Bury Them All: A Cultivator's Path

Chapter 6

The bell hadn't rung. It was noise outside his hut that pulled Silas from his cultivation this time.

He pushed the door open to find Bram fawning over a stranger a striking young man dressed in fine silk, carrying himself with the kind of effortless, dangerous elegance that belonged only to serious cultivators. Something about him made the air itself feel heavier.

Silas had never seen even Rowan Chase's people carry themselves with that kind of presence. There was only one explanation: this was someone from well above the inner sect. Possibly even a true disciple.

The man was cradling a woman in his arms dressed in a phoenix crown and wedding red, her face beautiful enough to belong in a painting.

She wasn't breathing. She'd been dead for some time.

Silas found himself staring, quietly certain he'd never seen a more beautiful woman in his life, living or otherwise.

As the pair passed by, Bram shot Silas a hard, warning look don't you dare make a scene this time.

Silas ignored it entirely, stepping forward instead to offer a proper, solemn bow. "This one greets senior brother."

The stranger didn't so much as register him, lost somewhere far away in his own thoughts, and walked on toward the deeper reaches of Skypillar Mountain.

As the resident corpse-handler, Silas fell into step behind him. Bram, never one to miss a chance to attach himself to power, followed just as quickly.

Two hours of walking took them well past the graves of the inner sect, into ground where headstones grew sparse. By then Silas had no doubt left — this was no ordinary visitor. This was nobility.

"Senior brother, allow me to dig for you," Bram offered eagerly.

The man only shook his head, faint and distracted, and drew a coffin of worked crystal from his storage ring. He laid the woman inside with a gentleness that startled Silas more than anything else about him.

Then, instead of using his cultivation to open the ground the way any reasonable person would, he knelt and began digging by hand.

Silas had never once, in either of his lives, seen anything like it. "Whatever this love was," he murmured, "it clearly ran deep."

Bram slid him a sideways look, equal parts mocking and impressed. "Not bad for a scholar. Didn't think you had it in you."

Reluctant as he was, Silas found himself picking up a shovel and joining them if only because Bram's transparent attempt to curry favor made refusing feel almost petty by comparison.

By the time they'd finished the pit, dusk had settled fully over the mountain. The stranger ran his palm once along the coffin's lid before lowering it into the earth.

"...Ah." A long breath escaped him, and then the first shovelful of soil went in.

To Silas's relief, the man let them handle most of the filling this time — though every so often he'd pause with shovel in hand and simply stare down at the coffin, which struck Silas as its own small tragedy.

People in this world really do commit to their grief, he thought, half exasperated, half moved.

The three of them worked well into the night, until stars had fully claimed the sky. Silas contributed one handful of earth of his own before stepping back and letting the others finish.

Once the grave was raised and the headstone set, the man knelt beside it, tracing the inscription he'd carved himself with his fingers, over and over.

At last he spoke the first words he'd offered since arriving. "Do either of you have wine?"

Do you have a story to go with it? Silas thought, though he kept the words to himself.

"Of course, of course!" Bram was already producing several jars of expensive liquor, clearly having planned for exactly this.

The stranger settled beside the grave, drank deep, and let the color rise faintly in his cheeks. "Evander Lysander. True disciple of the Sky Burial Sect. Most people call me the Young Sect Master."

Bram's eyes went wide with delight, and he offered an elaborate bow on the spot.

Evander waved the gesture off. "I've never wronged anyone in my life. Never once used my standing to crush someone beneath me. But when I was seventeen, I fell in love with a girl."

"Young Master Brother Hollis — I have some matters to attend to, so I'll take my leave," Silas said quickly, and left before the story could properly begin.

Evander didn't try to stop him. Bram, on the other hand, looked thrilled to have him gone.

Once Silas was out of earshot, Evander took another long pull from the jar. "You'll drink with me."

"I'd be honored," Bram said, already glowing with the sheer improbability of his luck. Formation Peak disciples, was it? Just wait. I'll settle that score once I'm someone worth respecting.

Half-drunk now, eyes distant, Evander began his story in earnest.

That year, I traveled with my father to Cloudsea Sect, and that's where I met her.

She danced like something out of a dream, spinning through fields of flowers, her hair long, her cheeks flushed with the exertion of it.

Once my father arranged the match, I had the servants plant an entire garden outside our estate a whole sea of flowers, just for her.

Custom kept us apart most of the time, so I spent my visits with her brother instead. They shared the same eyes, the same easy charm.

He told me she liked to read common books, nothing refined and I told him that was fine by me. He still looked uneasy about it, for reasons I never understood.

I liked that about her. A girl who read. A girl who danced through flowers. A girl I barely knew.

By the time the wedding drew close, I could hardly remember her face anymore only that I'd never stopped wanting her.

I watched my dowry leave the estate, and a few days later, watched hers arrive.

Worried she wouldn't feel at home, I traveled to the ordinary town she'd once lived in and bought the finest paintings and calligraphy I could find, hoping a reader like her might appreciate them.

My father scolded me for it — said I understood nothing of taste, that I'd wasted good money on mortal trinkets that would rot within a decade.

What did I know? I was the heir. I had responsibilities, not hobbies. I couldn't read the way she could. But I had talent enough to inherit everything my father built, and I meant to keep her safe inside it for the rest of her life. She would read. I would train with my sword. She'd dance through her flowers, and I'd dance through mine.

The day I rode out to collect her, I was terrified worried her family would find some reason to make things difficult. They didn't. Her uncle was kind. The elders, if anything, seemed even more nervous than I was.

She wore the phoenix crown and the red veil, and her father walked her out through Cloudsea Sect's gates himself.

She barely moved the entire time — was she as nervous as I was? I'd learned every tender phrase my mother could teach me, meaning to say them all to her that night.

I rode ahead, spine straight, wondering if she was peering past the curtain to watch me. We were almost through the mountain gate when my father's flying vessel, waiting at the base, suddenly changed course circling wide around the mountain instead of taking the direct path.

Someone told me later she'd requested it herself.

Made sense, I thought. A bride should announce her happiness to everyone on the way.

Except who exactly do you announce your joy to, out in some barren stretch of wilderness, with nothing around but scattered rock? Especially with a grave sitting right there in the open?

I remember thinking it was bad luck, and told the procession to move faster.

Then everything came apart, and to this day I couldn't tell you how.

I don't remember how she ended up beside that grave. I only remember the blood on the headstone, and running to her without a shred of decorum left in me.

Her face was streaked red, her wedding robes soaked through with it, her life already unraveling into threads of dying immortal energy.

There was no more pretending after that. My wife died in love with someone else, on the very day she was meant to marry me.

She never crossed my threshold. I never got the chance to ask if she liked flowers, or paintings, or me. She never knew who I was. Her heart had already been buried in front of someone else's headstone. Now, so has mine.