The wind carried a faint smell of iron. It wasn't the metallic tang of a forge, but something rawer—blood, long dried into the soil.
Kai paused at the cliff's edge, his gaze sweeping over the ruins below. What was once a bustling border village was now reduced to blackened husks of wood and silent streets. Only the echo of crows remained, circling in wide arcs, their wings slicing against the twilight.
He tightened the grip on his dao. Its blade was sheathed, but his palm felt the cold through the scabbard as though the weapon itself could sense the lingering presence of death.
"Another village gone," he muttered under his breath, the words tasting bitter. "How many more before the empire admits the truth?"
Behind him, Mei stepped lightly, her boots barely disturbing the dust. She lowered her hood, revealing sharp eyes that glimmered like storm-lit water.
"They won't admit it," she said softly. "Because if they do, then the rot isn't just in the borders—it's in the throne itself."
Kai's silence was heavy. His thoughts drifted back to the dream from last night—the one that always returned when the ashes thickened. A vision of a figure cloaked in shadows, its hand outstretched, whispering words he could never fully remember upon waking.
He shook it off, scanning the wreckage again. Then, faintly, a sound.
Not the wings of crows. Not the whisper of wind.
But breathing.
Kai's hand shot to his dao. He gestured at Mei, and they moved silently into the ruins, slipping between charred beams and collapsed roofs until they reached the heart of the village.
There, beneath the broken shrine, lay a child. His body was covered in ash, his small hands clutching the remains of an incense stick. His lips trembled with words that had almost no voice left in them.
"...Ashen… Dao…"
Kai froze. The name struck him like a blade between the ribs. He knelt quickly, pressing a hand to the child's chest—his heartbeat was faint, fragile as dying embers.
"Who told you that name?" Kai asked, his voice lower than a whisper.
The child's eyes opened for a moment, clouded with tears and smoke. "The one… who burned the village… he said… he was waiting… for the bearer of the Ashen Dao…"
Then, silence.
The incense slipped from his fingers, vanishing into dust.
Mei's jaw tightened. "This wasn't random. Someone left him alive to send a message."
Kai stood, his dao unsheathing with a whisper of steel that seemed to slice the dusk apart.
If the name of the Ashen Dao had returned to the world, then so had the curse that followed it.
He looked once more at the ruins, then toward the horizon where the storm clouds gathered like a dark omen.
"Whoever did this," he said, voice cold as stone, "they've chosen war."
And with that, the path of ash stretched before them—merciless, unending.