Face your demons and bury them, lest they extract the price in blood when it's least convenient. -Unknown

"I think you're brave, too, Yoru."

I hesitated, not sure what to make of the statement. It was said so softly that I wasn't sure if Lin had actually wanted me to hear or not. If he had, then I should respond, possibly argue that what I was doing had nothing to do with bravery but responsibility, but if he hadn't…answering would only tell him that I overheard. Would he be upset? Offended that I'd eavesdropped on a personal thought about me? And, if I told him he was wrong, which he definitely was, would that achieve anything?

My hesitation may have lasted too long, as silence grew between the three of us. I shook my head, clearing it entirely. There was a task at hand, and it would take all the energy I had left to carry each of the eight bodies to the inner palace where they could be laid to rest properly.

I cleared my throat. "It looks like the rest of the throne room's traps were disabled by the frozen reality," I began. "It should be safe to walk here." Lin nodded simply before crossing the hall to another of the eight Royal Guardsmen.

My hand swept over Hua Zhen's eyes, closing his fiery gaze for the last time. Without a second thought, I hooked my arms beneath Hua Zhen's knees and cradled his shoulders against my chest. Blood stained my blue robes, but I didn't care. My vanity could wait until my friend was properly cared for.

We crossed the throne room, and I tried not to look too closely at the mural I once loved. A small passage brought us past the offices where I and the others would see to the official business of the realm, but I didn't bother looking in any of them. They'd be trapped, and I had bigger problems than sifting through outdated paperwork.

"Xinya, would you pick up that lantern?" I said, pointing carefully to an old lantern that was probably left behind on the back stairs by a Watcher that had faded and dispersed. "We'll want it for the inner palace." The Guard deserved to be buried with the highest respect, and I could think of no better place than within.

Xinya nodded, lit the lantern with a bit of her moon qi, and held it before her. It cast a soft purple light ahead, which even from this distance illuminated the enormous walls that separated the front palace from the rear. The great doors that normally separated the two sections were wide open, exactly how I left them. Beyond, the great lake that spanned the center of my palace was dark, along with the four palaces that bordered it. The covered bridges across the lake were also dark, and the whole scene gave me an uneasy feeling. The void was more potent here, which was surely why the darkness was so thick, but I couldn't think of any reason why it would be any stronger here than anywhere else. Unless there were more actions from the final days of my reign that had slipped through the cracks of my fractured mind…which was concerning in itself.

Xinya's light led us down the path to the right, just inside the rear palace gates. There, we stopped, laid the bodies down, then returned for the rest. If the plants outside the palace were any indication, Chouko's palace would likely be overridden with plants growing far out of proportion.

Hua Zhen and the Guard deserved a quiet place to rest, or as quiet as I could manage for them. Tucked in a small nook, a bit away from the path itself, we dug several graves and rested the bodies within. While we worked, Xinya took the opportunity to gather small stones from the nearby paths, carefully staying away from anywhere that Lin or I hadn't already ensured was safe. She stacked them into small piles by the head of each grave. With my help, she seared the characters for each guard onto the stones with her lightning.

Then, we paused. A moment of pure silence and stillness filled the rear palace, making the enormous clearing, the lake, and the residences seem both oppressively small and unfathomably large at the same time.

"I wish I had some incense for them," I whispered. "They deserve that much."

"We can come back with some if we don't find any," Lin answered. The idea of actually returning to this place with all its hazards seemed laughable to me, yet he said it with such conviction that I believed him completely.

"You know, Hua Zhen was the first Captain who's name I actually remembered. The rest just came and went," I said. "In fact, I think I missed his predecessor entirely because I was so wrapped up in solving the qi drought."

Lin looked at me incredulously. "I can't imagine forgetting something like that. I knew every one of the militia in Saikan."

"Some things feel less important after you've lived for two thousand years. Then, those priorities change again after three, four, and more," I explained with a voice tainted with melancholy. "I forgot which sects were under my banners, but I never missed Chouko's birthday, not once in thousands of years." A sad smile crept to my face. "I forgot whole generations of guards, but Hua Zhen made me memorize and greet every single one of the Gemstones under his command. He bet I couldn't do it. I was determined to prove him wrong, so I got each one a personalized gift for the Lunar New Year."

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"I imagine that was the highest honor," Lin said. "Gifts from the Avatar of the Moon on the New Year. Not many can boast that, I imagine."

"It was the biggest festival of the year," I reminisced fondly. "It's a shame that the Black City has forgotten that."

I knelt before the graves, kowtowing respectfully for the dead. Lin and Xinya followed my example, but when my sworn brother struggled to rise, I helped him back to his feet. We needed to rest before reaching the inner sanctum of the palace. He'd been walking on that foot for hours while we dug the graves and honored the Guard. Now, it was time to focus on the living once more. I couldn't change the mistakes that led to the deaths of my friends, but I could still take action to prevent the living from joining them.

Luckily for us, the guardhouse at the inner wall had a pair of beds once used by the guards between shifts. It was for the higher ranked artists, those quartz and above. One always had to be nearby in case of emergency, so they took shifts and slept on site in case something went wrong…especially in the final days before the fall of Lanyue.

Lin and I tucked Xinya into one bed, and I had just resolved to take the floor when Lin pulled gently on the chain around my right arm.

"You can't be alone tonight," he said. I blinked and frowned, unsure of what he meant. I grew even more confused when pink began to creep into his cheeks. "What I mean is that your chains usually tighten at night. They're already tight now, I don't trust that they won't strangle you while you're sleeping."

"I'm not sure I follow."

He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose before gesturing to the one remaining bed. "Lay down on your side. I'll take care of it."

"What are you going to-"

Lin glared at me, and I stopped. There was no room for argument. His cheeks were flush, probably with frustration. I knew he was far more aware of my own health than I was, but this seemed a bit out of nowhere. Still, I knew better than to try and argue the point. I followed his order and laid down on the bed.

The bed creaked slightly as he crawled in behind me. Before I had a chance to ask what he was doing, he wove his arms around me and put his hands between the chains around my neck.

"What are you-"

"Shhh," he instructed. "I'm keeping you from choking. Now, shut up. You might be a limitless font of qi, but some of us have injuries to heal and void to adapt to."

I shut up and forced myself to relax. It was a perfectly innocent thing, sharing a bed that way. He was just worried about my health. Nothing else to it.

But, his hand was warm against my throat, and his body just felt nice against my back. Ever since the fire that destroyed his home, Lin and I had been less formal with one another. He was not hesitant to wrap an arm around my shoulder in comradery, or to take playful swipes at me when I was being silly.

There was something about this that felt closer than those gestures. In all my life, the number of people who'd ever wrapped their arms around me could be counted on my fingers. Those who'd done so knowing full well who I was and what I'd done was an even shorter list.

Other men who'd done it…that list was exclusive to one person besides Lin.

Lin was family. Even without the bond that physically bound us together right down to our very souls, I'd known for a long time that I would have done anything for him, just as I would have done anything for Xinya or for Chouko. But, now…

As my mind drifted off to sleep, thoughts buzzed like lazy bees around my head. All I could think about was just how nice it was to have someone hold me, knowing that they were holding a monster, and choosing to grasp tighter anyway.

It made me think, maybe there was more to the monster than the bodies it left in its wake.

Xinya didn't sleep. She couldn't. So much had happened, and she was having trouble sorting out all her feelings about it.

At first, she'd been excited beyond words to be included with Uncle Lin and Uncle Yoru, but as the adventure went on, she grew more aware that the entire trip was more than just a means to getting the defense core and the fertilizer for the people in the district below.

Yoru had been nervous before entering the palace. That was clear to anyone with eyes, but Xinya hadn't quite realized just how bad this place was for him. The Sword Saint and the Darkened Moon both lived here. If you'd told Xinya a few months ago that she could visit the home of her two greatest idols, she'd have passed out from excitement.

It was dangerous, but danger she could handle. What she didn't know how to deal with was her Uncle's breakdown in the throne room. Seeing him lose his grasp on his usually cool exterior and break down into tears was…unsettling. For the first time, Xinya could truly see how much her idol hated his dark alter ego.

Seeing him break in the throne room, though - seeing him cry like she'd done after her father died - she felt the glimmer of understanding. He blamed himself for everything, just as she'd blamed herself for her father's death. It would never matter how many people told him that his insanity wasn't his fault, until he stopped blaming himself, he would never recover. Xinya knew that firsthand. In the dark moments of quiet that followed the storms that battered against the shores of her life, she still blamed herself for her father's death. It was the same as Yoru, except that he'd been doing it for so much longer than she'd been alive that she didn't have numbers with which to count the years.

No wonder his chains were tight.

Knowing the problem and fixing it, though? That still eluded the girl. He had to believe that he was worthy of forgiveness in a way she had yet to learn herself.

With a sigh, she turned her head to look at her uncles. Lin had one arm under Yoru's head, and the other wrapped around his torso and slipped under the silver chains. Her master looked more relaxed than he had as long as Xinya had been sharing a room with them.

Whatever the solution, she hoped Uncle Lin knew what would convince Yoru to forgive himself because, wrapped in each other's arms, Xinya couldn't help but notice the obvious: a soft, calm smile graced his sleeping face, and despite all the unearthed trauma of the day, Yoru's chains were looser than they'd ever been.

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