Interlude: Dao Zhen
The winter wind cut through the Dao Clan cemetery like a blade seeking flesh.
Dao Zhen knelt before his father's grave, his breath misting in the cold air. Snow had settled on the headstone overnight, softening the sharp edges of carved characters. He brushed it away with bare fingers, ignoring the bite of cold against his skin.
Patriarch Dao Jianfeng. Blade Sword Edge. He fell as a patriarch should.
The words had been chosen by First Elder Qingshan, and Dao Zhen had approved them without comment. They were appropriate. Dignified. They said nothing about the cultivation deviation that had been killing his father for months before the war, or the desperate final stand that had ended what the deviation had already begun.
"It's been a year," Dao Zhen said quietly. The words felt inadequate, but he spoke them anyway. The dead deserved acknowledgment, even if they couldn't hear it. "A year since you fell. A year since I became what you trained me to be."
The grave offered no response. It never did.
He had come here six times in the past three months. More often than in the months before, when the grief had been too raw to face. Now the grief had hardened into something else. Something he could carry, if not comfortably.
"The Wang Clan continues to rise." His voice held no particular inflection. Statement of fact, nothing more. "Wang Tian broke through to foundation establishment. Their young master designs formations that draw attention from powers we cannot name. Their allies protect them from consequences that would have destroyed us."
The wind stirred the snow around him, swirling white against grey stone.
"Three of their guards left for the western front. Prince Huo Zhanlong came himself to recruit, and they volunteered for duty at Azure Dragon Fortress." Dao Zhen's hands rested on his knees, perfectly still. "Our guards remain. All of them. Because no one thought to ask the vassals if they wanted the honor of dying for the empire."
That wasn't entirely fair. First Elder Qingshan had quietly discouraged any Dao cultivators from stepping forward, arguing that the clan couldn't afford to lose strength while still recovering. But the contrast remained. Wang Clan guards chose to march toward glory while Dao Clan guards stayed home because they had no choice.
"I don't know what you would tell me to do."
The admission came harder than the rest. Dao Jianfeng had been many things: stern teacher, demanding father, flawed patriarch hiding a fatal weakness. But he had always known his own mind. Had always been able to cut through confusion to the heart of any matter.
Dao Zhen had inherited his sword techniques but not his clarity.
"The First Elder says patience. He says the Wang Clan's fortune is borrowed, that their protectors will lose interest, that time favors the steady over the spectacular." Dao Zhen paused, considering. "I think he believes it. I don't know if I do."
What he didn't say, what he couldn't quite bring himself to voice even to his father's grave, was the question that burned beneath everything else.
If I had the chance to hurt them, would I take it?
Not violence. Nothing so crude. But information shared with the wrong people, or withheld from the right ones. A word in a merchant's ear about Wang Clan vulnerabilities. A failure to warn them of threats that a loyal vassal should have reported.
The Crimson Bastion was asking questions about Wang Ben. Dao Zhen had heard the rumors through channels that didn't pass through Wang Clan oversight. Investigators from the Domain capital, probing for weaknesses, building files on a seventeen-year-old cultivator who had somehow drawn the attention of powers that should have been beyond his reach.
He could help those investigators. Could confirm suspicions, reveal schedules, map the reduced patrol routes that left the Wang compound more vulnerable than it had been in years.
Or he could warn Wang Ben. Could prove his loyalty not through words but through action, earning trust that might matter when the storm finally broke.
The choice sat in his chest like a stone he couldn't quite swallow.
"You'll freeze if you stay out here much longer."
First Elder Dao Qingshan's voice came from behind him, steady and unsurprised. The old cultivator had always known where to find him.
"I'm fine."
"You're avoiding the compound." Qingshan moved to stand beside the grave, his core formation cultivation shrugging off the cold that bit at Dao Zhen's bones. "You've been avoiding it for weeks."
"I've been attending my duties."
"You've been present for your duties. That's not the same thing." Qingshan looked down at the headstone. "Your father would tell you to stop brooding and start acting. He had little patience for extended contemplation."
"My father is dead."
"Yes. Which is why I'm the one standing here instead." Qingshan's voice held no reproach, only the matter-of-fact acceptance of a man who had seen too many generations come and go. "What did you decide, Zhen'er? When we spoke after the City Lord's inquiry, you said you would decide. It's been months."
Dao Zhen rose slowly, his knees protesting the cold and the extended kneeling. "I decided to wait."
"Waiting is not deciding."
"It's the only decision I can make." He turned to face his elder, his expression carefully controlled. "The Wang Clan hasn't demanded anything unreasonable. The vassalage terms are honored. We train together, share resources, present a united front to the city. What more would you have me do?"
"Nothing more. Something different." Qingshan's old eyes studied him with uncomfortable precision. "You perform your obligations like a man paying off a debt he resents. Every gesture calculated to the minimum. Every courtesy offered with hidden teeth."
"I am paying off a debt I resent."
"For forty-nine more years. You can hate that long, if you choose. But hatred is exhausting, and I suspect you'll run out of energy for it long before the term ends."
The wind gusted between them, carrying flakes of snow that stuck to Dao Zhen's robes before melting.
"What would you have me do?" The question came out sharper than he intended. "Embrace our subordination? Celebrate that my father's death bought us the privilege of serving a clan led by a boy still learning to shave?"
"Wang Ben is seventeen. Hardly a child."
"He was fifteen when we signed the vassalage. Fifteen, with his entire future ahead of him, while I was burying the last of my family."
"And now he's seventeen, with enemies that would have killed him a dozen times over if not for protections we don't understand." Qingshan's voice was patient, the tone of a teacher repeating a lesson that hadn't yet taken hold. "His position isn't as comfortable as you imagine."
"Comfortable enough. The City Lord offers him private audiences. The Phantom Gate shields him from consequences. His father breaks through to foundation establishment while ours lies cold in the ground."
"All true. All incomplete." Qingshan turned toward the cemetery path, gesturing for Dao Zhen to follow. "Walk with me. There are things you should know."
They moved through the cemetery in silence, past generations of Dao dead, ancestors who had navigated their own impossible circumstances. The snow muffled their footsteps and turned the world to shades of white and grey.
"The Crimson Bastion has increased its presence in the city," Qingshan said finally. "Investigators. Observers. They're building a case against the Wang Clan, though I don't yet know what shape that case will take."
Dao Zhen said nothing. He had already heard this, through channels that didn't include the First Elder.
"What I'm about to tell you does not leave this conversation." Qingshan stopped walking, turning to face his young patriarch. "Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"I've been approached. Quietly, through intermediaries. The Bastion wants to know what we know about Wang Ben. His capabilities. His connections. The source of his unusual fortune."
Dao Zhen felt his heart rate quicken, though his expression remained still. "What did you tell them?"
"Nothing. I explained that as vassals, we are bound by oath to protect Wang Clan interests." Qingshan's weathered face was unreadable. "They didn't push. They didn't need to. They made clear that the offer remains open, should our circumstances change."
"You're telling me this because you think I've been approached as well."
"Have you?"
The question hung in the cold air. Dao Zhen could lie. Could claim ignorance, maintain the facade of loyal vassal, buy time to consider his options. Qingshan might even believe him.
"Not directly. But I've... heard things. Opportunities that might be available, if I chose to pursue them."
Qingshan nodded slowly. "And have you chosen?"
"I told you. I'm waiting."
"The Bastion won't wait forever. Neither will the Wang Clan's enemies. Eventually, Zhen'er, you will have to pick a side." The First Elder's voice was gentle, but his words carried the weight of four centuries of experience. "Not because anyone forces you to, but because neutrality will become untenable. When the storm breaks, there will be no safe ground between the factions."
"And if I pick wrong?"
"Then you die. Or worse, you survive and watch everything your father built be destroyed because of your choice." Qingshan resumed walking, his pace slow enough for Dao Zhen to keep stride. "That's the truth of it. There are no safe options. Only degrees of danger."
They reached the cemetery's edge, where the path wound down toward the Dao Clan compound. From here, Dao Zhen could see both directions: the familiar walls of his ancestral home, and beyond them, the distant rooftops of the Wang Clan territory.
Two paths. Two futures.
"The Wang boy saved us," Qingshan said quietly. "He negotiated the vassalage when he could have demanded harsher terms. He's kept his word on every provision. He visits your father's grave when he thinks no one is watching."
Dao Zhen's head turned sharply. "He visits?"
"Once a month, sometimes more. Always alone. Always brief." Qingshan's expression softened slightly. "I don't know what he says to the stone. But he remembers. That counts for something."
It did. Dao Zhen didn't want it to, but it did.
"What if his luck runs out?" The question was genuine, not rhetorical. "What if the Phantom Gate loses interest, the Bastion closes in, and we're left defending a sinking ship?"
"Then we sink with it. Or we cut ourselves free and pray we're not caught in the wreckage." Qingshan shrugged, the gesture almost casual. "Those are always the options with alliances. You tie your fate to another's and hope they're worthy of it."
"And if they're not?"
"Then you learn to live with the consequences. Or you don't." The First Elder began the descent toward the compound. "Decide soon, Zhen'er. The window for waiting is closing."
Dao Zhen remained at the cemetery's edge long after Qingshan departed.
The sun was rising properly now, weak winter light spilling across the city. He could see the Wang Clan compound from here, its walls and rooftops picked out in shades of white and shadow. Somewhere behind those walls, Wang Ben was probably training, or planning, or doing whatever it was that drew the attention of powers that should have been beyond his reach.
He visits Father's grave.
The knowledge sat uncomfortably in Dao Zhen's chest. He wanted to dismiss it as politics, as calculated gesture designed to earn vassal loyalty. But Wang Ben had never mentioned the visits. Had never used them to claim credit or earn goodwill.
Maybe that was the most damning thing of all. Maybe the boy was genuinely honoring a man he had barely known, paying respects to a patriarch who had died so that his clan could survive.
What would Father say?
Dao Jianfeng had been pragmatic to a fault. He had signed the vassalage knowing it would bind his son to a inferior position, because the alternative was extinction. He had chosen fifty years of diminished pride over an unmarked grave.
Survive first. Then rebuild. Pride is a luxury for those who can afford it.
Dao Zhen closed his eyes, feeling the wind bite at his face.
The Bastion's offer remained open. The Wang Clan remained vulnerable. Spring was approaching, and with it whatever storm had been building through the long winter months.
He could help that storm break. Could feed information to investigators who would tear down the protections Wang Ben had built, expose whatever secrets lay behind the Phantom Gate's interest, bring the whole glittering structure crashing down.
Or he could shield them. Could use his knowledge to warn rather than wound, prove through action that the vassalage was more than paper and oath.
The choice was his to make.
He had always known that. What he hadn't known, until this moment, was that he might not be able to avoid making it much longer.
Dao Zhen opened his eyes and looked toward the Wang compound one final time. Then he turned and began the walk back to his own walls, his expression perfectly composed, his decision still unmade.
But the waiting, he knew, was almost over.
END OF CHAPTER 77