The Yiling Patriarch's Companion

The next morning, Lan Wangji rolls Wei Wuxian down onto the ground at his side before he is really awake, to spare them both discomfort.

While the light through the trees is still too weak to show the colours of the foliage, he leaves to explore the mountainside around them. He finds tubers that should be edible, if bitter even to his Cloud Recesses-trained taste, and green leaves, freshly budded and still sticky. Though he does not spot any of the tiny deer that live in the forests this high up, he sees where they have scratched at the trees, and keeps his eyes open. Wei Wuxian should have meat, if he can get some. (Wei Wuxian would probably like liquor, too. If he asks for some, that's when Lan Wangji will be able to relax a little.)

Back in the cave, Wei Wuxian is still almost as mute as Lan Wangji himself, and it feels eerie: as if only part of him is here, the irreverent spirit whose existence Lan Wangji has come to rely on discarded somewhere in the air between Nightless City and this mountain. For the first time in his life, he finds himself speaking to break a silence.

"When you are well, I will take you back to the Cloud Recesses," he says. That's wrong, though. Those are words he prepared for another version of this conversation, before all his calculations in the dark hours. The Cloud Recesses, if there are still Lan disciples left alive there at all, are closed to them now. The Yiling Patriarch will never be permitted to recover under the learned healers of his sect, or to make up the damage to his heart and spirit with the knowledge stored in the Library Pavilion. Nor will the Yiling Patriarch's companion be welcomed there again.

He has accepted all that, but not thought how to convey the new plan to Wei Wuxian.

"When you are well, we will go somewhere new entirely." There is no response. "We can become wandering cultivators. The Four Clans need not concern themselves with us, if they do not know where we go."

Wei Wuxian mutters something under his breath before turning his face away. It sounds like, "Get lost."

Lan Wangji's spiritual energy has recovered somewhat, in the day and a half since the massacre. Taking Wei Wuxian's hands in his, he begins to send it towards him, as much as he can while keeping himself upright. Somehow it never seems to be enough. Sitting with his fingers pressed against the other's acupoints, he visualises the flow of qi, through his meridians and into Wei Wuxian's and then—where? Like a bucket with a hole in it, Wei Wuxian leaks the spiritual energy straight back out again. Lan Wangji thinks desperately of the scrolls in the Library Pavilion, trying to remember any treatment that might help him, however obscure. He is starting to be very afraid.

When Wei Wuxian shakes himself free with a sigh, he plays the guqin instead: at first songs for physical healing, and then Tranquility, hoping to ease the tension that lurks like black blood in Wei Wuxian's throat, keeping him silent and resentful. Eventually, when he can no longer hold himself back from it, he plays Wangxian.

It reminds him too much of the aftermath of the Xuanwu of Slaughter. Those were the worst days of Lan Wangji's life up until that point: more devastating than the Cloud Recesses burning down, more painful than his leg being broken by soldiers of the Wen, and more frightening than the combat with the monstrous snake-turtle, because all of those things had already happened and yet here he was, still losing something more. His love for Wei Ying was years old by then, but it still felt like something new and unexamined, a secret kept hidden in the very pit of his chest. There were no words to give it a tractable form, and to a boy brought up as a scholar in the Cloud Recesses, something that couldn't be strung around with words could not really exist. His love was a motion, an instinct. Like the second position following the first, when he practised the sword forms, and the third and fourth flowing naturally from that, all he knew was that seeing Wei Ying meant he had to be near him, to grab him, to bite him...

He never did, of course. Almost never.

The notes of Wangxian pull his fingers across the guqin strings as powerfully as that old, still-resonating compulsion. He sees a doubled image: Wei Ying lying on the cave floor back then, shivering, the brand seeping through his clothes; and Wei Ying now, pallid and shrunken in a nest of black and red rags, leaning his chin on his knees and staring emptily ahead.

In the late afternoon, he seals the cave mouth with wards and walks further up the mountain than he has before. The trees become shorter and more twisted as he climbs, until they are barely taller than the scrubby bushes between them. The clinging chill of the morning has been burnt off by the spring sun, and his muscles gain a pleasant warmth from the exercise. When he reaches a flat, stony clifftop, he pauses to stretch them out.

From this vantage point, on such a sunny day, the view stretches out much wider than he had expected. Lan Wangji shades his eyes with a flat hand, working his gaze across the horizon in a search for landmarks. In Gusu, any of the lopsided hills he sees around him would be distinctive, but he is less familiar with the terrain so far from home. Suddenly, he stops. One of the peaks looks out of place, as if it's intruding from another day in a different season.

The sky is clear in the direction he faces, excepting a few cotton-flower puffs drifting slowly from west to east. Above the strange hill, however, there should be an enormous thundercloud, or perhaps even a fleet of them, advancing like great ships with sails full of rain. The hillside has been thrown into deep shadow, the vegetation drained of its colour and rippling with deep gusts of wind—but how?

He realises it after a puzzled moment. Of course, that's Burial Mound. The mass grave Wei Wuxian's little village of Wen refugees is built on is perpetually overshadowed by a roil of resentful energy, visible even from here. Lan Wangji shudders.

What are they doing right now, without the Yiling Patriarch? Are they scared, hiding in their cottages, terrified even to dig in the fields or meet in the shared dining hall? Are they searching for him, or have they already given him up for dead? Are they preparing for the cultivation world to finish the job it started with the Sunshot Campaign?

And if the war comes for them, one last time, is there anyone there who can mount a defence?

Lan Wangji makes a roster of the people he met on his one trip up the Burial Mound, his final failure to save Wei Ying from himself. Wen Qing, the doctor, who had met his eyes over Wei Wuxian's shoulder with such a knowing look of shared affection that he had been afraid his feelings were written out on his face for all to read. She was dead, now, and so was her brother the fierce corpse, although not without killing dozens of Jin disciples. Had Wei Wuxian ordered him to do that? If so, he should have known he was signing his people's death warrant. (Lan Wangji's love does not waver at the thought, despite the fact that one of the Two Jades of Lan should not love a man who could do such a thing.)

Aside from those two siblings, there were no other cultivators on the hill, only farmers who had once been administrators; maidens and grandparents and young men who could, perhaps, copy a talisman but not read it. Last of all, there was A-Yuan, most likely the last Wen child who would ever be born.

If Wei Wuxian returns to them, he might bring an even greater catastrophe down on their heads, but Lan Wangji can't see any way that his presence can protect the villagers—not even with an entire mountain of corpses at his disposal. The time when cultivation could have helped the Wen remnants has passed. All he and Wei Wuxian can do is creep out of the cultivation world, where they were once ranked second and fourth on the list of young masters, and hope that all of them are forgotten.

He practises what to say on the way back down the mountain. After days of having his view constrained by rock walls and pine trees, seeing the horizon has cleared his mind like the cold water of the springs near the Cloud Recesses. Their priorities are clear to him, now. He only hopes he can explain everything to Wei Wuxian.

There's a faint noise from the back of the cave as he ducks under the dripping green vines to come inside. A low note that wavers and breaks raggedly off. Another, higher tone that should be followed by a ripple like birdsong—he's heard it before, from a wallow of mud and viscera—but that doesn't come. A harsh breath that catches in the back of someone's throat.

Lan Wangji's strides lengthen; he dashes through the cave to see Wei Wuxian with Chenqing in his hands. The flute wavers in front of his chest. Before he can think, he's pushing it down, away from Wei Wuxian's mouth, and reaching out for his pulse and his acupoints. "You'll hurt yourself," Lan Wangji says. "More."

Wei Wuxian shows his teeth. His expression might be related to a smile. His spiritual energy is so low, Lan Wangji doesn't understand how he can be standing, let alone trying to play the black flute. "Sit down," he says, kneels in front of him, and begins transferring his own.

"Wei Ying," he says, after a while. "I have made my decision."

Wei Wuxian looks down and to the side, but his eyelids are fluttering and Lan Wangji can tell he is listening.

"My fate is tied to yours," he says. "I am no longer part of the Lan Sect, and you... you have done all you can for the Wen. If you go back to them, you will only hurt them."

A hank of hair slides forwards over Wei Wuxian's shoulder as he shakes his head, sheltering his face from Lan Wangji's gaze. "If you think I can leave them now, Lan Zhan..." he says in a monotone, "what is the point of you even being here? Get lost!"

"I am here to save your life." His hands tremble on Wei Wuxian's now frighteningly cold skin. He speaks with a dry mouth, unable to stop: "Wei Ying. I am here because I love you. I have loved you since—" A whirl of images rises in front of him, because it's impossible to say when, exactly, it began. A swordfight on a moonlit rooftop; the tweak of his forehead ribbon at the shooting range in Qishan and, far more upsetting, the awareness that Lan Qiren had seen how hard he had blushed; the irresistable relaxation of a blindfolded youth lying on a low branch in the sun. He's tongue-tied. He's losing what he meant to say.

"Wei Ying, you are my life," he chokes out in the end. "And my life is yours. Wherever you go, I must go with you."

A boot scrapes on the gritty floor, ten feet behind him.

Instantly, he spins around, blocking the intruder's line of sight with his body. Bichen is in his hand, fully drawn.

"Wangji," says Lan Xichen, from the entrance to the chamber. His hands are empty, slightly raised on either side. The noise of his boot was an obvious courtesy, one Lan Wangji should not have needed.

"Brother," he replies slowly. He does not lower his sword.

Now that Wei Wuxian's presence is at his back, a fire behind him rather than an inferno before his eyes, he can hear the jangling of the wards he set up earlier. Lan Xichen has not come alone to find him. Between the three of them and the open air, hidden around the bend in the cave passage, are the tense breaths and gently rustling robes of at least twenty cultivators, probably more.

"We could not find you after the battle, Wangji," Lan Xichen says in a carefully neutral tone. "I thought you must be hurt, and lost. I've been searching for you for days." When Lan Wangji does not reply, he adds, "Will you come back to the Cloud Recesses with me?"

Recognition flashes across his mind: so this is how it feels, to be asked that. Out loud he says, "No, I will not."

There's a sussurus of voices that stills as quickly as it rises. Lan Xichen's eyes flicker to the side and back to him. "Wangji, that was not a request," he says softly.

"Brother, I have made my decision. I am no longer part of the Lan Sect." The words are easy to reach for, still there after he rehearsed them for Wei Wuxian.

"What meaning could this possibly have?" Before Lan Xichen can respond, a new voice rings out. Lan Wangji notices the crease that briefly appears between his brother's brows. Their eyes meet for an instant as their uncle sweeps into the chamber, and Lan Xichen's are almost apologetic.

"This has gone far enough," Lan Qiren says adamantly. "Explain this outrageous behaviour, Wangji, either now or at the Cloud Recesses."

Lan Wangji doesn't bow, because his sword is in the way. "Uncle, I am sorry, but I can no longer remain in our sect." He feels as if he's running out of ways to explain the same thing. "Wei Wuxian and I are bound together. This is the commitment I have made."

The older man is too affronted to speak. His mouth moves like a carp's. It's not the first time Lan Wangji has seen him this way, but it's unfamiliar to be the target. "That you would even consider this—this 'Yiling Patriarch' the kind of person one makes a commitment to—!"

"Wangji. I don't want you to make this mistake!" Lan Xichen interrupts him, suddenly in motion. It's only two steps forward, but he's holding his hands out towards his brother and Lan Wangji has to make a quarter turn, moving his own feet, to keep Bichen raised between them without directly threatening Lan Xichen. Behind him, he hears Wei Wuxian's layers of robes dragging against one another as he, too, changes position.

How can he get them out of here without injuring Lan Xichen? As he raised his arms in that pleading gesture, Lan Wangji noticed that one of his shoulders is stiffer than the other, padded with extra fabric underneath his outer coat. He's already hurt from Nightless City.

He's still searching for the right thing to say when three things happen at once.

Lan Xichen's eyes slam wide in alarm.

A low, trilling note is blown behind him, with no hesitation left in the player at all.

And the first of thirty-three Lan seniors charges into the space, his blade lifted high and the sword glare bouncing off the rugged walls.