There was no mistaking the resemblance. Chenzhou saw the same eyes whenever he looked at his parents' wedding portrait in the Great Hall at the Camelia.
Whenever he could bring himself to look in a mirror.
It was the only picture of her that Chenzhou had, and it had been a wedding from the Court.
It was the only reason Chenzhou even knew what his mother looked like. His father had outlived her by several years, but not enough that Chenzhou had strong memories of him besides his grief. There were a few more portraits of him, though, so Chenzhou had a glimpse of him at different stages in his life and the stories everyone in the Camlia had about him.
None of them had known his mother long enough to have more than a single comment about her.
Wuzheng Maimai had been kind, forthright, and skilled with a bow, willing to hear anyone out, even if she didn't agree with them. She adapted quickly and had been so, so excited when she'd learned she was pregnant.
"She wanted so badly to meet you," Marian had said the first time Chenzhou had worked up the courage to ask about her as a teenager. "She would talk to you for hours while you were still in her belly."
It had been reassuring, but not so much that it had completely done away with the kernel of resentment that had always festered in his heart.
That still did despite Chenzhou being old enough to know better. He knew it wasn't her fault she had left, but it had never been enough to snuff out the irrational anger that she wasn't there.
Or the guilt that Chenzhou had killed her. It was something all children born under the same circumstances carried. Responsibility, Chenzhou put on himself for something he had no power over.
He carried it anyway.
Seeing her now, so young and so alive, was shattering, he realized.
She resembled Chenzhou when he was that age. Her hair cut short and choppy and her eyes a bit too big for her face. She had smears of ash and dirt everywhere, and the dress she wore was painfully simple, like a rice sack with holes cut in it, and worn at the hems.
The house she was hiding under caught flame, and Chenzhou reached for her, only for Eirian to yank him back. "It's not real."
"She's going to burn!"
"No, she isn't. Stop and think, Chenzhou." Eirian's grip was like an iron vice around his arm. "You already know she survives."
Yuze nodded, a gentler touch on Chenzhou's shoulder. "Eirian's right. We can't do anything but watch."
So, they did.
Eirian and Yuze each held one of his hands and didn't say a word about how hard he squeezed.
Wuzheng Maimai darted out from under the porch and managed to avoid being spotted by the attacking tribesmen, cutting down everyone in their path.
They followed her through the village as the attack continued. The orchard caught fire, sending sparks high in the night sky.
None of them could bring themselves to step on, though, the fallen bodies littering the ground like rocks.
"They fought back," Eirian murmured, impressed. History was littered with stories of small villages and towns being overrun and obliterated by stronger forces. Here, there were almost as many fallen tribesmen as villagers.
But even as she spoke, three tribesmen dragged a mother and her children out of hiding and butchered them in the street next to their father's body.
"This isn't right," Finn mumbled, nauseous, and he ducked behind Eirian so he couldn't see. "Why did they do this?"
"This is…crueler than they usually are," Fox admitted, making all of them jump. "Normally, they would take the women and children as slaves."
"Death is preferable then," Eirian sneered.
"If you're alive, there's a chance for freedom." Fox countered.
"And how do the tribes treat their slaves?" Eirian demanded.
Yuze, because he knew the answer, snapped at both of them. "Not now."
Chenzhou choked up when his mother made it back to her house. It had already been set on fire, but she ran back inside anyway and tried to shake away the still forms of her parents. Her hands came away covered in blood as the roof started to collapse, and Chenzhou let out a pained noise as his mother stumbled to her feet and fled.
They raced to follow her through the village.
"There are at least five different tribes." Yuze noticed, confused. "I don't remember reading about a coalition around this time?"
"Some only last a matter of days," Fox murmured.
Eirian gasped and pulled Chenzhou around, "Look!"
A tribesman had been pulled off his panicked horse by one of the hanging ropes they'd seen in the trees.
Patrick's jaw dropped as the rope tightened seemingly of its own accord, until the tribesmen hanging from it stopped struggling. "Holy shit."
There are more tribesmen hanging from the trees and a few on the ground, fruitlessly shooting arrows into the branches.
Chenzhou pulled them away after his mother, they passed by the Song Manor, already half decrepit and littered with bodies broken in ways no human could manage. Song Ran's laughter rang through the screams and crackling roar of the fire.
"You said the tribes avoided this place?" Eirian remembered.
"They say its cursed." Fox responded and even he sounded disturbed at the sight. "They're extremely superstitious."
"So, a village full of ghosts could be something they'd want to destroy?"
Fox nodded. "They don't suffer those that are different of them."
Chenzhou's mother turned a corner and came face to face with a tribesman, Chenzhou gasped as she froze as he raised his sword, but before he swung long black hair emerged from the wall of Song Manor, wrapped around him and dragged him inside.
Maimai froze in terror as he struggled but by the time he was halfway through the wall, his legs were still.
"Run." Chenzhou urged. "Run."
And she did.
Wuzheng Maimai sprinted along the side of the manor and reached the wall of the village. There was a hole behind a small shed, and she managed to squeeze through.
This portion of the wall was gone in their time, so they simply stepped through in time to see Maimai disappear into the wheat field.
~ tbc