Ada.
Teshin appeared beside her, shouting, “We got this, go find Yiran!”
Nodding his thanks, Ash dashed away. He vanquished a few more Hybrids before he rounded a corner and stumbled upon a dazed Yiran, covered in a thick layer of dust.
Blood dripped from a gash across his forehead and his clothes were torn, revealing more injuries along his arms and torso that looked like a bad case of rope burn.His neck.It looked like someone had tried to strangle him. He could hardly stand, and there was a stricken look on his face that wrenched Ash’s heart. He was also clutching something inhis hand. A violet shard he must’ve picked up from the floor. The shard glowed faintly, and the skin around his palm and fingers blistered from the yinqi. In the corner a figure in white lay still, with more shards all around them.
“Ash?” Yiran whispered, looking confused. He was shaking violently.
“It’s me,” Ash said, embracing his brother, trembling with relief himself. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
He tried to unfurl Yiran’s clenched hand to get him to drop the violet shard that was burning his flesh, but Yiran shrank back with a cry. There was no time to argue or reason, or even to wonder why his brother was gripping the shard so desperately.He’s in shock, Ash concluded.
“Come with me,” he said, guiding Yiran along. “We have to get you somewhere safe.”
They’d barely moved twenty feet when someone lurched into their path.
There was a surreal moment when Ash saw the man’s face.
Even after everything, it was impossible not to think of him asDad. Impossible not to feel some warped joy in seeing him again. But Ash heard Yiran’s whimper, and something inside him flicked like a switch. The grief of what had happened to his brother and the anger and disgust for Song Liming’s actions overrode everything else.
“Get out of our way,” he said.
Liming stayed where he was. “Not quite the family reunion I expected,” he mocked, even as a deeper emotion blossomed on his face as he stared at his sons. He was in bad shape. Something had ripped his left arm off near the shoulder, and the cloth tied around it as a makeshift bandage was soaked with blood.
Calmly, Ash raised his pistol, pointing it directly at his father. The yangqi bullets wouldn’t hurt Song Liming, but the threat in his action was clear. “I said, get out of—”
“Why?” Yiran shouted hoarsely, squeezing the shard even more tightly. Its glow was dimmer, and it seemed to be shrinking in his hand. “Why did you kill him?”
Ash wasn’t sure who Yiran was talking about, but it seemed Liming knew.
“I treated him like a son,” Liming said. He was barely holding on to his saber. “But he betrayed me—you all betrayed—”
A sudden blur of motion cut him off.
Ash watched in horror as a mutated Revenant raked its claws across Liming’s body, picking the man up and shaking him like a rag doll. Its tentacles punctured its victim from all sides, and it lowered his head and began to drink.
A defensive shield sprang up suddenly between man and monster, crimson light searing into the Revenant.
Yiran’s protective spell.
Lifting its head away from Liming, the creature made painful guttural noises. Spurred into action, Ash fired successive shots at the Revenant, casting his own attack spells in tandem. With another shriek, the Revenant flung out its tentacles, flailing desperately. But its cries died swiftly as it hardened to stone and crumbled.
It was once human, Ash realized, staring at the scattered gray substance on the ground.
Song Liming had collapsed against the blood splattered wall, a growing pool of dark liquid forming underneath him. He was still conscious, still hanging on to life.
Father and sons stared at each other, the air thick with the weight of their shared history.
The pistol in Ash’s outstretched hand shook.
“Go on,” his father taunted, “finish the job.”
To Ash’s surprise, Yiran stepped forward. There was no hesitation in Yiran’s approach. But he knelt instead, regarding his father somberly.
“What and whom the Guild created will ultimately destroy it,” Yiran recited softly. “What youcreated—those creatures, your false revolution—it destroyed you.” His voice grew steadier as he spoke. “But I am not yourcreation, and neither is my brother. We won’t corrupt ourselves to be your executioners.”
The spite in Song Liming’s eyes disappeared, and a moment of profound regret seemed to flicker in them. But he turned away from his younger son, and Ash saw him for what he was: a man once full of ambition and righteousness, an imposing figure now defeated.
