietly tragic.
The gates were opened at dawn as the guards scrambled to investigate the sound—three collapsed figures, barely clinging to life, just beyond the perimeter. A man bleeding from his eyes and mouth. Two children—one unconscious, the other eerily still, her hand clenched around a sword hilt as if it were the last thread tethering her to this world.
General Han Zhen Yue stepped out with his lieutenants, armored in deep bronze, his presence commanding silence. He took a deep look at the trio for a while and barked, "Take them inside. Bring the physicians."
He did not recognize them.
He saw only survivors.
They were placed in the infirmary. Hours passed. The girl with the icy stare refused to sleep until she saw the baby beside her start breathing normally. The man with the ruined leg, Xie Yuan, drifted between life and death for nearly two days before the fever broke. When he finally awoke, it was night.
The room was dim. Incense burned faintly in the corner. General Han stood nearby, arms folded, his expression taut with questions.
Xie Yuan coughed once, and then whispered hoarsely, "Are we safe?"
"You are," Han replied. "Who are you? Who are those girls?"
Xie Yuan turned his head, eyes landing on the two sleeping forms in the corner. LiuYan still sat upright, resting against the wall, blade across her lap like a guardian beast.
Then he spoke—halting at first, then with rising fury and grief.
"That girl… she's Princess Shen LiuYan, d-daughter of our Field Marshal Long Xiao Yue— and the last flame of the true Dragon Lineage---"
Han's breath caught.
Xie Yuan continued, voice cracking. "The emperor betrayed her. He killed master. Unleashed demons upon her own kin. We escaped through a secret tunnel beneath the palace. But they… they didn't make it." His fists trembled. "Only we three survived."
Han took a step back. "Y-You're telling me… her-her majesty is—"
"Dead," Xie Yuan said bitterly. "And so are all who remained loyal. The ones who live now wears the emperor's chain."
General Han turned slowly to look at the older girl again. Her face bore no trace of nobility or entitlement. Only the hardened silence of someone who had bled too long, and mourned too early.
Suddenly, the flickering torchlight caught a glint beneath her right ear. A sigil—the ancient Azure Dragon
The truth struck like thunder.
General Han dropped to one knee, his fist clenching at the floor. "Your majesty, I failed you. I failed all of you."
"There's no room for guilt now, General. Only vengeance."
He looked up at the girl's eyes, and in her eyes, what he saw was not a child—but a storm. A child who had walked through fire, carrying her sister on her back. A child who had buried warriors and watched her world crumble.
A child who was no longer just a child.
He took LiuYan into his arms, then LiuHua.
From that day forward, the two orphans were hidden from the empire — raised in the house of Han as their own children.
But LiuYan remembered everything.
The blood moon, her mother's dying breath, the shattered sword, and the promise of vengeance.
And in her heart —
The fire never died.