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I shall die, but that is all that
I shall do for Death. Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death; I am not on his pay-roll.I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much, I will not map him the route to any man's door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living, that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city are safe with me; never through me
Shall you be overcome.Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Conscientious Objector."
Jiang Cheng kneels on the battlefield with his sister's body in his arms, his sister's blood going sticky down his chest and his arms with a howling maelstrom of chaos raging around him, and something in him snaps.
His eyes are grief-blinded, his sister's still face dominating his vision, but out of the corner of his eyes he can see the ugly melee: cultivators fighting with each other, struggling and clawing and slashing at one another for a chance at the Stygian Tiger Seal. He watches one sworn brother stab another in the back and lunge over his corpse for the amulet and he thinks: fuck this.
Fuck the cultivators of Tingshan He, who murdered his sister; fuck the Jin who called this pledge conference in the first place, without which she would never have been in danger. Fuck the Nie and the Lan for going along with it, and fuck himself too. None of them matters, not one. His sister is dead. His sister is dead.
His sister is dead. His brother is all that's left.
He looks up and the grief-blindness clears a little, or maybe the dawn is breaking; he sees Wei Wuxian standing at the edge of the cliffside, his shoulders shaking with wild laughter and heaving with sobs. He sees the moment when stillness comes over him, when his face goes slack, his eyes close, and he takes a step back towards the edge.
And Jiang Cheng thinks: A-jie died to save him.
I can't let her sacrifice be in vain.
He has to set her down gently and that takes too much time, her cooling blood has glued their skin together; by the time he gets to his feet and starts to the cliff's edge Wei Wuxian is already falling. He would have been too slow -- he is too slow but Lan Wangji is there, suddenly, ahead of him, flying to Wei Wuxian's side like an arrow released from its quiver, and Lan Wangji catches him just at the edge.
By the time Jiang Cheng gets there the cliff is already crumbling; blood soaks down from Lan Wangji's wounded arm, makes his grip slippery. "Lan Zhan, let me go," Wei Wuxian's voice comes weakly, and Jiang Cheng thinks: the hell you will.
Lan Wangji looks over at him, his face a study in anguish and horror, and Jiang Cheng knows that Lan Wangji doesn't have the strength in his injured arm to pull a full-grown man to the top of the cliff. Jiang Cheng steps forward until the scene swims into his vision; the ground far below, the far-off rivers of fire, and Wei Wuxian dangling there, his face already pale and grey as a corpse.
Jiang Cheng looks down at him, unfurls Zidian, and rears his hand back to strike. Wei Wuxian doesn't even flinch; he just closes his eyes.
" Jiang Wanyin!" Lan Wangji shouts, but there's shit all he can do about it from his position. Zidian curls around Wei Wuxian's chest, under his arm, and holds him without biting.
"Jiang Cheng," Wei Wuxian gasps, and each word is like a new wound. He has the temerity to sound surprised that his own damn brother is saving his life.
"Are you trying to die, asshole?" Jiang Cheng says, gritting his teeth.
Tears sheet down Wei Wuxian's face, stream from the corner of his eyes. "It's my fault," he whispers, such that Jiang Cheng can barely hear him over the roar and clamor of the battle behind. "Jiang Cheng, she's dead, because of me."
"Do you think I don't know that?" Jiang Cheng screams down at him. "She won't come back to life if you die! Are you going to spit on her last wish like that, you prick?"
Wei Wuxian's eyes go wide, and for a moment -- through the mask of blood and the pallor of death -- Jiang Cheng sees his brother. And he thinks, yes. This is right.
"Help me!" Jiang Cheng says to Lan Wangji, now, ignoring anything Wei Wuxian has to say. Lan Wangji nods, once, and the two of them are pulling in tandem once more.
Between Zidian's secure hold and Lan Wangji's death grip, they pull Wei Wuxian up. A fraught glance, a wordless argument -- can you fly? can you fight? -- and in the end they share Wei Wuxian's weight between the two of them. It's easier to step into the air to take flight than it would be to jump, so any witnesses who saw them go would only have seen all three bodies tumblr from the cliff together.
Their flight is terrible -- erratic and clumsy, zig-zagging back and forth in the air with a dead weight carried between them. Jiang Cheng's mother would have boxed his ears for such a poor showing, if she weren't dead. Lan Wangji is still bleeding, and his sword dips dangerously towards the ground as his strength bleeds out from his wounds. Jiang Cheng can barely see past the image of his sister's face hanging before his eyes. His dead sister. Because she's dead.
It's Wei Wuxian's fault. His brother didn't even try to deny it. Without his terrible life decisions none of tonight would have ever come to pass, Jiang Yanli would never have been in danger. But there's no use thinking about blame. His parents are dead and his sister is dead and all his sect sisters and brothers are dead except for Wei Wuxian. Who else is there, now, to remember the life that they lost together?
They don't make it far, only a few ridges over past Wen Ruohan's ruined palace, but they can't get all the way out of Qishan just yet. They find a spot that's out of sight from any searchers, and flat enough to fit all three of them, and that'll have to be enough right now. They try to set Wei Wuxian on his feet -- but his knees buckle and he goes right to the ground, and Jiang Cheng has to scramble after him to keep his head from hitting the ground.
"Wei Wuxian, you asshole," Jiang Cheng says as the two of them lay Wei Wuxian out on the ground, head pointed up the slight slope. "You should never have come here. I should never have come here, I should never have taken that damn pledge. So fucking stupid. Shouldn't have given Jin Guangshan what he wanted."
Wei Wuxian's breath is coming in short pants, his chin is streaked with blood, but he still smiles tremblingly up at Jiang Cheng, raising one shaking hand to pat at his robes. "It's okay, Jiang Cheng, I understand."
Tears sting in his eyes; they hurt, everything hurts. "You don't understand anything!" he cries.
"I understand that if you thought I had to die, then you had to be right," Wei Wuxian says, and he's way too calm about this. His eyes roll over towards the other man, head listing to the side to take him in. "You and Lan Zhan too. I wouldn't object if it was one of you."
"Wei Ying, no," Lan Wangji's voice is small, and broken, and Jiang Cheng has never heard the illustrious Second Jade of Lan sound like this. "You have something to live for. Things aren't as you thought."
"You said that before... on the roof." Wei Wuxian's dark brows furrow. "That the situation had changed. What did you mean?"
"I went to the Burial Mounds. Looking for you," Lan Wangji said, and well, that explains why he had been so fucking late. Jiang Cheng had just assumed he wasn't going to come at all, or that they'd had to tie him up in Cloud Recesses. "I found A-Yuan, hidden in a cave."
Wei Wuxian's eyes widen, showing red all around the rims. "A-Yuan?! He's alive?!" He tries once to get up, then collapses back against the ground, his chest shaking with suppressed coughs.
"Who the hell is A-Yuan?" Jiang Cheng demands.
His brother smiles up at him. "Ah, you met him, Jiang Cheng, have you forgotten?" he says in a hoarse whisper. "He sat on your foot."
"That kid..." Jiang Cheng's eyes widen in disbelief. "You mean he wasn't..."
In a flash he's back before the gates of Heavenly Nightless City, walking past the rows and rows of hanging bodies. It had all been done before they arrived; the Jin clan had put all of the Wens to death before they ever called the conference. But he hadn't seen a child's body hanging in among the rest.
"I took him to Gusu. He's safe there," Lan Wangji explains. "That is why I was so late, I had to make sure he was safe."
"So it wasn't all for nothing, then," Wei Wuxian murmurs.
He lets his head fall back against the ground, eyes shut. Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng are both beginning to recover their breath, after the battle and their mad flight, but Wei Wuxian's breathing isn't getting better; quick harsh pants that hardly seem to move his ribcage at all, and his lips are turning blue.
"Wei Ying?" Lan Wangji's voice breaks into his focus and he sounds so small, he sounds scared. "You must come with me to Gusu. A-Yuan is waiting."
Wei Wuxian smiles at him without opening his eyes. "Sorry, Lan Zhan," he says. "I don't think... I'm going to get there in time..."
His breathing is only getting worse. Lan Wangji touches the side of Wei Wuxian's neck, feeling for his pulse; he moves down to his brother's chest, where Wei Wuxian has been keeping one hand pressed against his side this entire time. Lan Wangji pulls his hand back and it peels off sticky with blood, revealing a rent in his black robes and a sickening glimpse of red flesh and white bone beyond. Every time Wei Wuxian takes a shallow breath, the wound flexes with an awful sucking noise, little bubbles of blood appearing on the surface.
No.
"He was shot." He'd almost forgotten about it until now, but he can see it play over again before his eyes; the flex and snap of a bow off to the side, the arrow he could hear but not see, and the way Wei Wuxian had jerked and swayed in place. "An arrow to the chest, earlier. But he just pulled it right back out and..."
"And you let them? " Lan Wangji snarls at him. Jiang Cheng glares back, unafraid.
"What the hell was I supposed to do about it? He didn't tell anyone he was going to shoot, he just did it! I can't stop arrows mid-air!"
Lan Wangji takes a breath. Lan Wangji opens his meridians in fast, precise punches and grabs Wei Wuxian's hand, frantically transferring spiritual energy. It's basic first aid between cultivators; Jiang Cheng learned it side by side with Wei Wuxian, years ago now in a Lotus Pier that is no more. He feels a sinking sensation of dread, now, that basic first aid is not going to do it.
No, this can't be happening. It can't.
He repeats the motion and grabs Wei Wuxian's other hand, anyway. Wei Wuxian has to live. Jiang Cheng chose to save him. He has to live, now.
Wei Wuxian smiles up at them, looking so tired. "Ah, thanks... but it's not going to do any good," he says. He sounds vaguely regretful, faintly guilty.
"Don't tell me you're just giving up!" Jiang Cheng snaps at him. "After A-jie died for you, you're just going to fuck off and die? You're going to waste her sacrifice? After I put everything on the line for you!?"
"Sorry." A tear breaks free from the corner of his eye and streaks down his temple, but Jiang Cheng can't tell whether it's new or old. "It's not exactly a choice I'm making."
"Wei Ying, save your strength," Lan Wangji says. He looks as white as the jade he's named for, as though it's him and not Wei Wuxian that's bleeding out.
"What for...?" Wei Wuxian says. His voice is thready, his gaze unfocused.
"For me! You have to live for me, Wei Wuxian!" Jiang Cheng snaps. He wants to shake his brother, rattle him until some good sense surfaces in his brain, but he doesn't dare. "You're all I've got! I risked everything to get you here, now you're just gonna die on me?!"
"Sorry..."
"You'd better be sorry! You asshole! What the hell were you thinking?" Jiang Cheng's temper explodes, fires fanned by fear. "Coming to a party where everyone there wants to kill you? What was all that bullshit up on the roof? Flaunting dark energy like that in front of three thousand armed men! How exactly did you imagine this turning out well?"
"I didn't mean it," Wei Wuxian confesses, and his voice is so small, so broken. His voice is being interrupted by choppy breaths, only a few words getting out at a time. "I didn't mean -- any of it. I just wanted to -- scare people. Knock them around a little. Make them -- leave us alone. I thought... I thought I could control it but -- it wouldn't stop. It kept going even when -- even when --"
"Wei Ying..." Lan Wangji's voice is a prayer, a plea, as though Wei Wuxian's survival is something he can get if he just asks nicely enough. He's never heard Lan Wangji beg before.
"Wei Wuxian! You have to make it up to me, do you understand?" Jiang Cheng tries to hold on to the anger but it's slipping away, washed in a tide of tears and blood. "You can't die now, I chose you! I chose you! What am I gonna do if you die, huh? If you die, A-jie will never forgive me -- "
"Jiang Cheng..." Wei Wuxian smiles up at him and it's ghastly, blood bubbling over his teeth, overflowing his lower lip. He still smiles. "Shidi... there's nothing to forgive."
Once again he tries to raise his hand towards Jiang Cheng, to pat his robes or cup his face like their sister always did, but this time his hand doesn't make it more than a few inches off the ground. Lan Wangji seizes one hand, Jiang Cheng holds the other, and neither of them can do shit when Wei Wuxian begins to convulse, deep wet gurgling coughs that do nothing to clear his lungs. Blood fountains from his mouth, spurts from the second mouth in his chest, and there is nothing Jiang Cheng can do but watch as his brother drowns in his own blood before him.
"Jiang Cheng..." The horrible coughing fit has passed, but the stillness that grips Wei Wuxian in its place isn't any better. His ribs are barely moving at all now, his chest tight and swollen with spilled blood, and still Wei Wuxian smiles. "Lan Zhan... I'm glad... you're here. Thank you... and... and I'm..."
"Wei Ying!"
"Wei Wuxian!"
No, no, no no no --
"Shijie, I'm hungry," Wei Wuxian whispers, the words escaping all on a breath.
He doesn't take another one.
Beside him, Lan Wangji breaks; shatters like jade dashed on the stone, a lifetime's worth of bottled-up emotions coming rushing out, and Jiang Cheng almost envies him. He can't cry, yet. He can't shout or rage or find something to hit until things get better.
Somewhere behind them is a field with three thousand cultivators fighting and dying and murdering one another. Somewhere out there is a sect that needs him, and battles yet to be fought, and Jiang Yanli's orphaned son, and Wei Ying's, but here -- here, in this fire-scorched hillside in Qishan, here in this broken body, there's nothing.
Wei Wuxian was wrong, Jiang Cheng thinks, as he stares numbly at the face of yet another beloved corpse.
It was all for nothing, after all.
~end.