Regrets are the most painful reminder you chose otherwise.

 

— Excerpt from Meditations, by the Red Emperor

---

 

Molam's pursuers chased him with an utter disregard for the pressing silence of the Slumbering Forest. The Forest's presence had fallen upon him like a physical weight the moment he dashed past the treeline, surrounded by thick towering trunks that reached up into the dark night. Although the oppressive silence muffled the crunching of leaves and snapping of twigs, the persistent noise of his pursuers told him they would rather risk waking the Forest than give him a chance to escape.

His boots pounded into the fallen leaves, the disruption eerie in the suffocating silence. He was too close to give up. Five long years of planning had finally borne fruit a mere two weeks ago, but now the weight of his precious, stolen cargo tired him just as much as it invigorated him. He needed to survive and return to ZhiXia City, to the Oracle.

No one could give him a third chance at life.

The thought spurred him on as he ran, his winding path illuminated only by the moonlight. The sprawling expanse of trees spread throughout the western region of the Empire, bordering the mountainous range that made up the Spike Maelstrom. Because the Forest hated fire, most wouldn't dare set foot into the Forest at night without a full moon's light for guidance, but it was also precisely that brilliant moonlight that put him in such a horrible position. He couldn't shake his pursuers, no matter how much he flitted between the trees in the hopes that they would lose sight of him.

"Seven?"

Ten. Potentially eleven. The spirit had hidden its form to make the duo harder to follow, but its thoughts rang clearly in his head. There is a ditch ahead.

"Potentially?" he shook his head at the incompleteness of the information and leapt over the ditch, the scabbard of his short sword banging against his thigh. "Do you not understand the importance of precise information?"

They are faster than you. The spirit almost sounded as though it thought this information would help.

"Everyone is faster than me," he murmured, half-annoyed but entirely without self-pity. "Is there a Domain?"

No. Then the spirit's voice became urgent. Arrow.

Molam threw himself to the side as a whistle pierced the air and the projectile buried itself into a nearby tree with a thud. With no time to prepare, he was forced to lock his arms around his pack to protect its contents from being crushed as he hit the ground, doing his best to break his fall with a roll that sent him tumbling through the Forest's floor until stopped by a thorny bush.

Be careful with my egg.

He sucked in air through clenched teeth before pulling himself back to his feet and continued running, tugging his cloak from the bush's thorny grasp. The exertion from sprinting through the Slumbering Forest manifested as a dull ache in his chest and he felt the burning pain of his muscles crying out for rest. There could be no rest now; being auraless, to stay here was to die.

But running changed nothing if he couldn't lose the pursuers or fight them off himself. His mind raced – the environment was all he had left. "Anything that isn't trees?"

Cliff ahead. Thirty paces.

A dead end. But then again, something to work with. Molam ran, legs straining against the dead weight of exhaustion as his raw feet felt the chafe of leather against the inside of his boots. What did he know? What could he use? What did they know?

"Trees. Extend. Cliff. Edge?" he huffed as he vaulted over a fallen log, leaves crunching beneath his boots. It wasn't even Autumn's Colors yet, but the dull silver of the moon's glow gave an ethereal hue to the orange and brown shedding.

Trees. Reach. Edge. Though the words were spoken directly into his mind, he could still hear the mirthful jab. Unfortunately, now was not the time to argue.

He would fall from exhaustion long before soldiers of the Red Army even began to sweat.

A plan formulated in his head. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't even good. But it would have to do. He had nothing better, and their numbers meant that his options were limited. For a normal person, a frontal fight had stopped being an option once they were outnumbered.

For Molam, a frontal fight with anyone was never an option.

Would the plan work? Could it work? What happened if the circumstances did not play out as he intended?

You have no time.

"I know, I know." Molam grimaced when he breached the treeline and braced himself to halt at the cliff's edge. If he hadn't been aware, he might have run through the trees and fallen into the ravine as they were quite close to the edge.

His lips had become chapped from the night's windless chill, and he resisted the urge to lean down to catch his breath as his heartbeat throbbed in his throat. The physical exhaustion made him lightheaded, but he had no luxury for delirium.

Molam forced himself to think. The priority was securing time. Planning was irrelevant if he died before he was given a chance to take further action. If they caught up to him and engaged with their numbers he was dead.

Now that he had breached the treeline, he could see YiZhi Mountain in the distance. Even at night, the clouds that covered the top of the mountain were thick and glowed a soft white under the moon. Molam scanned the clouds in earnest until he saw that the ones closest to the Slumbering Forest were darkest. Indicative of RainBringer, but inconclusive of rain.

A gamble then? No — whether it would play out as he hoped did not matter any longer. He was not in a position to force a desired result, only forced into delaying an undesired result. When the choice was either certain death or the possibility of death, one should choose to gamble. A hasty plan with potential was better than waiting around for a good plan and losing the initiative.

Conclusion made, Molam reached into his pack for a leather pouch and scattered its contents around the edge of the cliff. Black powder. Kalle, the alchemist that had sold it to him, called it flame powder. Perfect for setting up campfires in small quantities.

Incoming.

The sound of dry underbrush slowly snapping beneath boots alerted him to the cautious approach of his pursuers. It seemed they were also aware of the cliff and that he had nowhere to run.

I can help.

"No, we're trying to not wake the Forest." Molam shook his head in refusal as he knelt onto one knee, grateful for the collective wariness of his pursuers. The last of the black powder was hurriedly dumped from the pouch, followed by the stones the alchemist had given him.

You are trapping yourself here?

He steeled himself then struck the stones against each other, but nothing happened.

You have no time.

"I'm trying to make time." He snapped back but fell silent again as he heard the slithering sound of metal being drawn from a sheathe.

The moonlight illuminated seven as they emerged from the woods with weapons raised, gleaming in the night. Molam didn't need to see the Empire's insignia emblazoned on their clothes to identify them as soldiers of the Red Army. For a brief moment he wondered why only seven emerged, then understood that they thought only seven of them were known to him.

"You gave us quite the chase. Probably thought that we couldn't dare follow you through the Slumbering Forest, did you?" the one to his right brandished his sword. "But we tracked you all the same."

"You're part of that group in the Forest lately, right? The UnSeen?" The big one spoke with a drawl that could only hail from the Empire's northern territories. "If you surrender now without a fight and return what you stole, the Prince may even show mercy to your little band of thieves."

"I wasn't aware that the Prince showed such courtesy." Molam had angled his wrists so that they could not see the flint in his hands. Strike again? Wait? Pull out his own sword? "My counteroffer is that you —"

Arrow.

He dropped his other knee, the movement enough to shift his balance as he twisted his head to the side and the projectile whizzed right past his ear into the valley below.

But the maneuver put him on both knees, an opening for two of them to advance with lunging footsteps. Cursing inwardly, he dropped the stone in his right hand and used his clenched left hand to brace himself as he swiftly drew his short sword, meeting the blow that came barreling down for his head.

"Be fucking careful, you damn rice buckets! If the egg breaks we're dead!"

The soldier's shout caused the one holding Molam down to hesitate. In that brief opening, the man's grip slackened and Molam shoved his attacker off him. His mind whirled; they could not risk pushing him off the cliff or damaging the egg, which meant —

Left.

Molam had yet to regain his footing when the other man aimed for his defenseless left side, the blade stabbing towards his heart. Having no other option, he pulled up his clenched hand to redirect the blade with rock.

Steel met stone in an ear-screeching keen and sparks flew. The black powder, sprinkled liberally around their area, immediately ignited.

The flames leapt high, greedily consuming everything in their path including the clothes of the two soldiers on top of Molam. Unlike him, their garments were not made of flameproof cloth, and the fire clung to their bodies with ease.

They retreated hastily, beating at the flames and shouting with surprise. One man's back was ablaze, and he dropped onto the ground to roll in an attempt to smother it.

It would have been a good idea if the ground wasn't littered with so much kindling. The other soldiers had run forward in an attempt to aid their companion, but seeing the spreading flames they paused with a sense of unease. Molam himself backed away from the growing inferno and hugged the cliff's edge as it spread further.

"You're a red auramaster?" the smaller one demanded. "Are you insane? If you wake the fucking Forest, not even a Titled One can get out alive!"

The bright orange glow of the flames that burnt their surroundings also illuminated their hesitancy at the turn of events. Alchemy was not well practiced in the Empire and Molam doubted these soldiers would know of flame powder.

If only they knew.

Molam ignored the spirit's jibe, wrapping himself up in his cloak. Ironic that when he had bought all the fireproof wear, the justification was only due to the shadow of his past. He turned the motion into a fluid gesture that he imagined would look grandiose as he stepped into the flames, the heat seeping into his clothes and skin.

"I didn't want to alert the Forest, but you forced my hand." Molam shouted at the two men. "We could continue this fight or you could retreat. If you strengthen your bodies you can still make it out of the Forest."

"That isn't auramancy." The bigger one stalked about the edge of the flickering flames. "This is some alchemy trick. We can wait out the flames. You're trapped here with nowhere to go...unless you also plan on jumping down that cliff."

For some reason — despite the danger he was in — part of his mind was wondering about how he was going to explain this to one of the mursashu he knew, if he survived. The Mursa Khan would probably assume Molam had too much pomberry wine. His grip tightened around his weapon as he clutched his cloak closer together, a morbid rush of giddy adrenaline running through his head.

And to think the mursashu liked to remind everyone that time was one of the few things that money could not buy. He was buying it right now.

The sound that had been a light crackle in the background soon became a steady staccato as the parched underbrush was consumed by embers. It was not long before the immediate surrounding of the Forest lit up in a blazing inferno. The drought had been long and the untamed flames were hungry.

The soldiers began to withdraw as their environment became increasingly hostile, backing swiftly in leaps and bounds at the encroaching blaze that threatened to consume them as well. An arrow whizzed through the flames but it flew off mark past Molam, perhaps disoriented by the blaze's updraft mid-flight.

As the fire crawled up the trees and burnt vines fell from the branches, Molam tried to keep his dry eyes from blurring his vision. He needed to stay wary of the soldiers that were just beyond the flames, their hurried discussion unintelligible through the sound of the burning Forest. Molam wanted to shield himself from the heat but he did not dare turn his back to the inferno either, not when enemies were in the vicinity. Hopefully his cloak would save him, but it was not arrow-proof.

They left.

Grateful for the news, he turned away from the blaze, the cloak wrapped around his frame as he licked vainly at his empty waterskin. The fire crackled and spit smoke into the dry air, and the meager droplets of water he could shake out could not stop his lips from splitting in the heat.

The inferno raged about him, and soon he was forced to close his eyes. He wished the alchemist had also made the cloak heat-proof, but being fire-proof would have to do. Molam took small solace in having made the alchemist demonstrate his material by burning the cloth over an open flame for the entirety of their conversation before Molam parted with his coin.

If he ever saw the alchemist Kalle again, he would ask for a way to cover his face too. Then again, the man would probably question him about the practical necessity of a way to survive a sea of flame.

Certainly, his current situation was not practical. But a plan, even a hasty one, always worked so long as a person had the right information. Or so Molam repeated his mentor's teachings to himself. The blaze crackled and sparked, roaring behind him as smoke and soot filled the air. He was grateful for the cliff then, for as hot as the fire burnt, it could not completely surround him and he had an open sky to breathe into.

You are quite calm for someone about to die from a forest fire.

Molam's mouth twitched, but his dried lips had already cracked. He sorely wanted to remind his companion that it was not his first time being threatened by flames, but he didn't respond. His answer should manifest itself soon; or at least, he hoped he was right. He had willingly got into this position based on the barest of hints when he looked for the clouds.

He lost track of time as he waited, his eyes closed, doing his best to breathe in short bursts to keep the acrid smoke from searing his lungs. The air around him was searingly arid and the skin of his knuckles had split. Doubt rose in his mind and Molam did his best to quell the thoughts, for there was nothing that could be done at this point. All he could do was remind himself that he saw the clouds spreading out of YiZhi Mountain and he had put his trust into it. And if he was wrong...

The front of his hood dipped as though tapped on.

Then he heard another tap on the side of his hood.

The tapping increased in intensity and soon the cloak became wet as rain began to pour, tapping in a steady rhythm against his head.

The flames died down with a hissing sizzle as Molam lifted up his face, gulping greedily at the divine rain. The water soothed his lips and was soft against his eyes as he breathed the air, cleansed from the ashes and embers.

The storm that had gathered above the Slumbering Forest shone a bright silver-gray under the moonlight, and Molam saw a serpentine silhouette imprinted against the clouds. It could only be the dragon RainBringer as she coiled through the air and spread thunderheads throughout the skies. Judging by her direction, he guessed that she was on her way to Spike Maelstrom, EarthShaker's lair. The possibility made him frown as he considered the implication of RainBringer paying EarthShaker a visit. The two were not fond of each other.

Quite the plan, to result in surviving so many soldiers. Yet now you suffer RainBringer's Storm instead.

The steady tapping had grown into a torrent of unrelenting sheets of water. It was a drastic difference from the drought that had lasted the entirety of Summer's Warmth and most of Autumn's Colors, as though RainBringer had decided to unleash all of the moisture at once.

Molam wondered if the farmers would have enough time to complete the harvest before the flood. But then, the drought must have caused the fields to be bare this year. Starving citizens made any situation more precarious, whether it was the Free Cities' or the Empire's. He hesitated on that thought. Given their fanatic devotion to the Prince, he imagined it was possible that the Empire's citizens would also be more determined to fulfill their greatest wish.

To come this far so you could die from the cold.

The reminder of his precarious situation pulled his thoughts out of his future plans. Molam shifted around, viewing the result of his plan through the torrential downpour. The flames had spread far along the cliff, but had been relatively contained within the immediate area surrounding the Forest. The soldiers could not have stayed in the Slumbering Forest if they believed the risk of it going up in flames was high, and he doubted they were keen to run through it again during RainBringer's Storm. Starting a fire in the divine rain was impossible unless one was an exceptionally talented auramaster.

"I was actually including you in part of my plan."

Were you now? The spirit's voice in his head dripped with sarcastic disbelief.

"Of course. Get this far, then depend on our mutual companionship for you to keep me alive. Surely my death won't help you at all?"

Unfortunately, his clothes were flameproof and not waterproof. The clammy fabric clinging to his skin caused his teeth to chatter as his body instinctively shivered for warmth. A Northern Warrior he once traveled with had drilled into him the importance of shedding wet clothes in the cold, but the earlier adrenaline had already left his body and all he could do was huddle in misery.

But then the first rays of the Sun peeked over the horizon, and with it, the air around him ignited as the spirit manifested itself in a blazing flash of fiery plumage, revealing a sleek burnt-orange body and wings the color of a red dawn. The spirit phoenix peered at him with golden eyes as it floated in the air before it expanded its wings. The warmth washed over Molam as the divine rain fizzled in the air, and soon he found himself warm again in the phoenix's blazing aura.

"What kept you?" Molam peeled off the cloak and began wringing excess water from his clothes to hasten their drying. The phoenix shrank in size and alighted on his shoulder, a friendly blaze that immediately warmed him up.

You wanted to avoid waking the Forest, yet you set the Forest on fire and expected no repercussion? A good thing the spirit here is someone I know.

"Oh? And here I thought you just wanted to watch me freeze."

It would have been rude to end the conversation so swiftly after centuries apart. The spirit shuffled to the side on his shoulder.

"I didn't know you cared about manners. In fact, I distinctly recall you telling me that you only show manners to someone you respect." Molam grinned slyly, "You must respect the spirit here."

Would you like to freeze again?

"No." Molam shivered despite the blazing warmth as he sat down and pulled his boots off to empty the water that had collected. He set them to the side to dry and opened his pack, pulling out its contents to inspect.

First and most important: the egg. Iridescent and the size of a toddler's head, the egg radiated heat upon touch as he carefully unwound the white silk scarf to inspect it. Satisfied, he placed it to the side atop his cloak to ensure it could not roll freely.

At least place my egg on something more grand than your soot-covered cloak. The phoenix shuffled itself around his shoulder.

"...if you're demanding the silk scarf, that's intended to be a gift."

You should have had the foresight to steal the cushion as well.

Ignoring the phoenix, he dug into the pack and retrieved the food within, checking the dried delicacies for whether they were ruined by the rain.

The phoenix peeked around his head. I hope RainBringer's daughter appreciates the amount of care you put into securing her tribute.

"Why do you think I bought this water-resistant pack? She would never forgive me if I offered her rotten tribute."

It seems less extravagant than the silk scarf for the Oracle.

Molam shrugged. "I don't know what the Oracle would want, so I merely chose what I think would complement her previous attire."

He fell silent as he watched the edges of the phoenix's aura, where the raindrops sizzled away into nothingness. Part of him wondered that if any onlooker could see through the relentless downpour, they would confuse him with an auramaster manifesting a ball of rainless air around himself.

The light of the rising Sun filtered through the gray clouds and he could see the dark silhouette of YiZhi Mountain in the distance. "I can't wait to go home. Five years just for this." He pointed to the lustrous egg, "Just to release you. Five years of walking amongst those that killed me."

Five years since you left, and all you bring back as tribute is dried candy and fruit? And to think I thought you missed them.

"Of course I miss them. Even RainBringer, though I don't think she misses me at all."

She is likely not ready to meet me again.

"Oh? And why is that?"

The phoenix made a dipping shrug with its neck.

I may remind her of times best forgotten.

He packed his dried items in silence, steeling himself for the remaining journey left. The rain continued unabated but Molam decided it would be the best cover he could get for avoiding the Empire's pursuit, if they were still waiting for him. So long as he made it to the borders of ZhiXia City, they would be forced to give up. It was time to return to the Castle in the Sky.

Home.