Dawn shivered over the mountain, cold light barely holding back the return of night. Nothing truly dawned here, not in a valley built of bones and old sect curses. The water in the river ran slow and thick, the color of secrets kept too long. Every step he took dragged the ache of yesterday, of reckoning and memory, in the stubborn flesh beneath his battered robe.
Jun led, small and sharp against the waiting storm. Her breath left marks in the mist, and her eyes—a map of old violence—never settled long on him or the world. Trust was measured by what she did not say; her hand hovered near her blade, honest in its promise.
Behind, a ragged line trailed in their wake: bandits hoping for miracles, orphans with too many names lost to hunger, and the battered woman who still winced, knuckles white where she'd touched the relic-blade the night before. Out here, faith was heavier than a sword.
He didn't want to lead, not really. But outcasts found each other in times of need, like rain always finding the lowest places. The relic at his chest pulsed—never silent, never warm, a heartbeat separate from his own.
They passed through fields of shale and wildflowers, ghosts of former shrines glaring mutely from their ruin. A hush held the world tight, broken only by scattered birdsong and the distant, uneasy rumble of thunder. Every sound was soaked in warning.
He pressed two fingers to the relic, feeling it throb, insistent but not quite demanding. Sometimes he wondered if it mourned what it could not fix, or if it only ever counted the cost. Each miracle hollowed him—a little more memory lost, a little less of who he'd been before exile turned naming into a currency and hope into a curse.
Half the lost from last night's ruin followed, close but wary. Among them, the woman with the relic-blade at her hip, her face carved now with new strength—and new fear. She looked at him as if he could rewrite fate, or as if she might kill him for the chance. He saw both in her posture and wondered which was the heavier burden for a soul to carry.
Jun paused on the bank of a river as broad as despair, boots sinking into coiled mud. "West," she said. Not a question—fate in a single syllable.
He nodded. "West," he echoed. There was nowhere gentler left to go.
They slipped down the bank, mud and shale slick beneath their feet. Jun's blade flickered at her side. The relic pressed against his heart, already hungry, whispering that more would be demanded. He braced himself for whatever shape the miracle would take.
Across the river, a rise of shattered statues huddled near a wild tangle of briar and flowering weeds. A melody drifted—old, sorrowful, nearly smothered in the hush. He recognized its shape: the bend of a grandmother's lullaby tortured by years of smoke and loss.
He edged forward, careful. The girl sat among the broken idols—barefoot, young enough to defy the despair. She looked up, face round and lined like a spring that had come early and found nothing left to bloom. Her dress was patched with relic cloth, her hands cradling a bowl crusted with river scum and relic shards.
"You're him," she said. It was not question but accusation. The bandits lingered in the shadows, eager, afraid.
He knelt before the girl, fingers itching where river-cold seeped through his robe. "Names are dangerous currency," he told her honestly.
Her eyes didn't blink. "Can you make them remember? My mum, my sister—everyone here forgot how to hope without hurting."
He pressed the relic until it bit, gathering the heat and pain. The world stilled. Jun hovered at his left, ready as any storm. From the crowd, murmurs rippled—prayers disguised as curses, curses disguised as hopes.
"Miracles are the sharp end of memory," he warned. "They never come cheap. You sure?"
The girl whispered, "Someone should pay. Someone should remember."
He fit the relic against the bowl, feeling the ancient ache coil into his palm. In that pause, all his failures remade themselves as questions: Was sacrifice enough? Would memory be a gift or a wound?
Pain broke him open. Brighter and rawer than before, visions stabbed: the bandits' last meal before exile, Jun's childhood lost to sect fire, his own mother bending to tie a shoe just before the world burned. Above it all, the relic shone—brutal, beautiful, a sundial that measured only what was lost.
The bowl shimmered. For a breath, the river mirrored faces, names, joys. Each watcher saw something different: a brother waving from a long-ago night, a home with light in its window, a hope offered and taken back. The water glowed, pain turning to comfort just long enough that even the hungriest could clutch one faint, fleeting memory.
Tears tracked silent through dirty cheeks. One bandit stifled a sob, the woman with the blade let her guard drop. Even Jun winced—her face, for once, soft around the mouth.
A little part of him broke forever, but he'd learned: miracles fed on the price, not just the payment.
He slumped, shivering, vision blurring out around the edges. The relic stilled, burden eased for a beat. He wondered if one day, it would demand something he couldn't give.
The bandits stepped forward, uncertain now. The air was thick with what he hadn't said—the cost of each kindness, the weight that settled on him every time hope clung longer than hunger.
Jun touched his shoulder, fear and loyalty threaded together. "You didn't have to do that," she murmured—not accusation, just recognition. "But you did. That's the difference in this place."
He smiled, weak but proud. "Share or starve, that's all exile ever taught me."
Above, clouds gathered, torn and wild. The girl whispered, eyes shining, "Thank you, curse-boy." She made the words sound like redemption.
He wanted to believe her.
They set off, dusk bleeding into the world. The bandits melted back into the ruins, fires flaring as old wounds found new names to bind them. The orphans watched, hope and hunger fighting for space. Jun and he walked, every step another answer to the question the gods had asked in storms and scars: What did it cost, to keep the memory of hope alive?
Ahead, the road forked—one path was mud and loss, the other stones and bones. He paused, feeling the relic whisper in the hollow of his chest, promising that even here, a future was possible if you could survive your own heart.
They chose the path uphill: stubborn, battered, but shared. Footprints vanished behind them, lost in new rain. The world closed in, demanding less bravery and more persistence.
At the next rise, Jun stopped and looked back. "You'll never get used to it," she said. "Giving when you're empty. Leading when all you want is to be silent. The mountain doesn't forgive or forget, but those people—tonight—they'll remember you didn't owe them anything, and you gave anyway."
He wanted to cry, just from relief, but found only a crooked smile.
"I hope so," he said. "If memory has to hurt, let it hurt in a way that matters."
They made camp under a half-crumbled arch, shivering beside scraps of fire Jun coaxed with patience and curses. All around, the mountain kept silent vigil. The relic grew quiet, a stone heavier than sleep, but for once its warmth felt earned.
He drifted, not quite dreaming, not quite awake. Faces flickered behind his eyes: the lost, the left-behind, the ones who demanded miracles and the ones who offered nothing but their own ragged company. Outcasts, all of them, waiting for someone foolish or kind enough to remember.
Jun dozed near, boots still on, knife against her chest.
He pressed the relic to his ribs, hoping it would let him steal one night of peace—just this once.
Before he slipped away, he whispered: "If tomorrow costs the rest of my memory, let it buy something worth surviving."
The fire hiccuped, rain pattered overhead, and the world rolled softly into the next storm.
Somewhere behind, the river carried old pain away.
Somewhere ahead, the mountain measured the courage of fools and the price of every new beginning.