The scream cut through camp at dawn, sharp and sudden, and Wei Liang was moving before he was even fully awake.
"That's Cixi," Shen Yue said, already running toward the tent where the old woman had been resting.
They found her sitting up, gripping her blankets, pale and shaking, staring at nothing in front of her.
"What happened," Wei Liang asked, kneeling beside her.
"A dream," Cixi said, breathing hard. "Not just a dream. A memory. Something from long ago, surfacing all at once."
Xu's voice came alert through the pendant. "That happens sometimes, with people who've carried buried things a long time. Ask her what she remembered."
"What did you see," Wei Liang asked gently.
Cixi's hands were still shaking. "The night Tao pulled Yin from the battlefield. I was there. I'd forgotten I
