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The newborn Azure Serpent River swallowed them whole. The shock of the warm, luminous water gave way to the relentless pull of the current, dragging them through the smooth-walled tunnel beyond the Heartspring cavern. Darkness pressed in, broken only by the fading turquoise glow clinging to their skin and clothes, and the faint, steady pulse of the Starfall fragment Nian clutched against her chest like a talisman. The roar of the water was a physical force, filling the confined space, drowning out thought, leaving only the primal need to breathe and hold on.
Nian locked one arm around Grandma Xiu's waist, feeling the older woman's frail body tremble with exhaustion and cold despite the water's unnatural warmth. With her other hand, she gripped Mei Lin's offered forearm, the archer's strength a vital anchor in the churning blackness. They formed a desperate, three-pointed raft, kicked and buffeted by the powerful flow, their heads barely above the surging surface. The tunnel ceiling skimmed terrifyingly close, dripping with condensation.
"Don't fight it!" Mei Lin's shout was a raw scrape against the water's roar. "Conserve strength! Let it carry us!"
The current was a living thing, ancient and purposeful. Nian closed her eyes, pushing past panic. She focused her Whisper, not against the river, but *into* it. She listened past the roar to the water's deeper song – the rush of countless droplets, the scrape against stone, the immense, patient power carving its path through the mountain's heart. It wasn't hostile; it was indifferent, a force of nature obeying gravity and the mountain's will. To fight it was death. To surrender was their only hope.
The fragment hummed against her sternum, its emerald light a dim beacon in the suffocating dark. Its song, amplified by the river's primal energy, resonated with the water's deep rhythm. For the first time since the Heartspring's disruption, the flaw's dissonant buzz was utterly silent, submerged beneath the river's overwhelming harmony. The water itself seemed to cradle the celestial shard, its chaotic potential momentarily lulled by the immense, orderly flow.
Time lost meaning in the roaring dark. Minutes bled into hours, marked only by the burning ache in Nian's limbs, the numbing cold leaching into her core, and the terrifying scrape of unseen rocks against their legs. Grandma's grip weakened periodically, forcing Nian and Mei Lin to clamp down tighter, hauling her back from the brink of submersion. Mei Lin guided them, kicking subtly to angle them away from the worst turbulence, her knowledge of rivers evident even in the pitch black.
Just as despair threatened to overwhelm Nian's resolve, a change vibrated through the water. The roar deepened, becoming less confined. A faint, greyish light filtered from ahead, growing steadily brighter. Fresh, cool air washed over their faces, carrying the scent of wet earth and growing things.
"The surface!" Mei Lin gasped, hope cracking her exhausted voice.
The tunnel widened abruptly, spilling them out into a vast, mist-shrouded cavern. Daylight, weak and filtered through a high ceiling choked with vines and dangling roots, illuminated the scene. The river here was wider, slower, but still powerful, flowing through a subterranean gorge. Towering pillars of stone rose from the water like the petrified trunks of colossal trees, draped in thick curtains of moss and ferns. Glowworms clung to the cavern walls, their pale blue light adding to the ethereal gloom. The roar softened to a deep, resonant rush.
They kicked weakly towards the nearest bank – a narrow shelf of silt and gravel beneath an overhanging rock ledge. Nian hauled Grandma onto the gravel, collapsing beside her, gasping, trembling violently. Mei Lin dragged herself up last, collapsing onto her back, chest heaving. They lay there for long minutes, shivering, coughing up river water, utterly spent. The Starfall fragment pulsed warmly against Nian's soaked tunic, its light a comforting ember in the cavern's dimness.
"We live," Grandma rasped eventually, pushing herself onto an elbow, her face gaunt but her eyes fierce in the glowworm light. "The Serpent spared us."
"For now," Mei Lin added grimly, sitting up and wringing water from her braid. She scanned the cavern, her hunter's eyes missing nothing. "This is the Echoing Chasm. I know it. We're deep, but not lost. The river flows south, towards the Sunken Forest basin." She pointed downstream, where the cavern narrowed again, the river vanishing into another tunnel mouth. "But we can't stay here. The water's edge draws predators, especially after the Starfall's stirrings."
As if summoned by her words, a low, gurgling croak echoed from the shadows beneath the ledge above them. Glowing yellow eyes, the size of teacups, blinked open in the darkness. Something large shifted, scales scraping on rock. The stench of damp reptile filled the air.
"River Drake," Mei Lin hissed, drawing her short sword with a quiet scrape. "Drawn by the commotion… or the light." Her gaze flicked to the fragment glowing faintly through Nian's tunic.
Nian scrambled to her feet, pulling Grandma up. *Silent Mercy* felt heavy and cold on her back, but its quiet presence steadied her frayed nerves. The drake emerged from its lair – a sinuous, crocodilian head on a thick, scaled neck, its body still hidden in shadow. It hissed, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth, its yellow eyes fixed on the glowing spot on Nian's chest.
"Shield the light!" Mei Lin ordered, stepping between Nian and the creature, her sword held low and ready. "Back away slowly. Towards that rubble slope." She gestured to a pile of broken rock leading up to a higher ledge further along the bank.
Nian fumbled with the herb pouch, still damp, and shoved the fragment inside, muffling its glow. The sudden dimming seemed to confuse the drake. It hissed again, its head swaying, trying to relocate the enticing light source. Mei Lin used the moment, throwing a large stone into the water near the creature's head with a loud splash. The drake flinched, snapping at the disturbance.
"Go!" Mei Lin urged.
They scrambled up the treacherous slope of loose scree, stones clattering beneath their feet. The drake, distracted by the splash, turned its massive head towards the noise they were making, letting out a frustrated bellow. It began to heave its bulk from the water, revealing powerful, clawed limbs.
They reached the higher ledge, a wider platform littered with ancient debris – broken pottery shards, splintered wood, and strangely, fragments of smooth, worked stone bearing faded carvings. It looked like the remains of a small riverside outpost, long abandoned. A narrow fissure in the cavern wall offered potential shelter.
Before they could reach it, a new sound froze them in their tracks. Not the drake's roar, but voices. Human voices. Muffled, arguing, coming from *upstream*, around a bend in the cavern they hadn't yet seen.
"–absolute madness, Captain! The Rockbreakers tore through the forward squad like parchment!"
"Silence! The fragment's energy signature spiked *here*, in this cavern system! And that tremor… it felt like the river shifted. They went *with* the flow!"
Captain Zhao's voice, cold as glacial ice, cut through the damp air. "Find where this accursed water emerges. And find *her*. The fragment is close. I can almost taste its power."
Imperial soldiers. They'd found an alternate path, likely through higher tunnels, and were searching the cavern upstream. The drake, hearing the new voices, let out another challenging bellow, momentarily distracted from its pursuit of Nian.
"Spirits curse their persistence," Mei Lin breathed, her knuckles white on her sword hilt. She pointed urgently to the fissure. "In there! Now!"
They ducked into the narrow crack just as torchlight flared around the upstream bend, illuminating the cavern wall. Shadows of armored men danced on the stone. The drake's bellow turned into an enraged roar as it spotted the newcomers.
Chaos erupted. Shouts of alarm, the metallic scrape of swords being drawn, the reptilian snarls of the drake, and the sickening sound of tearing flesh and splashing water filled the cavern. Zhao's men had walked straight into the ambush they'd narrowly avoided.
Inside the fissure, they pressed against the cool rock, hearts pounding. The cramped space smelled of damp stone and ancient dust. The sounds of battle – human screams mingled with the drake's roars – echoed horribly close.
"We can't stay," Grandma whispered, her voice trembling with more than cold. "When the drake is done… or if Zhao prevails… they will search every crevice."
Mei Lin was already exploring the fissure by touch. "It widens… goes back… feels… worked." Her fingers traced smooth grooves on the wall. "Old. Listeners' handiwork, perhaps. A bolt-hole."
They edged deeper into the darkness. The fissure opened into a small, rough-hewn chamber. Moonlight – actual moonlight – streamed down from a narrow chimney high above, illuminating a scene that made Nian gasp.
The chamber wasn't empty. Slumped against the far wall, partially shrouded in tattered, mildewed robes of dark blue, was a skeleton. Not scattered bones, but an intact, seated figure, legs crossed, spine straight. Clutched in its bony fingers was a simple flute, carved from dark wood. Before it, etched into the stone floor, was the familiar spiral-within-circle symbol of the Listeners.
A sense of profound peace, untouched by time, radiated from the remains. The air hummed faintly, a residual echo of the sanctuary's resonance.
"A Listener," Grandma breathed, her voice filled with reverence. She approached slowly, bowing her head. "One who chose to meet the end in meditation… guarding the threshold."
Mei Lin knelt beside the skeleton, her touch gentle. "They left messages… sometimes." She carefully lifted a small, flat stone resting near the skeleton's knee. Faint, elegant characters were carved into its surface. She held it in the moonlight, her brow furrowed as she read.
"*The river sings the path,*" she translated softly. "*The heart remembers the source. When the sky falls, seek the Weaver in the Drowned City. Only harmony can mend the fractured star.*"
Nian's hand flew to the herb pouch. *The fractured star.* The flaw. *Mend it.* Hope, sharp and sudden, pierced the fog of exhaustion and fear.
"The Drowned City…" Mei Lin murmured, her eyes distant. "Old tales… speak of a place deep in the Sunken Forest basin. A city swallowed by the Veil long ago. Guarded. Feared. The *Weaver*… that name is not spoken lightly. They say it weaves fate from the threads of Qi."
A final, gurgling roar echoed from the cavern outside, followed by triumphant Imperial shouts. The drake was dead. Zhao's voice, cold and commanding, cut through the noise: "Search the banks! Every crevice! They couldn't have gone far!"
Their respite was over. The Listeners' chamber offered wisdom, but no escape. The moonlight shaft pointed upwards, but the chimney was impossibly narrow and high. The only way out was back into the cavern, where Zhao's victorious, fragment-hungry soldiers now scoured the banks.
The river's roar was a constant reminder of the path downstream. To the Sunken Forest. To the Drowned City. To the Weaver who might mend the fractured star. It was a path whispered by a dead Listener, carried on the current of fate. But first, they had to slip through the net of Imperial steel tightening around their sanctuary of bones. The Starfall fragment pulsed against Nian's hip, its song a blend of fearful anticipation and fragile hope. The deepest Veil beckoned, promising answers and perils beyond imagination. The whispers had guided them to a choice: face Zhao now, or vanish into the river's embrace once more, chasing a legend into the drowned heart of the world.