Chapter 1

The ominous cries of crows filled the silent sky.

Only a week ago, a magnificent clan had lived on this land. Now it was nothing more than a wasteland of scorched ruins.

Every wall and pillar had collapsed into charred rubble, and the sweeping, cloud-like roofs had caved in to form a massive stone tomb. Acrid smoke still seeped from the main beams. They jutted up like tombstones, and the newly arrived winter winds carried the soot south.

Half a day had passed since the inferno finally guttered out after raging without pause for seven days and nights. The sunset soaked the sky, red as spilled blood. Only the crows remained, their bellies bloated with human flesh.

The Estate of Vanishing Clouds and Dissipating Mists, once the Seomun Clan’s seat, would stand as an eternal warning to the world. It was meant to awaken vigilance and instill pure terror.

Yet in this frozen ruin, fated to crumble into the wind, a small corner of scorched earth suddenly stirred. Charred wood and shattered porcelain skittered as a faint vibration rose from below.

Soon, a hidden trapdoor cracked open, sending a cascade of fine gray ash into the cramped space beneath.

A small hand groped its way out of the darkness.

It belonged to a boy no older than seven, dressed in an ultramarine silk robe entirely at odds with the devastation around him. Curled in that suffocating space for a week, he was far too weak to stand. By the time he managed to drag himself out on his knees, debris had already slashed and scraped his hands and elbows raw.

Gaunt and hollow-eyed, the child took in the horror before dragging himself forward, desperate to escape. He tried to stand, but his buckling knees forced him to crawl. Scorched debris crunched beneath his palms and shins, slicking his skin with blood. He did not stop until his gaze fixed on a single towering shape in the front courtyard.

Sliding down the rubble of the main steps, he approached a towering wooden stake.

It was as thick as a man’s leg, whittled to a deadly point and thrust toward the heavens. Impaled through its center was a human corpse, burned so deeply that only the vague contours of its head and limbs remained.

Crawling toward the stake, the trembling boy hesitantly touched the corpse’s blackened, shriveled foot and looked up.

The corpse was burned bald, and the bloodied tip of the stake burst from its gaping mouth. Its blistered flesh was icy. Hard and bumpy beneath his fingers, the sensation stamped itself into him, certain to haunt him to his dying breath.

His gaze drifted downward to the center of the corpse’s chest.

A fist-sized piece of jade was fused into the ruined fabric and flesh. He recognized that ornament all too well. Recoiling, the boy scrambled back and retched as bile surged up his throat.

Mud-like vomit splattered down his front, but he could not tear his eyes away.

The sight of his slaughtered kin seized him by the hair and forced his head up. He understood then that he had not survived the massacre. He was merely dying a little later than the rest.

Just then, a pair of hands gently covered his eyes.

The scent of long-brewed medicinal herbs reached him first. Cool fingers touched his feverish skin, and a soft voice followed, crisp as an autumn breeze.

Only then did the boy close his parched lips, tasting the sour sting of bile. He could barely register the stranger’s words. Instead, he swallowed, and the knot in his chest rose to his throat and tore free as a harrowing wail.

The herbal-scented figure pulled him into a tender embrace, and the boy clung to him with the desperation of a drowning man grasping a lifeline.

He sobbed violently for what felt like an eternity, unable to stop even as his lips cracked and the metallic tang of blood filled his throat. Clawing at the stranger’s robes until his thin fingernails bent back, he thrashed and howled like a wounded beast until his body went entirely rigid.

Eventually, his voice gave out completely, leaving him weeping so hard he felt he might bleed tears instead.

That was his last clear memory, unaware of exactly when he lost consciousness. As his eyes fluttered shut, he only remembered thinking that the blurred tresses of white hair looked exactly like egret feathers.