“They’ve put a bounty on you! They’re calling you… an Enemy of the Light!” Rian took the crumpled parchment from Chayun’s trembling hand. The charcoal rendering caught his blunt nose and soft chin, though someone had added dark smudges beneath his eyes to make him look hollow and cruel. The calligraphy underneath named him an apostate and a blight on the Empire, ordering his immediate capture. For the first time since waking in this simple body, Rian tasted the bitter ash of despair. He had intended to remain quiet, watching from the fringes until he discovered how to banish the cosmic dread without repeating his ancient sacrifice. But the entity within Sojin had stripped away that luxury, moving with savage speed. Hiding was finished. “An Enemy of the Light,” Rian murmured. The radiance Sojin brandished was false, a sickness painted in gold. Chayun, still breathing heavily, ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “This is… this is bad, Rian. We can’t just waltz around the Azure Sky Sect anymore. Every guard, every ambitious disciple, they’ll be looking for you. For *us*.” He gestured wildly. “My connections, they’re usually for… less divine matters. But this, this needs more than just a back alley deal. We need information. We need to know what Sojin is *really* planning.” Rian nodded. “You have contacts within the sect’s shadow?” Chayun puffed out his chest, a flicker of his usual bravado returning despite the genuine fear in his eyes. “Of course! You think a rogue like me survives this long on charm alone? Every sect has its underbelly, its whispered secrets. There’s a tea house hidden beneath the outer dorms, run by an old broker named Jin. He hears everything. For a price, of course.” A floorboard creaked outside the threshold. Kae Hwa stood framed in the opening, one hand resting on the pommel of Dawnbreaker. Her posture was taut, her dark eyes measuring every inch of the room. “A bounty?” she asked, her voice low, steady. Her gaze fixed on Rian, piercing. “What exactly have you done to earn the ire of the Sunstone Paladin?” Rian met her gaze. He had no easy answers, no simple explanations that wouldn't sound like madness. “I saw through his facade,” he said quietly. “His radiance does not mend. It rots what it touches.” Kae Hwa’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t scoff. She had witnessed Rian’s impossible feats, the way Sojin’s power had vanished before him. “The fortress is stirring,” she continued, stepping past the doorway. “Search patrols are mobilizing through the courtyards. If you linger in this quarter, they will drag you out.” Chayun threw his hands up. “Exactly! So we go to Jin. He can tell us where Sojin marches next for his grand spectacle.” He looked at Kae Hwa. “You’re coming with us. Less chance of someone noticing you, a legitimate disciple, with us… at least until they find out *you’re* with us.” Kae Hwa hesitated. “My family’s honor… associating with a declared ‘Enemy of the Light’ could mean ruin.” “Lineage means nothing if the creature consumes the empire,” Rian said, stepping between them. “What crawls behind his smile will leave no houses standing to remember their names.” Her eyes narrowed, a long, assessing look passing between them. Finally, she gave a short, sharp nod. “Very well. But know this: I am here for answers, not to join your rebellion.” The tea den lay at the end of a stone tunnel under the lower foundations. The air smelled of damp earth and bitter chicory. Behind a counter of rough pine sat Jin, his scalp bald and speckled like a quail egg, wiping an unglazed porcelain bowl with a rag. “Chayun,” the old broker rasped without looking up. “You drag loud feet and heavy trouble into my cellar.” His rheumy eyes lifted, passing over Rian before settling on the crest on Kae Hwa's tunic. “A hunted boy and a daughter of the disgraced Winterfang line. What mess are you bringing to my counter?” Chayun set a leather purse onto the wood, the coins clinking softly. “Jin, we need Sojin’s itinerary. Where is the paladin marching after his demonstration here?” The old man bit down on a piece of brass, weighing the purse in his palm. “The golden boy,” he murmured. “He talks of heaven, but his retinue travels behind thick screens. Still, the runners talk. He has requisitioned mountain carts and ward stones, pointing toward the eastern crests.” He leaned forward, dropping his gravelly tone to a murmur. “He is bound for the Celestial Basin. The source pool that feeds the high valleys and nourishes the meridians of every disciple in the Peaks.” Rian's stomach tightened. The Celestial Basin. The primary wellspring of the realm. If the Maw touched those headwaters, the infection would spread into every conduit across the Jade Peaks. Before Rian could speak, the broker's jaw went slack. The pupils in Jin's eyes rolled upward, replaced by a film of curdled white. Bile-green light seeped through the creases of his eyelids. His spine cracked as he stood upright, suddenly towering over the counter while a bitter frost rushed outward, freezing the tea dregs in their cups. “Dust,” a voice rasped from the old man's throat—not Jin's cracked tenor, but a hollow drone that sounded like grinding millstones. “You crawl after threads that were severed before you drew breath.” The possessed shell lunged across the counter, clawed fingers striking straight at Chayun’s neck. Rian shifted his stance. His hand caught the worn hilt at his waist, clearing the scabbard with a dull rasp. He did not strike flesh; he aimed for the invisible tendril tethering the invader to the vessel. The pitted iron whistled through empty air an inch above Jin’s reaching wrist. It cleaved the oily ether binding the limbs. The green light flared once and sputtered out, leaving only the smell of burnt hair and sour tea. The old broker folded over his counter like an empty sack of grain, his cheek thudding against the pine. His gaze remained fixed on the ceiling rafters, vacant and empty. The entity had devoured the vessel before discarding it. Nausea twisted Rian's gut as he stared at the hollowed shell; the entity did not merely conquer, it consumed down to the root. Through the severed ether, a sharp vision rebounded into Rian's mind: clear water nestled in high mountain crags, and beneath the calm surface, an oily stain churning upward, blackening the deep channels that fed the continent. Kae Hwa took half a pace backward, the hilt of Dawnbreaker clicking against her scabbard throat. She stared at the limp body on the counter, then at Rian. His head was bowed, his jaw slack with sorrow for an old informant he had met only moments ago. He had parried with surgical precision, yet he looked devastated by the man's death. She glanced down at the empty shell of the broker. The ancient duty of her clan—guardianship over the high mountain shrines—shook off its dust and took sharp shape. She slipped Dawnbreaker three inches from its scabbard, the metal catching the lantern light. “My bloodline swore oaths over that basin. I am walking with you.”

The Poisoned Spring