What Came After

The sweet scent of fresh grass drew Xuan Yan back to consciousness. Her nose tickled, and she could not help sneezing.

"Achoo!"

Her eyes stung. She frowned and opened them, and a shaft of warm light slipped through her lashes into her eyes.

She stared at the street lined with white walls and black-tiled roofs. Golden dawn light flowed across the eaves like liquid gold. After a moment, she sprang to her feet in excitement.

"Sunlight! The sun's up!" She clenched her fists and bounced with joy. "Xia Lun did it! The dream is over! Thank goodness, thank goodness!"

Afraid it was all an illusion, she closed her eyes again and savored the gentle, sweet warmth on her hair, shoulders, and collarbones, and beneath her Daoist robe. A bright feeling, like the arrival of spring, slowly rose in her heart.

It's so good to be awake!

Wait. Where's Xia Lun?

At that thought, Xuan Yan hurriedly opened her eyes and searched for that familiar figure. Instead, she saw people sprawled across the ground in every direction, sleeping soundly in the faint morning light. Snores and murmurs filled the air.

Every so often, someone woke and looked around in confusion, but Xia Lun was nowhere among them.

Red lanterns swayed in the wind. Xuan Yan stared blankly for a while before realizing she seemed to be at the Yuanwater Festival ceremony.

How long ago had that been?

A strange sense of distance, as though she had returned from another lifetime, crept into her heart.

"Master! Danyang!"

Just as her thoughts turned to mush, a woman's shrill cry exploded beside her. Xuan Yan instinctively turned and saw the Man in the Flesh on the main platform of the domed temple, her eyes red.

The back of the Man in the Flesh's skull