It began with a chill... a hush in the air that did not belong to summer. The wind carried no scent, the sky held no stars, and the moon above was stained in blood.
Jiang Zhiyi clutched the necklace tighter in her hand. It was warm—uncomfortably warm, as if it had been plucked from a fire. She found it in the river earlier on that day. A token of luck they said looking at the emerald embedded in its center.
But the moment it touched her skin... the emerald glowed brightly, something shifted.
A whisper slipped into her ear. Soft, breathless. Not hers. And suddenly, the world tilted.
The bridal chamber which still contained the look of her bridal setup from her wedding night vanished.
The fragrance of jasmine and peony dissolved into ash. She stood now in a stone courtyard, where smoke curled into the night like spirits rising from the earth. The air reeked of burnt silk, scorched blood, and betrayal.
There, in the center—a woman was burning. Long dark hair clung to her shoulders like wet vines. Her robes—once elegant, now in tatters—clung to her blistering skin. Yet she did not scream. She stood upright, proud, like a queen unbowed.
"He... was your King.., how could you kill him." the woman rasped through charred lips, eyes locked onto something—or someone—beyond the flames. Her eyes filled with pain of loosing her love. Tears poured from her eyes, but they did not save her but just left her to die.
Tears sizzled into steam the moment they touched her cheeks. Her hand was outstretched. "Where is my son?" she choked, her voice cracked and hollow. "You said... you would keep him safe..." No answer came. Only the soft clang of soldiers walking away while some of them stood by and watched her in pain.
Only the cold moon, watching like a silent god. Just then a woman's voice replied "Do you think we will let him live knowing he is the heir to the throne?" .
"You Deceived me" she wailed in pain falling on her knees stretching her arms and remembering her son.
A laugh louder in the silence of the burning fire arose from a man.
"What can you do to us?, Do you really think that you are some powerful witch just like the rumors"
"You have deceived me"
"You think this is the end, Chu Yi Chen?" she spat, her voice cracked yet thunderous. "You think killing me will cleanse you of your treason?"
A man in royal robes stood before her, expression unreadable. Prince Yi Chen—soon to be king. Behind him, ministers watched in silence. Their betrayal already sealed.
The woman - Hua Yan, the queen—smiled, slow and cruel.
"You've murdered your emperor. You've stolen my son. And you've burned me alive. So I offer you a gift in return..."
"A wombless throne."
"Your bloodline ends with you," she declared, voice rising over the crackling flames and the flames rise with the wind gushing towards the flames as if they are under her command.
"You shall have sons, but none will live. Daughters, but none will carry your name. Every seed you plant will wither, every heir you raise will fall."
"For I curse your blood, your breath, your name—until the last ash of my soul is returned to the fire."
The flames consumed her.
But her words lingered—carved into the bones of the earth, branded into the sky.
Gasps rippled through the crowd. The fire roared higher, drawn to her words like wind to fury.
And then, as her knees buckled, as her body collapsed into embers—her necklace, the very one Jiang Zhiyi now wore—fell from her throat and rolled through the soot.
It pulsed Once, Twice, Then the vision shattered. Jiang Zhiyi gasped, stumbling backward into reality. Her fingers trembled against the necklace now lying cool and innocent at her collarbone.
"Who was she...?" she whispered, heart pounding like drums at war. But deep inside her chest, where her own heart should have been still, something ancient... something grieving... stirred.
She could feel the pain of the dying woman whom she doesn't even know. The pain of losing her child and the love she has waited for a long time.
And in the distant silence of the night, under a moon she could not see, a soul awakened in her.