The northeastern wind swept across the plains, bending the tall grass on both sides of the lone, straight dirt road. As the gusts rushed through the stalks, the rustling sound mimicked the fading roar of the West Sea as the currents charge the shore. On any other day, that wind would carry the sharp, clean armor of fresh pine from the high peaks—but not today.
Today, as the wind blew past, the only scent it carried was the cloying, heavy rot of open flesh.
This stretch of the Whitefang Peak was the only umbilical cord connecting the kingdoms of Hmagol and Payapasa. Because the road was so straight and the plains so barren, a sneak attack was nearly impossible; every movement was etched against the horizon like ink on parchment.
Sitting calmly atop his horse, Zhi waited. He was alone and visibly weaponless, his hands resting loosely on the pommel of his saddle. Behind him, however, stood a horrific caravan: hundreds of wagons piled high with the twisted remains and severed limbs of the Paayasian soldiers who had fallen in the pass.
Zhi stared directly at the hundreds of watchtowers looming behind the neutral borderline. He did not flinch, though he knew that at this very second, hundreds of notched arrows were likely trained on his heart, marking him a dead man.
But Zhi understood the cold mathematics of diplomacy. Between nations, killing an envoy was a formal declaration of war. He knew that even if the archers hungered for his blood, their arrows would not fly—not while the figure of their own negotiator was riding out to meet him in the middle of the "no-man's-land."
As the rider drew closer, Zhi searched his memory. He had served as a Tanggolia Captain under the banners of Xin Zhiyuan, and he knew the names of every high-ranking officer in the Paayasian ranks—yet he could not put a name to this face. To the middle-aged man in the golden armor, Zhi was just another enemy. To Zhi, the man was a face without a name, a ghost in a gilded shell.
The golden horse halted twenty feet away. The space between them was a vacuum, filled only with the stench of the wagons.
"Let me guess," the man said, his eyes scanning Zhi with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. "You must be the famous subordinate of Xin Zhiyuan. Suo Zhi, the God of Spear?"
A soft, mocking smirk pulled at the man's lips. "Suxue," he introduced himself, though the name meant nothing to the man he was facing. "I don't understand. Why would a man like you betray his own people? What benefit do the Magoli offer that the Tanggolian lacks? Tell me."
"Because we do not share the same vision of the future," Zhi said. His voice was so calm that the very air seemed to freeze around them.
Suxue leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he prepared to twist the knife. "I am sure there is more to it than that," he said, digging into the old wounds of Zhi's history.
Zhi watched him. Suxue was not the first to try and reopen his scars, and he would not be the last. He met the man's gaze with eyes that had seen the end of the world and survived.
"What else do you want me to say?" Zhi's voice dropped an octave, locking onto Suxue. "That Xin Zhiyuan branded me a traitor because I refused his order to slaughter children? Or that he took a fancy to my wife and used his inhuman orders as a way to discard me? You can peel back as many layers of those old wounds as you like, Suxue. They have long since healed into solid scars. They no longer bleed. They no longer hurt."
Zhi shifted his weight, gesturing back toward the hundreds of wagons overflowing with the mangled remains of the Paayasian vanguard.
"A soldier never betrays his kingdom unless his king betrays him first," Zhi continued. "Chinua might not be the mightiest warrior on this field, but the wagons of corpses behind me are the reason why men mightier than her bend their knees before her."
Zhi began to turn his horse, glancing back one last time over his shoulder. The cold wind whipped his hair, but his seat remained as steady as the mountain.
"Chinua says she wants no wandering spirits in Hmagol. She returns your dead to you. If Drystan dies, Payapasa will cease to exist. If Drystan lives, Chinua will leave Swasu City for your king. Seven days from now, Chinua will take what she has promised."
He paused, letting the weight of the next words sink into Suxue's golden armor.
"For every single step a Payapasian soldier took into our land, she will retake one hundred steps of Payapasa land."
Zhi reached into his robe and pulled out a small, gleaming object: the jade pendant given to Chinua before the Ntsua-Ntu conflict. It was the physical seal of Es Ke's promise—a vow that Payapasa would not invade Hmagol while Chinua was away from Pojin.
With a flick of his wrist, Zhi threw the jade back. It hit the hard-packed dirt between the two horses and shattered into a dozen dull green fragments. The promise was no longer just broken; it was dust.
The side of Zhi's boot struck his horse's flank. Without waiting for a response, he rode slowly back toward the ruined mouth of the Salran Pass, leaving Suxue alone with a thousand dead men and a message that tasted like ash. Behind him, the wagons groaned under their burden, a silent army of the dead marking the new border.
Suxue watched the rhythmic sway of Zhi's back as he rode away, a solitary figure retreating into the jagged maw of the Salran Pass. His eyes dropped to the dirt, fixating on a single green fragment of the shattered jade. It lay there, half-buried in the grime, stripped of its royal luster.
He knew it then. There was no more room for talk. The air felt heavy, pressing against his golden breastplate as if the sky itself were mourning.
Suxue was an experienced commander; he knew that an army marching for conquest was dangerous, but an army marching for revenge was a force of nature. When thousands of hands and souls hold onto a single, jagged purpose, they become an unbreakable cord. The Magoli were no longer just defending a border—they were becoming a tidal wave fueled by the three hundred forty-two souls left in the ash of Pojin.
As he looked at the broken jade, a cold, traitorous thought crept into his mind. He wondered if his King had made a fatal mistake. By invading Hmagol and sheltering their exiled prince, they hadn't just expanded their influence—they had kicked a hornet's nest of "Black Wolves."
Suxue did not call out. He did not signal his archers. Instead, he slowly dismounted, his golden greaves clinking as his boots hit the dusty earth. He pulled a clean silk handkerchief from his belt and knelt in the dirt.
With a heavy, methodical patience, he began to pick up every shard of the shattered jade. He gathered the large slivers and the tiny, jagged dust of the pendant, wrapping them carefully in the cloth as if they were the bones of a fallen comrade. He tucked the small, hard bundle deep inside his breastplate, right against his heart.
He sighed, a long, weary sound that was lost in the rustling of the tall grass. Looking up, he saw that Zhi had already reached the shadow of the Hmagol border—a dark line of resolve that no Paayasian would cross easily again.
He mounted his horse, pulling the reins to turn back toward the sprawling golden tents of the Paayasian camp. But as the wind whipped his cloak, Suxue did not feel like a victor returning from a parley. He felt like a man who had just been handed a death sentence, written in seven days of absolute, terrifying silence.
When Suxue reached the gate of Cigan Pass, the heavy timber swung open with a slow, mourning groan. He rode his horse inside, the rhythmic clip-clop of hooves echoing against the stone walls as he directed his mount toward the command tent three hundred yards away.
As he rode, his eyes were drawn to a flash of gold amidst the grey iron of the camp. There, held as their only trophy of the invasion, was Drystan.
The exile's golden hair was matted with the dust of the road, his hands and feet bound by heavy shackles to a central iron pole. He had been dragged from the heights of Salran Hill, across the bloodied border, and deep into the heart of the Paayasian camp. He looked like a fallen sun, stripped of its heat and light.
Suxue slowed his horse, his gaze lingering on the prisoner. He felt the sharp weight of the broken jade fragments pressing against his chest, and then he looked back at the man in chains. He found himself wondering, with a cold and heavy heart, if this single man—this bruised and broken remnant of a captain—really had the value of an entire city.
Was Drystan worth the thousand wagons of the dead? Was he worth the "One Hundred Steps" that were currently being measured in the silence of the Magoli camp?
Suxue didn't find an answer in Drystan's eyes. He only found the reflection of his own growing dread. He kicked his horse back into a walk, leaving the prisoner behind as he prepared to face the generals with the shattered remains of a promise.
Meanwhile, standing on the jagged cliff overlooking the border, Chinua watched the horizon. From her height, the watchtowers of the enemy looked like small, broken teeth against the sky. Below, she saw Zhi riding back toward the ruined Salran Pass. He was a solitary speck of black against the grey stone, with no wagons and no army behind him.
She stood as still as a statue, the wind whipping her hair, looking down as Zhi eventually halted his horse in the shadows of the cliff far below her.
No words were exchanged. The distance was too great for a voice, but not for a silent understanding. When Zhi gave a single, sharp nod, Chinua closed her eyes for a moment. Her message had been delivered. Sending back the corpses of the fallen Paayasian soldiers was her final act of kindness toward the kingdom that had betrayed her. It was the last mercy they would ever receive from the House of the Black Wolf.
Once the morning period of mourning ended, the "Seven Days of Silence" would break.
"Khunbish. Khenbish," Chinua said, her voice like grinding stone as she turned to the guards. "When we take the first city—when Kark City falls—it will be renamed."
She looked out one last time at the land she was about to set on fire. "Kark City will be reborn as Behrouz City."
"Behrouz City," Khunbish whispered, the name tasting like the mountain air he had breathed his whole life. "It has a better ring to it than Kark."
Without waiting for their response, she turned, her hands resting neatly behind her back in the posture of a monarch. She left the sunlight behind on the cliffside, carrying only the weight of the silver coins in her mind as she vanished into the black.