I should have lost Bù Zhèng that night.
By every count that mattered — blood spilled, lines broken, banners trampled into mud — I had lost already. The plain was a ruin of hacked bodies, horses dying with their ribs split open, rivers of filth carrying severed limbs.
And worse, I could see the betrayal unfolding even as I cut down another southern spearman.
Wu Kang's general — Lord Xie — was holding back his reserves. Not just hesitating, but withdrawing, pulling men off the field under the pretense of shoring up the rear. I watched his standards drift farther east, away from the press of battle, their torchlines receding like a coward's breath.
Every step they took stole hope from my soldiers' faces.
Then word reached me that the Prefect of Nanyang's supply trains had not delivered. Wagons that should have carried barrels of water and oil for the fire traps were found burned in their own ditches — saboteurs, no doubt bribed by silver thicker than their loyalty.
I sat on horseback at the center of it all, blade dripping, hearing my commanders shouting, hearing Shen Yue cursing as she tried to keep the Golden Dragons from splintering completely. My men were exhausted. Faces hollow, eyes darting, steps faltering over piles of the dead.
Zheng Yùhao saw it too. His cavalry wheeled for another push, aiming to carve straight through to my standard. If they succeeded, it wouldn't matter how many pikes I threw at them — the army would break around me like a smashed jar.
And then I heard laughter.
Not with my ears. Inside. A low, rustling mirth — like dry reeds caught by wind. The same thing that had lived under my ribs since Cao Wen. The same thing that dreamed of bone piles and dark rivers. It didn't speak in words. It never did. But I understood it.
Now.
I closed my eyes for a heartbeat. In the darkness behind my lids, I felt something unfurl — cold, weightless, impossibly vast. My heart stuttered, then hammered again, each beat echoing like a drum over an empty field.
When I opened them, the world seemed sharper. The screams more distant. The blood darker, almost black. I could see the tiny tremors in Zheng's formation. The slight angle of his cavalry line, drawn just a breath too wide. The hesitation in the southern foot soldiers closest to the fortress — they were already unnerved by how many of their own lay in twisted heaps.
I raised my hand.
"Signal Han Qing," I said to the boy beside me. My voice sounded wrong, hollow — as though it was traveling down a long corridor. "Tell him to strike the western tail. Hard."
"But my prince, the west is nothing — Zheng's center is where—"
"Do it." I didn't shout. I didn't need to.
He swallowed, rode off like death itself nipped at his heels.
I turned to Shen Yue. Her face was pale, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat and blood. "Rally your horse archers. Drive them between the southern reserves and the fortress gates. Keep them separated, even if you have to sacrifice half your riders."
Her eyes searched mine for madness. Maybe she found it. But she also found purpose. She saluted, spun, and was gone into the smoke.
Then I waited.
I waited as Zheng's cavalry gathered speed, their lances lowered, thunder rising from a thousand hooves. I waited as the line of Black Tigers around me braced, teeth bared, blades trembling in gauntlets slick with blood.
And just before impact, I whispered:
"Now, show them."
On the western flank, Han Qing's battered men erupted from their defensive crouch. They crashed into the small, poorly guarded supply tail left by Zheng — wagons, cooks, reserve archers who thought themselves safe. Fires leapt up, sudden and violent. Oil barrels burst. Horses screamed.
Smoke rolled across the plain. Thick, choking, blinding.
Then came Shen Yue — her horse archers swept wide, loosing flaming arrows into the back lines, driving the southern soldiers into a terrified knot. Their ranks crushed together, confused, trying to see through the sudden black haze.
In that moment, something else moved.
Not men. Not quite. I couldn't see them directly — only the sudden rippling of banners where no wind blew, the way torches guttered and men turned to look at empty spaces with eyes stretched wide in terror.
Southern soldiers began to break, stumbling away from nothing at all. Some dropped weapons, clawing at their own throats. A captain fell to his knees, shrieking that shadows were crawling under his skin.
Through the roiling dark, I rode. My standard-bearer at my side, holding aloft the black dragon with its frayed edges.
My voice rose, cold and clear:
"Forward. Leave none alive."
The Black Tigers followed like starving beasts. We plunged into the chaos, hacking, cutting, driving the southern ranks back step by step. I saw Zheng's banner sway, then lurch. His cavalry tried to rally — only to smash into fleeing infantry. Their horses reared, trampling allies.
Zheng himself appeared out of the smoke, helmet gone, face streaked with blood and horror. His sword trembled in his grip. For the first time, he looked truly afraid. Not of my army. Of me.
I lifted my blade, and the dark inside me shivered — delighted.
We struck.
What followed was not a battle. It was slaughter. Men threw down their arms and ran, only to be cut down from behind. Those who knelt and begged found no mercy — the Tigers were beyond restraint, lost to their own bloodlust. The fortress gates tried to close, but panicked soldiers choked the entrance, crushing each other to death in their desperation to flee.
By the time we reached the walls, there was hardly any resistance left. Archers dropped their bows and fled down side passages. My men climbed over bodies to seize the gate chains and tear them open.
I rode through the main archway of Bù Zhèng, torchlight casting long, writhing shadows on the stone. The once-proud banners of the Southern Kingdom lay trampled in the blood, half-burned. The air reeked of scorched meat and fear.
Shen Yue appeared beside me, her armor cracked, one eye nearly swollen shut. She looked at the devastation with something between awe and dread.
"You did it," she rasped. "We should have lost — by all reason, we should be corpses in the mud."
I said nothing. My heart was still pounding, but it was slowing, each beat heavy and deliberate. The cold inside me began to fold itself away again — for now.
We rode deeper into the fortress, past the corpses of defenders who'd chosen suicide over capture. In the courtyard, our soldiers tore down the last of the southern standards. A Black Tiger lieutenant held up Zheng Yùhao's severed helm like a prize.
I dismounted, boots splashing in pooled blood.
Bù Zhèng had fallen. Not to tactics alone. Not to swords or fire. But to something darker, older — a whisper in the marrow that even I didn't fully understand.
I looked up at the keep rising ahead, its towers etched against the bruised sky.
And I smiled.
Because this was only the beginning.