Dao Zhen brushed the snow from his father's name. It had fallen overnight, filling the carved characters, and his bare fingers were wet by the time he cleared the last line.
Patriarch Dao Jianfeng. The Unbroken Blade. He fell as a patriarch should.
First Elder Qingshan had chosen the words. Zhen had approved them. Nothing on the stone told of the cultivation deviation his father had concealed, the months he had lived with it, or what he had spent of himself in the final fighting.
Zhen remained on his knees. This was his sixth visit in three months. Before that he had stayed away, unable to bear the sight of the grave. He could sit here now and speak, though there were still things he found harder to say than others.
"You fell in the spring. It's winter now, Father."
His breath misted against the stone.
"Wang Tian has reached foundation establishment. Their clan keeps growing stronger."
He remembered the woman who had stepped between his father and a killing blow. She had killed three demonic cultivators who had nearly destroyed the city. His father had died despite her help. Zhen had still been beside him when the greater pressure came down from the northern sky and forced the courtyard to its knees.
The woman had fought again, and this time she had been losing. Then a mild-faced man was standing between them with a teacup in his hand. The attacker had fled without another blow.
Zhen still did not know their names, or why they had come. Neither of the two who had helped them had been a stranger to Wang Ben. They might still be protecting the Wangs. He had no way to tell, and could not afford to assume they were gone.
He drew his wet fingers into his sleeve.
"The Prince is still here. He came to recruit for the western war. I don't know what keeps him."
It seemed a long stay for that purpose alone. Zhen had stood in the square while the Prince spoke, wanting to offer his sword and leave with him. There would have been orders to follow, work he knew how to do. For a while he had let himself imagine going.
He had never put his name down. He was patriarch now. Whatever he felt about the clan's dependence on the Wangs, he could not abandon it while it was still recovering from the war.
"I don't know what you would tell me."
His father had been demanding, often hard to please. He had hidden his failing cultivation from the people who depended on him. But Zhen could not remember him hesitating as he himself did now. He had learned his father's sword techniques and still came here hoping for help with a decision.
Strangers were asking questions about the Wang Clan throughout the city. Zhen suspected they came from the domain capital. A few words from him about the Wangs' weaknesses could be worth more than all their questions. He might only have to keep silent when he ought to warn Ben.
He had not spoken of that to the grave.
"You've been here a long time."
Dao Zhen turned. First Elder Dao Qingshan came to stand beside him, looking down at the words he had chosen for his brother.
"I'm not cold."
"You've been avoiding the compound for weeks, Zhen."
"I attend to my duties."
His uncle waited beside the stone. Zhen got to his feet, his knees stiff from kneeling. He was a qi-condensation cultivator, but the cold had reached him all the same. Qingshan seemed untroubled by it. He had spent two centuries at early-stage core formation, unable to break through, and still urged patience whenever Zhen spoke of rebuilding the clan.
"At the City Lord's hearing, you said you were thinking about the vassalage," Qingshan said. "That was months ago."
"I am still thinking."
"While doing as little as the terms allow."
"Have I failed to honor them? We train together and share our resources. We stand with the Wangs before the city." Zhen brushed snow from his robes. "They haven't asked anything unreasonable. I know that."
"Then give us time to rebuild. We can make the Dao strong enough to stand on its own again."
"After fifty years."
"Would you rather spend them resenting every courtesy you owe?"
Zhen looked back at the grave. "We used to stand beside them as equals. My father died, and now I'm expected to be grateful for their protection."
Qingshan's hand rested on the top of the headstone. He left it there for a moment before answering.
"I miss him too."
Zhen kept his eyes on the carved name.
"The Wangs have enemies we know little about," his uncle continued. "We know no more about the people who may still be protecting them. You speak as though they have nothing to fear."
"The City Lord keeps them close. Their protectors saved them. Their clan grows stronger, and Father is still here."
Qingshan took his hand from the stone.
"Walk with me," he said. "There is something you should know."
Zhen followed him between the graves. Snow covered the path, and for a while neither spoke. He kept beside his uncle, waiting.
"You know the Bastion has men asking questions here," Qingshan said.
"I've heard."
His uncle stopped. "This stays between us."
Zhen nodded.
"One of them approached me," Qingshan said. "Liu Changyun. He wanted to know how strong the Wang Clan has become, who protects it, and how it has risen so quickly."
Zhen watched his uncle's face. "What did you tell him?"
"Nothing about the Wangs. I told him our oath binds us to protect the clan we serve."
"And he left it at that?"
"He was quite courteous. He said the offer would remain open if our circumstances changed. Then he thanked me for the tea and left."
Zhen looked down at the marks their feet had made in the snow. His uncle had been given the opportunity he himself kept imagining, and had refused it. There had been no need to find out what Liu might give in return.
"You think someone has approached me too."
"Have they?"
He could have said no. Qingshan had asked about an approach, and no one had come to him as Liu had come to his uncle.
"Not directly," he said. "But I've heard things. There are people willing to listen if I have something to tell them."
Qingshan waited. Zhen made himself meet his eyes.
"I haven't decided."
"The Bastion is sending a formal delegation."
Zhen kept looking at him.
"Liu won't be the last man to ask us these questions," Qingshan said. "And I doubt they mean to close this inquiry at all. Once they're sitting in the City Lord's hall, you won't be able to keep standing apart."
"You want my answer before they arrive."
"You need it before they arrive," Qingshan said. "I won't choose for you, Zhen. But you have until they step into the city."
"And if I choose wrong?"
"You may die. Or you may live to see the clan destroyed."
Zhen had no answer to that. His uncle began walking again, and he went with him. He had hoped to learn which choice Qingshan thought would keep them safe. The old man offered no such assurance.
They reached the edge of the cemetery, where the path turned down toward the Dao compound. Beyond its walls, farther across the city, Zhen could see the Wang Clan's rooftops.
Zhen slipped a hand inside his robe. The communication token lay in the inner pocket against his chest. He closed his fingers around its edge, thinking of the message he had composed so often that he no longer needed to choose the words.
He knew the face of the man who would read it. He had imagined asking for release from the vassalage, for the Dao Clan to stand on its own again. He would have to hear the answer before knowing what his information was worth.
A pulse of qi would send it. His hand stayed still.
"Wang Ben has never treated us as lesser men," Qingshan said. "And he comes here to visit your father's grave."
Zhen turned toward him. "He comes here?"
"Once a month. Sometimes more. Alone, and never for long. I don't think he means anyone to notice."
Zhen's fingers loosened on the token. He looked back along the path they had taken.
"He has never said anything."
"He asks nothing for it." Qingshan stood beside him, facing the cemetery. "It matters to me that he remembers my brother."
His uncle had tended the grave during the months Zhen could not bring himself to come. Now he had to picture Ben here too, standing before the name he had cleared that morning. He had met Ben often enough since the war. There had been plenty of occasions to mention such a kindness, if that was what the visits were for.
Wang Ben was still sixteen. Zhen remembered him kneeling beside them while his father lay dying. Jianfeng had looked past his son and asked the boy to watch over him. Ben had nodded.
Zhen had been holding his father's head. He remembered the movement of Ben's face as clearly as the request. It was difficult to think of that moment while standing here with his hand on the token.
"What if their protectors leave?" he asked. "What if the Bastion moves against them and there's no one to stop it? We would still be bound to them."
"Yes," Qingshan said. "We could lose the clan with them. Leaving might spare us, or it might not. I cannot promise you that either."
Zhen looked toward the Wang roofs again. His uncle waited a little longer, then began the descent to the compound. Zhen let him go ahead.
The sun had risen above the city. Light reached the roofs below, leaving the walls beneath them in shadow. Zhen stayed at the cemetery's edge until his uncle was well down the path.
He had accepted the vassalage after his father's death. He had stood in the Wang hall, looked at the empty chair where Jianfeng should have sat, and pressed his own seal into the wax. Whatever he thought of those terms now, he had known why he accepted them. The Dao Clan had needed protection to survive.
His father had been pragmatic. Zhen thought he would have understood that choice. He was less certain what Jianfeng would make of the one before him now.
There were still people willing to listen. He could supply the people questioning the Wangs, or warn Ben that they were trying to turn the Dao against the Wangs.
He tried to return to the message. Instead he found himself wondering what Ben said when he came to the grave, or whether he said anything at all.
Zhen released the token and drew his hand from his robe. It remained in the pocket, the message unsent.
By the time he started down toward the compound, he had brought his face under control. He still had no answer for his uncle.