Chapter 348 – The Gravekeeper, the God-Chosen, the Birth of an Arikkhan, and a Sunset That Comes Only Once in a Lifetime - Part 2

The Wolfmother’s cache revealed some of the history of the Nine Flames.

One scroll told how the legendary Arikkhan, a peerless warrior born to two mighty tribe chieftains, a coincidence never repeated.

Another recorded that this Arikkhan died at 35 years old. As for the myth of him building the maze that sat deep within the Deathless Tomb? Pure fabrication.

The maze and the towering crystal pillars that stood like giants in an ice-glass garden long predated the Nine Flames. They were not the Arikkhan’s work.

The tale that the maze was built to trap devils was a convenient fiction, sown jointly by the Wolfmother and Arikkhan.

Yet the Arikkhan and Khagan were very different beings.

The Arikkhan was a single, short-lived prodigy.

The Nine Flames Khagan, Li Yuan, was the flame incarnate. He was a living

breeding sire

capable of producing any number of children as powerful as the Arikkhan.

When the Gravekeeper saw how he faced his own curtailed lifespan with steadiness rather than despair, they deemed his heart worthy and promised him a coffin in the Deathless Tomb, a place to sleep until the new world dawned.

Li Yuan weighed everything carefully, questioning the Wolfmother at length. Perhaps prompted by unseen orders, she held nothing back. From her, he gained a clearer picture of the Yang and found interesting parallels.

Ghost servants were the dead with souls mutated and sustained by the Yin. Enslaved by a ghost, they were devoid of true will.

The people of the Nine Flames were living with their flesh mutated by the Yang. They were bound to no master. The more Yang they drew, the shorter their lives. Yet they kept whole, independent minds.

The Yin was heavy and concentrated, governing the soul; the Yang was light and scattered, governing the flesh.

Li Yuan also repeatedly inquired about meeting the Gravekeeper again. He learned that this

god

could only exert the faintest tug on the Wolfmother, wholly unable to appear at will.

The discovery calmed him, though it also stirred his old itch to

move house

once more. But where to? The world was neither truly small nor comfortably vast. Cloudpeak Province was the safest region in the Great Zhou. The western tundra offered an almost unmatched refugee from the age’s chaos, even if it did lie atop a burial ground of slumbering gods.

From the Wolfmother, Li Yuan even teased out the rough timetable for the

new world

. It was at least a millennium away. Until then, the frozen tundra would stay quiet.

That prediction also probably came at divine prompting, meant to remind him that he could never live so long on his own strength. Only by lying in that coffin and becoming one of the gods could he wait it out.

The Wolfmother felt their bond had deepened. Li Yuan allowed the illusion.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Some nights later.

After another fierce bout that crashed like a summer downpour, Li Yuan and Snow lay tangled beneath the furs. Her pale body still quivered in the ebbing wash of exhaustion. Curling against him, she murmured, “Our child...”

Li Yuan brushed a hand through her flame brushed hair. “Any child we bear will rival the Arikkhan, but he’ll die before you.”

Her wide eyes filled with questions. “Why?”

Quietly, Li Yuan explained what had to be paid for such power. Gain one thing, lose another. To father greatness, he had to endure early graves.

When he finished, Snow fell into a long silence, one arm locked around his hard waist, one leg draped over his. Her body tensed, breath quickened, stilled again. At last, she leaned to his ear and whispered, “Still, I want to bear your child.”

Li Yuan looked at the contours of her fair face.

“The people of the Nine Flames,” Snow said, “should burn like the midday sun. Even a brief blaze that once lit the world is enough. I’d be proud of such a child, and he would be proud of himself.

“Every heartbeat we draw is lived in glory. To embrace the Sun, though it shatters our bones, is to rejoice. He’ll heft his father’s Khagan’s Axe and become the next Child of the Sun. Then you can go and do what only you can do.”

It was as though she had glimpsed the cost and the crown of fate all at once. The playful

silly girl

hardened into something finer; her eyes, once guileless, now held firelight as deep as embers beneath ice.

She gazed up at the tent’s hide roof, where red sparks danced like drifting koi. Her look had that far-seeing stillness Li Yuan had heard about in his previous world, the first realm of those who accomplished great things.

“Last night, the west wind stripped the lush trees; alone I climbed the high building and saw the end of the world.”

[1]

To glimpse the distant horizon, to read the shape of fate. Only then did one’s gaze acquire true depth.

Li Yuan had previously confirmed the efficacy and safety of the secret elixir with Tang Nian and Yan Yu. Having received the okay, he swallowed it and reached for the tall beauty at his side. Flipping her astride him, the two rode a whole night of soaring clouds and thunderous rain before eventually drifting back down to earth.

Outside the tent, snow heaped into low white domes across the endless tundra, only to be whipped up by a sudden gale and flung skyward in a blinding storm of ice dust.

Beyond the hide walls came the scrape of iron-shod wheels, the crunch of ice under the paws of the direwolves, and the shouted bustle of tribesmen unloading goods—supplies purchased by the Tang Sect and demonic beast meat sourced from mountain hunts.

Their constant hunting had turned this barren quarter into an unexpectedly safe place.

Snow woke up first. She lay in Li Yuan’s arms with a content face, palm resting on her flat belly, tenderness in her eyes and the protectiveness of a lioness lurking underneath. She felt with certainty that she would conceive this time around. Her heart immediately shifted from maiden to mother.

Li Yuan watched the change from girl to bride to mother, silly sweetness hardening into poise. He stroked her hair and stayed with her in silence for a long while.

Rising at last, he sought out the Wolfmother, told her his choice, and added a soft threat. “I care for my wife and our child. Should anything happen to them, I really might lose my mind.”

“There are always accidents in this world,” she replied.

“With you here,” he said evenly, “there will be no accidents.”

The Wolfmother hesitated. “Grant me one thing, and I’ll see that neither Snow nor her child ever meets misfortune.”

“What thing?”

“Nothing grand,” she said, lifting her chin. “Take me to watch the sunset.”

The sunset?

Li Yuan blinked. He had forgotten the off-hand remark he once used to bait her, but she had turned it over and over in her mind.

𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

In truth, this was not the request of the Wolfmother, but rather that of a naive girl who was forced to carry the burden of that title.

“If I’m right,” he said, “you can’t leave the tundra.”

Head bowed, she murmured, “Bind me. No matter how I struggle or what I say, ignore me. Carry me to a mountain outside and let me watch one sunset. Then I will keep my word.”

“But you’re not the one in charge. You know what I mean.”

“She is also me,” the girl insisted. “She won’t deny me this sliver of selfishness. Still, she might try to stop me. So tie me up, gag me, and take me there. Just once.”

“Hmm..” Li Yuan wavered, a slight frown on his face.

“Only once,” she pleaded, the Wolfmother shedding every vestige of majesty to beg like a child. He felt the colder persona stirring back to the surface.

RIP!

He tore a strip from his robe, balled it, and stuffed it in her mouth. Off came his rawhide belt; one length bound her wrists, the other her ankles. He slung her sideways over the broad back of a direwolf, vaulted up behind her, and set off.

A ring of direwolves closed in, then melted away, acquiescing to this harmless breach for the sake of the girl’s wish.

Li Yuan and the Wolfmother travelled a long, long way, crossing the Evernight Line into barren hills and mountains. Snow still fell in thick curtains. The winter of Cloudpeak Province had not yet loosened its grip.

He propped the bound Wolfmother against the trunk of a stunted tree and removed the gag and bindings. “Since you’re here, wait for the sunset. I’ll hunt us something to eat.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

1. A famous verse from Butterfly Longing For the Blossom by Yan Shu, a poet of the Northern Song Dynasty. ☜