He sounded upset about that. It was flattering, given that they’d never spent any time together before now; he must be basing his impression entirely on Nie Mingjue’s reputation.

Flattered or not, Nie Mingjue still wasn’t very impressed right now. “That’s a risk you take when you fight, yes. Don’t blame yourself – there was no way to predict when the Wens were going to attack, or where; they could have just as easily have come to Qinghe.”

“They wouldn’t have been able to get close,” Wei Wuxian muttered, and that was flattering, too. “It’s just – it’s too early. We should have had another few months!”

Nie Mingjue wasn’t aware the Jiang sect had been taking the threat of Wen aggression so seriously that they’d been making estimates, but it was all for the best. 

Maybe it would help them in the war to come.

“Anyone who says they can see the future is being lied to,” he said. “Man plans and the Heavens overturn; that is the way of things. Anyway, you’re not wrong: it probably would have been later, should have been later, but they were robbed of their victory at the Cloud Recesses. There’s no satisfaction in burning empty buildings with all the treasures and people gone, no victory in it – it’s no wonder they accelerated.”

Wei Wuxian looked stricken by the thought.

“Cheer up,” Nie Mingjue said. “The Jiang sect will survive. That will be bad news for the Wens.”

Jiang Fengmian might be mild-mannered to the point of weakness, but he was an excellent cultivator, and of course Madame Yu’s fearsome reputation had been well earned. After this, they would have no choice but to be on the front lines.

“But you might not,” Wei Wuxian said again.

“A worthwhile trade,” Nie Mingjue said, and shrugged when Wei Wuxian gawked at him. “Haven’t you noticed that they’re following us? Dozens if not hundreds of Jiang sect cultivators that might otherwise have been put to the sword will be able to escape, and between all those lives and one, even my own, which one do you think will be more useful in winning the war?”

“You,” Wei Wuxian said. “You and your Nie sect, holding down Heijan like an iron wall for the Wen sect to waste its strength against.”

Was Wei Wuxian a fan?

Bizarre.

“I appreciate your confidence in my necessity,” he said, and ducked into another small nook when a group of Wen soldiers too large to easily handle ran by. The momentary rest was welcome. “And if it makes you feel better, they’re not aiming to kill me.”

“They’re not?” Wei Wuxian asked, appearing like a ghost in front of one of the sentries to slit his throat. He was surprisingly adept in the arts of warring in confined spaces, the ambush and the merciless kill; it almost made one wonder what purpose the Jiang sect had for him.

“With these numbers, if they wanted us dead, we’d be dead,” Nie Mingjue said. They’d lasted a good while longer than he’d expected, actually, a tribute to Wei Wuxian knowing how to get through the Lotus Pier in a thousand unexpected ways and their united strength, but even that was flagging: he had cuts and bruises in a hundred places, some more critical than others, and Wei Wuxian for all his pointless complaining wasn’t doing that great either. Perhaps his nattering was his way of distracting himself from their imminent fate. “I’ve humiliated Wen Xu before. Wen Chao wouldn’t be able to resist the thought of capturing me – and when he does, it’ll be the Core-Melting Hand.”

A sharp intake of air.

“Are you sure? I can understanding wanting to take you prisoner, but…”

“If he doesn’t think of it himself, I’ll make sure he does,” Nie Mingjue said, and ignored how Baxia grew warm with rage in his hand. He flipped back his sleeve and dipping his fingers into the blood seeping out of wound in his chest – an arrow that had come too close – and began drawing on his right hand with his left. “There are worse fates out there.”

“But –”

“Normal people die faster,” Nie Mingjue said, choosing the least traumatic of the possible reasons. Wei Wuxian was young; he didn’t need to know the worst of Wen Ruohan’s wretchedness. Nie Mingjue’s cultivation was too high and too compatible with Wen Ruohan’s own: his fate, if he were to go to the Nightless City intact, would not be so easy as death. He was counting on Wen Chao not knowing anything about his father’s most vile preferences, or possibly just being too stupid to think about them. “That’ll be an advantage. But more importantly, losing my cultivation renders me immediately ineligible to be Sect Leader, and my value as a hostage will be significantly reduced.”

Wei Wuxian looked shaken by Nie Mingjue’s practicality. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and then focused again, this time on the bloody array making its way up Nie Mingjue’s arm to the elbow and down to the backs of his fingers. “What are you doing?”

“A legacy,” Nie Mingjue said, even as Baxia screamed in his mind like metal scraping against stone. “For my brother. He’ll need all the help he can get…speaking of which, it’s time for you to go.”

“What?”

“The Wen sect isn’t looking for you, however much you irritated Wen Chao,” Nie Mingjue said. “It’s always been my plan to ensure you got away clearly before I was captured – and it’s nearly time, now. No man can fight an army alone.”

His body burned, exhausted and worn out from the hours of fighting; he’d done as much as he could, and everything else left in him was for Huaisang, who deserved better than to be made Sect Leader too young the way Nie Mingjue had. He had hoped to spare him that, but if he couldn’t do that much – he could at least do this one thing.

This one terrible thing, forbidden by his ancestors, abominable anathema – but there was little Nie Mingjue would not do for his brother, and he had faith even if he had no hope.  

Baxia was fighting him over it, resistant and rebellious in a way she hadn’t been since the first time he’d mastered her – the first time he imposed his will on hers, making the inexorable bend before him. They had been partners after that, and that was how he preferred it; but in the end he was the master, as it had to be, and she could not stop him.

“You should go,” he said again to Wei Wuxian. “If you get caught, what’s the point?”

Wei Wuxian’s hands were shaking, but he nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said, as if he were responsible for this somehow. “Thank you.”

And then he was gone.

What a ridiculous young man.

Baxia was biting him, causing his palm to bleed, trying to mess up his design – urging him to fight instead, to fight kill slaughter a way out, any way out.

“I’ll try,” he yielded enough to promise her. He needed to stay on her good side, after all; the array wouldn’t work without her. “I’ll give it a try, with all my strength.”

He did.

It wasn’t enough.

No man can fight an army.

In the end, he’s forced down on his knees, as he’d expected, Wen Chao standing in front of him at a more-than-sufficient distance as if he was afraid Nie Mingjue would leap up and stab him even with four people and suppression array fierce enough to bring down a ghost general holding him down.

He was probably right.

“You’re a coward,” he told him, and Wen Chao laughed nervously. “A coward, and a fool.”

“Well, he caught you, didn’t he?” Wang Lingjiao snapped, her voice shrill with nervousness, and a single glare was enough to have her cowering backwards. “He did! Wen-er-gongzi, you’re a hero!”

No one believed her, not even Wen Chao, but with an effort he puffed himself up anyway. “You shouldn’t have stood against my Wen sect,” he said, aiming for lofty and mostly coming off as cheap. “This is a just punishment.”

The Wen sect would paint the ground blue and the sky green if it got them what they wanted, and Nie Mingjue snorted in disgust, closing his eyes for a moment to find the trigger for the array painted onto his saber arm.

It burned.

Baxia, kicked across the room to get her away from him, seethed. Still not assuaged, still unhappy, still rebellious – but he did try to escape. It wasn’t his fault that he was only human.

It burned.

“Wen Zhuliu,” Wen Chao ordered, as Nie Mingjue knew that he would. “Let’s see how the esteemed Sect Leader Nie likes it when there’s nothing left of his oh-so-great cultivation. When he’s nothing.”

It burned.

Nie Mingjue smiled through the pain, baring his teeth at the cautious approach of Wen Zhuliu. “No matter what I am,” he said, “I am enough to terrify your nightmares.”

“Not for long,” Wen Chao shouted, which was admission enough. “Wen Zhuliu! Do it!”

Nie Mingjue’s cultivation was usually like a mighty river, rushing through his veins – to feel it spill out of order, pouring out of his body and into the array in his arm, was painful to the extreme, like bleeding out but worse. But it had been long enough, he had distracted them long enough.

Nie Mingjue hoped that it would be enough. 

By the time Wen Zhuliu put his hand on his shoulder, reaching down for his dantian, the river had become little more than a trickle.

Wen Zhuliu’s stone face cracked in two.

“What? What is it?” Wen Chao demanded, realizing something was wrong from the look on his retainer’s face. “What did the bastard do?!”

“I don’t know,” Wen Zhuliu said slowly. “But – his cultivation. There’s almost nothing left of it, and his meridians are all burned and twisted…his golden core is faint enough to be almost hollow.”

“That’s impossible,” Wen Chao scoffed. “Everyone knows how powerful Sect Leader Nie is! Even my father…what did he do? How did he – why did he –?”

He stopped, shook his head.

“It’s a trick,” he decided. “Do it anyway. I want to make sure there’s nothing left of him –”

There was a scream.

It sounded like metal against stone, harsh and ringing and shrill; it sounded like rage.

It sounded like hope.

Nie Mingjue smiled, a real smile his time, and shut his eyes.

Everyone else in the room turned to look.

It was the last mistake they made.

Nie Mingjue only opened his eyes again when a hand landed on his shoulder and fiercely shook him as if he were a disobedient kitten, and when he opened his eyes there was a woman glaring death down at him. She was tall, her features more fierce than beautiful, and she was dressed only in blood and guts.

“I knew you’d be lovely,” he said.

She smacked him in the face, hard enough that his head was ringing, and snarled wordlessly at him. There was nothing but rage in her face, in her eyes; the array he had used to give her every ounce of the cultivation he had built up for years, and most of his life-force besides, was forbidden for a reason – it would unleash something terrible into the world.

Something that knew no restraint, no mercy, only the desire to kill –

Well, in theory.

A small smack on the head was very much the least that Baxia could do.

“You’ll take care of Huaisang, won’t you?” he asked her, the remnants of his qi lurching unsteadily within him; he would have a qi deviation sooner rather than later as his body attempted to cultivate at its usual rate with virtually none of the spiritual energy required to do so, and his family did not have a good track record of surviving those – though he’ll be the first of his line to die from exhaustion rather than rage. “He’ll need someone strong by his side, to do for him what needs to be done…to tell him what evil is, in case he can’t figure it out on his own.”

“I don’t think that’s a problem Nie Huaisang has, actually; you’d be surprised,” said Wei Wuxian, who Nie Mingjue had entirely forgotten about, the sound of his voice a sudden shock of surprise.

He jumping down from some rafter where he’d been hiding – planning some sort of insane rescue, perhaps, or maybe just trying to bear witness. He had a flute clutched in his hands, of all things; Nie Mingjue hadn’t even known that he cultivated with music as well as the sword.

“Also,” he added conversationally, “what the fuck was that.”

Baxia hissed at him, a sound like the slow slide of a saber out of its sheath.

Wei Wuxian wisely took several large steps back.

“Sect Leader Nie,” he said, voice suddenly much more polite. “Forgive me my surprise, but – your saber just cultivated into a guai.”

“I wasn’t expecting her to get there this quickly,” Nie Mingjue said, nodding. “I’d been counting on them taking her back to the Nightless City…”

“Where she’d be able to use the resentful energy to cultivate into a guai, and therefore act as a weapon against the Wen from the inside,” Wei Wuxian said, nodding. He was really very clever, figuring out that Nie sect sabers could use resentful energy like that, in a way humans could not. Or, well, should not. “Except she really, really wanted to kill everyone here before they hurt you, so she did it faster.”

Baxia hissed again.

“What?” Wei Wuxian said, lifting up his flute defensively. “Am I wrong?”

She jabbed a finger at Nie Mingjue, who swayed a bit from the sheer force of it even though she hadn’t put any spiritual energy into it. So much saber qi…! Guai were truly different from humans.

“I don’t know what you want – fuck. You look terrible, Chifeng-zun.”

“That would be the blood loss,” Nie Mingjue agreed. “Possibly the impending qi deviation. Hard to tell, really…what?” he asked, seeing the expression on Wei Wuxian’s face. “You didn’t think this type of array is something you’re supposed to survive, did you?”

“But you’re not angry!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, already reaching out to start transferring spiritual energy into him. It wouldn’t be enough. “You’re not – you’re empty.”

Nie Mingjue nodded.

“You gave her everything you had…no wonder she was able to cultivate into humanity,” Wei Wuxian said, and there it was again, that ridiculous admiration. “Mistress Saber, is the only thing wrong with him the lack of qi?”

Baxia jerked her head. If Nie Mingjue lived as something other than a comatose vegetable, he’d have to teach her to properly talk, assuming that guai were capable of that. They weren’t like yao, which had once been animals or plants and familiar with the generalities of things such as eating or breathing; guai were formed from the non-living, and had never known such simple things as mere words.

He missed their connection.

If he had any qi left, he would be able to figure out what she was thinking behind that flat expressionless face that had not yet figured out how to convey anything other than rage.

If he wasn’t going to die, he’d get to see the terrible, wonderful things she would do at his little brother’s side – he’d have to be sect leader now, yes, but he wouldn’t need to change himself, contort himself into something he wasn’t, to have the strength to hold it.

He would have liked to have seen it.

“Chifeng-zun? I know something that might help stop the bleed of your qi. But it’s…unorthodox.”

Nie Mingjue waved a hand, consenting; the alternative was death, so why not?

Wei Wuxian lifted his flute to his lips and began to play.

-

Much later, Nie Mingjue wakes up in the Unclean Realm, Nie Huaisang at his side and Baxia having apparently learned to properly scowl, and – yes.