The road to Huailing was narrow, and so were we. The men no longer laughed when the wheels sank into the mud, no longer cursed the oxen or the sky. They moved as if their shadows had been filed down to a single edge, and that edge belonged to me.
The frost came early. It caught in the mustaches of the veterans and turned the young soldiers' breath into smoke. Our column stretched like a scar across the hills — a moving wound that did not bleed. No songs. No drums. Only the sound of leather, iron, and earth being taught obedience.
I rode ahead with Shen Yue at my side. His horse was restless, white-eyed, though he kept it steady with a hand on the rein and a word under his breath. He had begun to resemble me — still, lean, sharp where softness once clung.
"You ride too far forward," he said.
"Forward is where the road is," I answered.
He nodded, accepting the answer though I had not offered it. The silence under my ribs pressed against my bones. I did not think of it as a companion anymore. It was something closer to the air we breathed: unseen, unavoidable, the thing that decided whether lungs worked.
At the noon halt, I watched the companies eat without speaking. They took their rice as if it were rations measured by an accountant — quickly, carefully, with no crumbs wasted. Once, Shen Yue would have gone among them, offering words, jokes, even a story of some earlier campaign to keep fear in check. Now he walked among them with the same quiet I carried, and they stiffened as if he were my shadow.
I saw a soldier strike a wounded horse that had refused to rise. Shen Yue did not shout. He crossed the field, took the man's wrist, and broke it without speaking. Then he knelt, slit the horse's throat cleanly, and left the body cooling in the frost. The men watched him go, eyes following him like dogs that had seen their master turn wolf.
That night, the fires burned low. Shen Yue came to my tent, smelling of ash and steel. "The men are tired," he said.
"Then they will learn endurance," I said.
"They are beginning to learn something else."
I looked at him. He met my gaze and did not look away. "They are beginning to learn you," he said softly.
I said nothing.
"They kill quickly now," he went on. "Too quickly. There is no song left in them. No prayers. Only efficiency."
"They live longer this way," I said.
"Perhaps," he admitted. Then, after a pause: "But I am beginning to wonder whether we have traded their lives for their faces."
He left me with that, and the silence in my chest agreed with him, which was worse than disagreement.
Crows lined the road the next day. They did not startle when we passed. They turned their heads in the same slow motion and kept watching. A rider brought word from the scouts: Huailing was mustering, its gates closed, its walls fresh with paint where repairs had been made. Wu Kang's banner had been seen on the northern tower.
The men heard the news without cheers. They tightened their straps, checked their arrows, made ready. War had ceased to be something that needed a name. It was simply the weather we lived in.
By the third day, Shen Yue's mouth was a thin line. He killed two deserters with his own hand, not because I ordered it, but because he knew I would have. He wiped his blade clean and looked at me as if searching for a word that no longer existed.
That night, he stood by the stream outside camp. The moon showed his reflection clearly. He stared at it as though it were someone he had once known and no longer recognized. When I passed, he did not turn. He said only: "We are near enough to see the watchfires."
"Yes."
"The city is ready for us."
"Yes."
"And we are ready for it."
I did not answer, and the fire nearest us gave a long hiss and went out.
By dawn, the walls were visible — a dark line against the pale sky, its towers like teeth. The men moved with purpose, their discipline precise. Camps were laid out with lines so straight they looked drawn with a ruler. Siege engines were brought forward and arranged as if for a festival — neat, symmetrical, without haste.
Shen Yue stood with me on a low hill, watching. "It looks like a funeral," he said.
"It is," I said.
"For them?"
"For everyone."
When night fell, the campfires burned low again. No voices rose. No songs dared break the frost. I stood on the hill, and the silence in me stood with me. Below, men sharpened their swords until they whined like insects.
When I returned to the camp, Shen Yue was still by the stream. His face was wet, though I could not tell whether it was from the water or something else. He looked at me as I passed. I looked back. And for a moment, just a moment, I saw the man he used to be — standing like a lamp against the dark.
When I went by, even the fire dared not crackle.