Snow had fallen again over Lanyue, soft and relentless, blanketing the narrow paths and rooftops of the tiny northern village. The cold had lingered far too long this year. It seeped through the walls, through skin, through the heart.
Young Renmei wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders as she trudged into the forest, her breath ghosting in the chill air. She knelt by a rabbit burrow, the snow crumbling under her palms in soft, icy avalanches, and coaxed a clump of pale roots free with the careful patience of someone who had spent her life learning how to take only what would give back. The herb—yarrow, the healers called it, or something close enough to mend a fever before it could take hold—grew where the hibernators made their nests, the village elders said. It was said because only a fool stayed at home during a snow like this and expected to find anything at all.
Seventeen years had taught Renmei how to be stubborn where it counted. The village's storerooms were threadbare, the midwife's satchel nearly empty of tinctures, and her mother coughing through the nights. Becoming the village healer had once been a quiet wish—learning poultices, learning how to steady hands in the dark—but winter turned wishes into errands. She worked with the single focus of someone practicing mercy on a town that could not repay her.
She ought to have turned back an hour ago. The sky had grayed and the first hard sleet began to lace the air. But there were legend-thin pockets of warmth under certain den trees, and there were ways the cold-root showed itself if you listened closely to the soil. Renmei tapped the ground with the toe of her boot and whispered a sort of counting-song the old women used when bending the earth — not the spells of scholars, only the small, patient rites used by folk healers who learned from roots and bones. Her breath came out in white ghosts and she tasted iron on the back of her tongue.
A voice then, smooth and low, drifted out of the trees ahead. "You're walking where wolves have their dens, girl. Where do you go in a storm like this?"
Renmei started, the little song cutting off in her throat. For a flash she thought of the empire's mounted patrols, of taxmen and temple-singers and the distant capital with its tiled roofs and high-prowed dragon banners. There was no one who would patrol these woods; only the rangers of other villages and the traders who dared winter passes. She squared her shoulders. "Searching," she called, steadying her voice. "For cold-root. My village—"
"Ah." Another voice — rougher, younger, with a laugh like a thrown stone. "We know a spot. We know where the burrows are cozy. Come on. You look frozen to the bone."
They stepped out between two pines as if they'd been waiting: three men in patched leather, faces windburned and grey with smoke, each carrying a bundle that bowed like a hunched back under his arm. The taller of the three tilted his head, eyes crinkling into a grin that did not meet his mouth. There was nothing in him for Renmei to trust, not the way the woodcutter over yonder would have looked — blunt, used to honest work. Still, their breath showed good humor. In a winter like this, strangers could simply be strangers, not thieves.
She followed, because the storm had quickened and even if a quarrel was afoot, a stranger's fire at least meant warmth for a night. They led her deeper until the pines grew close, the ground a sheet of pale glass. One of the men stooped and tapped a thin patch of exposed earth. "There," he said softly. "Cold-root. Quick now. Don't waste it."
Renmei slid to her knees, glove on the soil, and felt the small twitch of life beneath. Joy warmed her chest — ridiculous, simple — and then a blow to the back of her head took that joy and the world with it. The forest tilted and went to a thin, bright point. Her last impression before black was the smell of damp wool and the feel of someone's hand closing on her throat.
When she woke, she tried to make her hands move and found them tied. The gag was rough against her lips. For a panicked instant she thought she might be still in the woods: the dim light of a lean-to, the dull thud of a distant wind. A woman's voice cut through the low chorus of the men—sharp as a chisel, but later softened by warmth.
Voices cut through the air. Not the rough amusement from earlier. This one was softer, outrage threaded with a tone that suggested someone both amused and annoyed. "What is wrong with you lot? You can't just kidnap a girl because you fancied a hunt."
Renmei kept her eyes closed. If she could not be seen, perhaps she could not be asked questions either. Pretending to sleep was a shield she had worn since childhood; it saved her from men and mockery often enough.
Renmei held still. Her heart drummed like a trapped bird. The men who had knocked her out shifted their weight; one of them muttered, the others answering in low apologies. The lady of the scolding moved close enough that Renmei could see the edge of a cloak and a braid knotted down the woman's back. When the cloth fully cleared, the woman crouched, her boots planted in the dirt as if she had been born to hold ground. Her face was weathered and narrow-cheeked, and her eyes were a steady, dark gray that measured Renmei like a potter appraises clay.
There was a rustle of fabric and the scrape of boots stopping. A pair of hands — rough, but surprisingly gentle — moved to undo her bindings. The woman's voice was closer now, an apology in every syllable. "You're not a thing to be taken. I'm sorry, little one; I had thought you—" She hesitated, then smiled, but didn't offer the small thing that would have been a name. "I'm sorry. These men mistake anything at dusk."
Renmei kept her face still as stone. Her throat moved once with a dry sound and the woman pressed something to her lips — a wedge of bread and a spoonful of stew so warm it steamed against Renmei's lips. She sipped; the heat unfurled like a small sun inside her ribs. The woman, who introduced herself only as the boss of the group and offered her apologies for the mistake, smoothed Renmei's hair as if petting a child.
"You'll stay the night," the woman said finally, as if that were settled law. She did not introduce herself, only bowed with a small apology. "We thought you a beast—there are such tales of beasts in human skin. For the mistake, I apologize."
She moved with the easy authority of someone used to being obeyed; she directed the men to mend ropes, to stack more wood, and to keep their laughter quiet. Renmei accepted the apology as one accepts a threadbare cloak—better than shivering at the road.
"We didn't mean no harm," the tall one said quickly. "We thought she was one of them—"
The woman cut him off with a look. "You thought wrong. Take care of the girl."
They did. Renmei watched them with the wary gratitude of someone who has been both a child and a patient in the folk-huts of the village: rough hands that fumbled, but hands that could hold a wounded limb the way a parent holds a scraped knee. They covered her with an extra blanket, fed her half a rye cake warmed over coals, and insisted she sit close to the fire. A scraggly-haired fellow cracked jokes that made the other men hoot; one of them, a boy not much older than Renmei herself, shared his cloak without ceremony. The leader — the braids — sat a little apart, her jaw set as if defying the cold itself.
"We'll see you to your village in the morning," the woman promised, though the wind outside had grown into a roar and the trees bowed like supplicants. "No point risking a girl on a slope in this whiteness. Especially not for herbs. Winter takes more than it gives."
"My village is short of medicines," Renmei whispered. "People are sick."
The woman's jaw softened. "Then you did a good thing, child. Just don't do it where you can be trussed by a bunch of fools with better luck than sense."
Renmei nodded, tired, thankful, the food filling the hollow where fear had been. She let the warmth creep in, let the ruffians' voices dim to a low, comfortable murmur.
At the camp — a sheltered hollow ringed by boulders and a stout fire — the ruffians set about making room. Blankets were offered, a patchwork of coats folded into cushions. One of them, the one with river-silt eyes, produced a dented tin and a spoon with a flourish more theatrical than needed; he insisted Renmei take the seat of honor by the flames. They were clumsy with kindness. They asked her about her village with a curiosity that had no malice, traded bits of dry humor about the cold, and one, a broad-shouldered fellow named Han, spent half the night telling a story about stealing a pie from a farmer's window as if recounting a battle of legend. The woman — the boss — watched him with an indulgent expression. When Renmei tried to protest that she should sleep by herself in the corner, the man named Nolan scoffed and shoved a spare fur at her. "You're human like us," he said, blunt and warm. "We don't leave our kind to freeze."
That small phrase — "human like us" — lodged in Renmei as if it were both a comfort and a warning. She let it warm her, because warmth in the belly made the cold of the world more bearable.
Night thickened. The snowstorm made the world into a white drum around them; the canvas sides of the camp strained and fluttered like lantern-skins. The men began their talk: stories pulled from their travels, the usual mix of bragging and fear. They spoke of waystations, of a priest who charged coin for blessings, of a trader who had lost his horse to the same ice Renmei's village feared. No mention was made of dragons; in the capital, dragons were the province of temple historians and imperial banners. Even if a common man saw a dragon feathered across the sky, he would know not to speak of it in the wrong company.
Then a different sound: the dragging of something heavy. The laughter stopped. Boots crunched. A cart, or perhaps a sled, ground into the circle and two men hauled something wrapped in wet canvas to the center. Bits of fresh blood dotting the snow looked very bright in the lantern's light.
Renmei's stomach plummeted. Her hands, freed from their bonds, went white as she gripped the blanket. The men of the camp gathered, eyes gleaming in the fire glow. The leader — the braided woman — slid a hand to the haft of the axe at her hip as if instinct would be a better weapon than words.
The thing was not the size of any dog or wolf Renmei had seen. It was long, the limbs knotted and thick with muscle, a row of low ridges down its spine like the low waves of a peninsula. Scales, not feathers, caught the firelight in dull, bruised blues. Its head had gone down as if in sleep — closed, broken lids — but as the covering loosened, one eye cracked open with a slit of orange and a gleam like embers.
"The western kind," one of the ruffians said with a cold amusement. "Worldly dragon. From beyond the passes. Worth a few coins for its hide. Worth more if you butcher it at the market."
They mocked it then, at first gently, poking the dragon with the butt of a spear as though it were a carcass. The creature hissed, a loneliness of sound that made Renmei's whole chest ache. Its breath steamed in the cold and it turned its head, throwing back the corner of its mouth to bare teeth long and crooked.
Renmei's throat closed. The men who minutes ago pressed bread into her palms now prodded the dragon with sticks, laughed when it whimpered. One of them—who had tied the rope around its neck—spat something mean and hard. Their jokes were teeth-on-wood cruel. Renmei felt a hot dissonance like a struck chord: hands that could be soft, being cruel for sport.
The dragon—young, narrower in snout than the trade drawings, tongue flicking—stared at the woman. For a heartbeat, its eyes caught the firelight and were only—only—curious. Then it tried to draw itself up, and the ropes bit, and one of the men, with a broad back and dark hands, laughed as he swung his knife until a red eye shone on the blade's edge.
"It's only a beast," he said. "Not like the sky-dragons. Let's finish it. No coin for leaving it alive."
The woman's jaw set. She took a step forward, as if to stop them, but the leader of the band—her voice harder now, the apology dropped like an empty cup—clapped the broad man on the shoulder. "We're in need," she said. "It'll fetch fat coin in the south. Not everyone gets to be a fool about beasts."
Something inside Renmei trembled and screamed, but she remembered what her grandmother had told her: in this world, to be different was to be hunted. Dragons were hunters and hunters—by law and lore—would turn on anyone who showed them softness.
The creature lifted its head. Its eyes, rimmed in a color that reminded Renmei of the dark night sky in the moonlight—fixed on her. For a second there was no animal and no man; there was a sentient look that found the one small human lying closest. It twisted its chained body and lunged, breaking its binds.
For a moment the world narrowed to that gaze. It was not the carved, distant majesty the capital's tapestries taught children to revere; it was dirtier, wounded, and immediate. In its glance Renmei found, absurdly, an animal's humiliation and an intelligence that belonged to something older and deeper. Its head dropped low; it drove itself forward and hurled its bulk at where she sat.
It struck her squarely, crushing wind from her, the world tilting and becoming pain. Scales rasped against her cheek; heat — a living, fierce heat — licked at her skin in a way that made the hairs along her arms stand up. The dragon's mouth opened and its breath was smoke and iron and the smell of burning resin. Renmei tried to scream, and a single, keening sound tore from her throat that was not entirely human and not entirely animal. A burning, alive thing pressed into the bone of her sternum — a small, sharp flare, like a coal embers' sting in the chest.
She could not breathe through the sound, only press her palms to the place where the heat blossomed, where it burned and then, shockingly, spread as if answering a word. The dragon's roar scraped at her ears until her teeth ached. For a heartbeat its gaze held hers—not hunger but recognition—and in that sliver of time the beast's luminous eyes went dull, like coals smothered by an uncaring hand.
The moment did not last. The woman — the boss — moved with a swift efficiency; one motion with her blade, bright and clean, and the dragon's shoulders slackened.
The men went quiet in the aftermath, breathing in the rhythm of those who had done what must be done. The river-silt fellow clapped once, a crude sound swallowed by the storm's first high wind. "Good," he said. "One less thing to hassle our paths."
Renmei stared down at the dragon's still form and the bright smear at its flank where the boss's blade had touched. The warmth in her chest flared and then retreated like a tide — receding but leaving her with a dragged, hollow ache and the residue of that strange fire. She tasted iron as if she had bitten her tongue. The boss dropped the blade into the snow with a soft thunk and looked at Renmei as if assessing a patient for whom the words had already been decided.
Renmei could not think. The burning in her chest had not left; it lingered as a bruise of heat beneath her ribs, as if the dragon had left something inside that refused to cool. Her palms slickened with sweat. The world refracted, and she felt her knees go loose.
"Easy," the boss ordered one of the men, and her tone had cracked into something like command and care at once. "Help her up. Wrap her. If she faints, do not wake her with cold water."
The last thing Renmei registered before blackness crept over the edges of her sight was the boss kneeling, pressing a cloth damp with broth against Renmei's lips. The boss's hands were steady. Near them the rogues argued about hides and coin — practical crassness in the face of death. Above it all, snow fell, persistent and indifferent, burying footprints and bloodstains alike until all that remained was an even white that hid the world's hard edges and, for a moment, made everything seem possible to mend.
Dawn came softly, the snow-wrapped forest breathing out a thin, silver mist. Renmei stirred before her mind was ready, because something — a warmth like liquid sunlight — licked over her skin. She blinked slowly, confusion creeping in with the waking light. For a moment she didn't open her eyes, merely felt the sun: not its glow, but the very pulse of it, the way it touched her through her lashes and sank beneath her skin.
It was strange. She had never felt sunlight before — not like this, not like something she could sense. It was as though the rays themselves had voices, murmuring faintly in her veins. Her heart fluttered uneasily.
When she finally opened her eyes, she wasn't in her bed of straw back in the orphanage. A thin tent canopy hung overhead, its seams patched with careful stitches. The faint smell of pine and ash filled the air. Her fingers brushed at a blanket tucked around her shoulders — thick wool, warmer than anything she owned — and she sat up in a start.
A hand brushed through her hair, gentle but deliberate. Renmei froze.
"It's all right," came a calm, amused voice. "Easy, little dove."
She turned sharply, heart hammering, and found herself staring into the face of the woman from the night before — the one who had freed her and killed the dragon. In the soft wash of morning light, the woman's features looked different: less fearsome, more human. Her long, dark hair was tied loosely behind her, and her expression carried a weary sort of kindness.
"My name is Ruihua," the woman said, tone light, as though they were old acquaintances rather than a frightened girl and a syndicate leader. "Since I suspect introductions are long overdue."
"Ruihua…" Renmei repeated, dazed. Her lips curved faintly despite the stiffness in her cheeks. "That's… such a pretty name."
Ruihua chuckled — a low, melodic sound. "Says the girl whose own name means beauty. How very fitting."
Renmei flushed, the compliment catching her off guard. "I… I didn't know that," she mumbled, brushing a strand of hair from her face.
"Then take it from me." Ruihua stood, stretching with a catlike grace. "Names are charms, child. Sometimes they tell us what we are before we ever know it ourselves."
Ruihua straightened, stretching her arms over her head. "Come. You need a proper wash. There's a stream nearby — clean, not too deep. The men are packing the horses; it'll just be us ladies."
The idea of leaving the tent made Renmei hesitate, but Ruihua offered her a hand with the kind of steady confidence that brooked no argument. Renmei took it, the older woman's palm firm and warm in hers. Outside, the snow had thinned into patches of soft frost, the forest painted in pale gold from the rising sun. Birdsong trembled faintly through the trees.
Renmei hesitated, fingers fumbling at knots and hems until Ruihua, patient, slipped a hand under her chin and tilted her face up. Her palm was warm; it steadied Renmei like a promise. "You're safe with me," she said plainly. "I wasn't made leader and boss of a syndicate for nothing. I know how to watch, and I know when a child needs protecting for no other reason than being a child."
There was a rank in that sentence — the weight of history and things said in other languages — but not cruelty. Renmei felt something like trust, brittle and new, growing in her chest.
Ruihua took Renmei's hands then, and the way she moved was not with the parlor theatrics of city mages. Her fingers drew patterns in the air: small circles that traced the river's edge, a palm briefly raised, and the world answered with a sigh. Heat pooled in the hollow of Ruihua's palms, a colorless glow that pricked at Renmei's skin like the first touch of morning. The water along the bank steamed as if someone had set a pot on a low fire. Fish that had been stirring beneath the ice flickered and darted away; stones sent up threads of mist.
"It won't be hot enough to scald," Ruihua told her, watching Renmei's face. "I won't have you back home shivering or singed. I've no wish to return a young girl to her parents like a popsicle." Her attempt at levity made Renmei snort despite herself.
Renmei hesitated before answering, her voice quieter. "I don't… have parents. I grew up in the village orphanage."
Ruihua's hands paused in the water. She turned her head slightly, eyes softening. "Ah."
"I want to be a healer someday," Renmei continued, staring at the ripples in the stream. "But I don't have much mana, so I study herbs instead. It's not the same, but… I still want to help people."
Ruihua's expression was unreadable for a second, the way shadows play on a cliff. Then she sat back on her heels and folded her hands over her knees as if settling down for a serious conversation. "The world has no shame for small things," she said slowly. "People with large mana make them feel larger than storms or kings. But small cores can be stubborn. They survive. They adapt. You learned survival — that's not nothing."
Renmei's breath hitched. "You don't think it's— pathetic?"
"Not me." Ruihua's answer was immediate. "I respect a person who keeps tending when the job is thankless. Herbs are the bones of medicine. Without them, a pompous mage's power is all bluster and no cure." Her smile was crooked and private. "And don't for a moment think small mana means small spirit."
They dressed in silence after that, Ruihua helping Renmei into several layered cloaks, wrapping a knitted hood tight around her face. The fur smelled of campfire and lavender — a scent that would root its way into Renmei's memory.
Ruihua reached out and touched her shoulder, firm and reassuring. "Come on, little herbalist," she said with warmth. "Let's get the dirt and bad dreams off you."
They washed together in the steaming water, laughter occasionally breaking through the quiet. Ruihua told stories about her travels — how she once outdrank a knight, how a noble once tried to hire her to hunt a demon that turned out to be his wife's cat. Her voice was rich, rhythmic, and the air felt lighter with each word.
When they returned to camp, Ruihua tossed Renmei a thick fur-lined cloak that smelled faintly of pine. "Keep it," she said. "You'll need it more than I will."
Renmei dismounted, clutching the cloak Ruihua had lent her — a heavy, fur-lined thing far too fine for her. "Thank you. For everything."
Ruihua's eyes glinted, amused and kind all at once. "Keep the cloak. Consider it a reminder to stay warm, little herbalist."
As Ruihua turned to give orders to her men, one of them — tall, with sharp cheekbones and eyes the color of liquid silver — stepped forward. His pupils were narrow, slit like a cat's, catching the light in a strange, uncanny way.
"Here," he said gruffly, pressing a small pouch into Renmei's hands. "Herbs. The good kind. For free."
Renmei blinked, startled. "I— I can't—"
"Can," he interrupted, and gave her head a rough, almost affectionate pat. "You're brave, girl. Don't lose that."
Ruihua chuckled at Renmei's stunned expression. "Don't argue with him. He gets sentimental when the sun's out."
The small group walked with her until the outline of her village rooftops appeared between the trees. Ruihua stopped there, the wind tugging at her dark hair.
"This is where we part ways," she said, resting a hand on Renmei's shoulder. "Stay safe, little one. The world's cruel enough without you getting caught in its teeth again."
Renmei nodded, clutching the bag of herbs to her chest. "Will I see you again?"
Ruihua's smile was soft, distant. "The world's smaller than it looks. Maybe."
As the ruffians turned back into the forest, Renmei watched their figures fade into the pale mist until they were gone. The snow sparkled underfoot, and for a moment she felt something pulse faintly within her chest—warm, alive, and unfamiliar.
The sunlight touched her face again, and this time, she swore she could feel it breathing with her.