The road stretched in a long grey ribbon before us, empty in a way that felt intentional.
No people.
No carts.
Not even the usual stray farmer making questionable life decisions at peak of the suns.
Just silence — the kind that feels like it's watching you.
"As we walked, we still saw much of no one. The area seems abandoned," I thought, scanning the thinning treeline, trying not to imagine eyes behind every drifting shadow.
"Could be due the presence of winter," the woman said from ahead of us, as if she'd reached gently into my skull and pulled the thought out by its tail.
"Or the fighting that's happening," Victoria murmured. Her voice was small, but it carried a knowing weight — like she wasn't guessing, but remembering.
I stiffened at both of them.
"How—did she know what I was thinking?"
My hand tightened around my weapon out of pure instinct.
"You were looking around like you'd lost something," the Lady replied without turning. "Not that hard to make an educated guess, Miss Heiwa."
She glanced back with a small, annoyingly confident smile.
The kind scholars wear when they're two theories ahead and quietly pleased with themselves.
I kept my face smooth, though my heartbeat was doing acrobatics.
"Miss Victoria," she called next, her gaze sliding past me, "what else can you tell me?"
Victoria hesitated, the question hanging like a cold mist between us.
Instead of answering, she rolled up her yukata sleeve with trembling fingers.
Black reeds.
White chrysanthemums.
Red spiderlilies.
The colors were stark even in the winter light, and something about them felt… deliberate.
The Lady took Victoria's wrist before either of us could react, not rough, but too eager — the way a scientist touches a newly discovered artifact.
"Reeds… chrysanthemums… and red lilies?" she murmured, turning the arm toward the pale sun. Her head tilted with a sharp, birdlike curiosity.
"Black reeds. White chrysanthemums. Red spiderlilies," Victoria corrected quietly, pulling her arm back.
The Lady raised a brow, visibly unsatisfied.
"And? You must have a reason for choosing them."
Her tone wasn't cruel — just relentless.
"Could you not interrogate her like she owes you a thesis?" I said, stepping forward. "She showed you the tattoo, that's enough."
The Lady blinked once, amused, not apologetic.
"I thought it might relate to my understanding of my contract," Victoria said suddenly, voice barely above a hum.
We both turned to her like she'd dropped something fragile.
"So your contract manifests based on your perception of it?" the Lady asked, stepping closer, her interest sharpening into something almost dangerous.
She tapped the tattoo.
"Then what do these flowers mean to you?"
Victoria looked away.
A long, stretched pause — the kind where someone excavates memories they don't like touching.
"Mourning," she finally whispered. "Grief. Adaptability. Resilience."
She swallowed.
"Longevity."
She glanced, almost involuntarily, at the Lady's still-healing chest wound.
The Lady hummed softly, studying the tattoo again.
"Is that what that was?" she murmured to herself.
Before I could ask what she meant—
Crack!
The sound tore through the clearing — metal slamming into frozen earth.
Victoria gasped and crumpled backward.
A blade trembled upright in the ice where her foot had just been.
My breath left me in a white burst.
"What the hell was THAT?!" I roared, anger flooding so hot it nearly steamed off the snow.
The Lady stood with her arm still raised, expression maddeningly calm — as if she'd only tossed a pebble.
"A test," she said.
"A TEST—? You almost killed her!" I snapped.
"She perceives death in a way that bends the rules," the Lady replied coolly. "If her contract is tied to that worldview, nudging it should trigger something. Logic, Miss Heiwa. I wasn't harming her — simply analyzing."
"You absolute buffoon," I spat. "I said you are NOT allowed to hurt her."
"It's not truly harm if she survives," she said, already walking away. "I was aiming for her neck, though. Interesting."
My jaw dropped.
I had several things to say — none fit for polite company — but I choked them back and dropped to Victoria's side.
"You okay?" I whispered.
Victoria touched her throat as if checking it was still attached.
"So it wasn't a hallucination," she breathed shakily. "I really saw the blade."
Her voice trembled.
I hated that the Lady didn't even turn around.
Birdsong suddenly erupted above us — sharp, frantic.
The Lady stopped mid-step.
"Someone's onto us."
I froze.
Looked around.
Nothing but wind-scraped branches and curling fog.
"We're near the provincial border," she said, tone terse. "We should rest over there."
She pointed to a small shack hunched in the snow, half-eaten by vines, half-forgotten by time.
It looked abandoned enough that even ghosts would've moved out.
The second sun sagged toward the horizon, dragging streaks of molten gold like she was being pulled into the underworld by her own pride.
Inside, the shack was cold and stale, the air heavy with dust and old wood.
But a fire crackled soon enough, splashing us in warm orange light.
Victoria crouched closest to the flames, hands cupped as though praying to them.
The Lady leaned against the splintered wall, eyes shut but body too stiff to be truly resting.
"Dead," Victoria murmured, staring at the Lady with a strange, distant look.
I didn't ask.
Not yet.
Instead I sank into meditation, letting qi flow through me in slow spirals, warming my limbs and steadying my breath.
"I have no idea what the capital has in store," I thought. "But we're out of the province. No turning back."
The fire dimmed to embers.
Victoria's breathing softened into sleep.
The Lady remained upright in the shadows, her wound glowing faintly beneath her coat — not like blood, but like something sealed.
Three travelers.
One shack.
One woman who wasn't as alive as she pretended.
One girl who could see the dead.
And a road ahead that felt less like a path and more like a line we weren't supposed to cross — but were crossing anyway.