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When Lan Wangji finds A-Yuan, the boy is covered in ashes. He doesn't think on it too much. All of the Burial Mounds burned, after all. But when they reach the Cloud Recesses, when they reach safety, the boy is clean.
He remembers this a year later, when A-Yuan almost drowns in the cold spring, The water is clear but A-Yuan emerges covered in a gray sludge. There is a smell like a thunderstorm. The watery ash dries, then flakes away, then dissipates.
Lan Wangji doesn't ask right away. He takes care of A-Yuan first. But later, when A-Yuan is asleep--heart racing--he plays Inquiry. He doesn't know what to ask. He's afraid of the answers.
"You're still here," he settles on, eventually. The spirit could be anyone, he tells himself, but it's still here. "He's the only one left to protect," the spirit answers. "I will keep him safe," says Lan Wangji, but he doesn't say "move on."
From time to time across the years he spies A-Yuan covered in ashes and smelling of lightning, moving through sword forms not of Gusu Lan as if in a trance. When he's done training, his robes glow white again. And when A-Yuan is ten, he asks Lan Wangji to teach him Inquiry.
"I want to talk to the smoke-ghost," A-Yuan tells him.
"He...shows himself to you?"
"M-hm," says A-Yuan. "And he shows me things, but he can't speak."
They play together. "Aren't you going to ask his name?" A-Yuan asks, and Lan Wangji doesn't know how to explain why he can't.
"He...shows himself to you?"
"M-hm," says A-Yuan. "And he shows me things, but he can't speak."
They play together. "Aren't you going to ask his name?" A-Yuan asks, and Lan Wangji doesn't know how to explain why he can't.
"Does he teach you anything else, besides the sword?" Lan Wangji asks, when A-Yuan is thirteen. A-Yuan nods. "It's dangerous," he says.
"He's only teaching me to protect myself," says A-Yuan. "He says I'm the only one left."
"He's only teaching me to protect myself," says A-Yuan. "He says I'm the only one left."
Lan Wangji should say, do not use such techniques, but instead he only says "be careful."
"I will," A-Yuan assures him, and then he asks, "the only one of what?"
"Ghosts dwell on the past," says Lan Wangji. "It doesn't matter."
"I will," A-Yuan assures him, and then he asks, "the only one of what?"
"Ghosts dwell on the past," says Lan Wangji. "It doesn't matter."
Lan Sizhui is a good student. He learns from Lan Wangji, and he learns, carefully, he thinks, from his smoke-ghost.
And at sixteen, in what should have been nothing more than a friendly spar, Lan Sizhui shatters Lan Jingyi's golden core.
And at sixteen, in what should have been nothing more than a friendly spar, Lan Sizhui shatters Lan Jingyi's golden core.
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