The night crept over the realm of Hayashi like a slow, deliberate hand veiling the world in its shadowed embrace. From the rooftops of the grand palace to the outlying watchtowers of Naichingēru Mountain, torchlight flickered like distant fireflies, warding off the creeping dark. Yet beyond the hills and out past the thick bamboo forests, where the soil turned damp and the air grew heavy with condensation, a land of whispers stirred — the Mist Lands.

  Few in Hayashi dared speak of the Mist Lands with certainty. Even among seasoned generals and ancient scholars, knowledge of the region was shrouded in rumor. Tales told of shifting terrain, illusions that led travelers in circles, and voices calling out from behind the fog. Yet, beneath the myths, something tangible lurked — remnants of an older world, a lost order, and perhaps, a truth that could unravel the present.

  Yu Tian stood alone atop one of the palace’s eastern towers, the stone still warm beneath his feet from the day’s heat. He leaned over the edge, his red-sand irises catching the reflection of the twin moons, Nyasha and Hael, as they rose through the scattered clouds. His thoughts drifted back to Sagiri’s words, spoken half in jest, half in warning.

  The Mist Lands.

  He was born there — or so he had been told. Found at the edge of that shifting place as an infant by a wandering monk from Hayashi, wrapped in silk that bore no crest. The monk had named him Yu Tian, “Heavenly Rain,” for he was found during the downpour that washed the blood from the rocks nearby. And yet, something always whispered to him — a call in the wind, a pulse in the earth beneath his feet when he stepped too far eastward.

  He turned as light footsteps approached. It was Sayuri, her pale blue robe whispering around her ankles. A moon-shaped pendant hung loosely from her neck, pulsing faintly.

  "You shouldn’t be up here alone, not with the air thick like this," she said softly, her gaze distant, as though searching the horizon for something hidden.

  Yu Tian offered her a smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Just thinking about what Sagiri said. About what happened at Hintermere Pass. About Queen Mei Zen…”

  Sayuri’s expression darkened. “My Mother. I remember her laugh. Strong, clear. Like iron striking water. Her death changed everything. It changed my Father.”

  The wind picked up then, bringing with it the scent of pine, soot, and something older — damp stone and copper. Yu Tian recognized it.

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  “The Mist is moving west,” he said.

  Sayuri nodded. “The Mist Lands expand at night. That’s why no settlements hold beyond the eastern border. But there are things in that fog. Old things. You’ve felt it too, haven’t you?”

  He looked at her then, truly looked, and for the first time he noticed the faint etchings along the edges of her pendant — ancient runes in a dialect he couldn’t read. But he could feel them.

  “What are you, Sayuri?”

  She hesitated. “What we all are — pawns in a game that began before the first crown was forged in this land. But if you're asking who I am beneath the name… then maybe it’s time I show you.”

  Elsewhere — The Temple of Mired Echoes

  In the heart of the Mist Lands, where no stars pierced the sky and the land whispered in syllables older than any known tongue, a figure knelt before a pool of black water. The figure wore a robe of smoky gray, the fabric stitched with feathers and thin shards of bone.

  This was Rikuto, the Seer of the Shrouded Vale. His eyes were clouded, blind from birth — and yet he saw more than most. The water shimmered with images of Hayashi, of Yu Tian’s face, of Queen Mei Zen’s shattered armor lying half-buried in moss.

  He dipped his fingers into the pool and murmured, “The bloodline stirs… The Clains hunger. The Zhànchuí Scale will tip soon. And the Mist must consume or be consumed.”

  Behind him, tall statues loomed — guardians of forgotten knowledge, their visages worn smooth with time, their hands clasped over their hearts.

  From the shadows emerged another robed figure, his voice raspy, as though spoken through a thousand dry leaves. “He’s begun to remember?”

  Rikuto nodded. “Yu Tian bears more than blood. He bears the echo of the gate that was sealed. He must not reach it.”

  “Then it must be opened before he does,” the second figure whispered.

  “No,” Rikuto said, a faint smile curling at his lips. “It must open… with him.”

  Back in Hayashi — The Archives Beneath the Palace

  Sagiri traced her fingers over an old scroll, the dust curling up into the shafts of light that pierced through the high windows. Her kimono was tied loosely, her hair still uncombed, but her eyes gleamed with focus.

  “A Clain ascends the Zhànchuí Scale by sacrifice,” she muttered to herself. “By offering the essence of another… not just flesh, but spirit, lineage, memory.”

  She found the passage she was looking for, a half-burnt page written in the old dialect.

  “And from the gates of Mist, a child will rise, Neither of royal blood, nor wholly of man. A child of echo, of mist, of ruin and rain. He shall call the forgotten forth, and rend the sky.”

  Sagiri’s brow furrowed. “Tian…”

  A soft knock on the archive door startled her. Azuka stepped in, bruised from sparring, his sword slung lazily across his back.

  “You're still here? Everyone else is at the feast.”

  She looked up. “I found something. Something… bad.”

  Azuka raised an eyebrow. “You mean worse than everything we already know?”

  She handed him the scroll. “Tian’s not just some wandering Mist-born. He's the reason the Mist is moving.”

  Azuka read in silence, then let out a long breath. “Gods help us.”

  The Mist Creeps In

  The following morning, mist clung thickly to the fields outside Hayashi’s walls. Guards stationed in the lower villages reported seeing figures walking through it — too tall, too thin, glowing faintly with blue light.

  Children cried of voices calling their names.

  Animals refused to graze.

  Sayuri, standing in her chambers, opened a carved wooden box. Inside, resting on velvet, was a narrow dagger — ancient, its hilt shaped like a crescent moon.

  “My father was from the Mist,” she whispered. “And my mother was from the court. I am the balance. But Tian…”

  She closed the box and looked

  out the window where the fog had begun to touch the palace gates.

  “Tian might be the tipping point.”