The eastern mountains revealed themselves slowly.
Not as a single range, but as layers.
Ridges behind ridges, each one darker than the last, rising like waves that had frozen mid-collapse. By the time Rue Yim and Wang Si reached the final checkpoint road, even the sky seemed reluctant to follow them further.
It dimmed.
Not with sunset, not with clouds.
But as though the light itself thinned.
"This is as far as the official routes go," Wang Si said, drawing his horse to a halt. "Beyond this point, even patrols avoid the terrain."
Rue Yim slid down from her saddle before he finished speaking.
The ground felt wrong.
Not unstable. Not soft.
Just… wrong.
Like stepping onto something that had once been alive and hadn't quite accepted its death.
She crouched, brushing her fingers lightly across the soil.
Cold.
Too cold.
Even for shaded mountain earth.
"Do you feel that?" she asked.
Wang Si dismounted beside her, his expression already guarded. "Yes."
He didn't elaborate.
