Weaves of Ashes

Chapter 216: Chapter 211: The Hunters’ Frustration

Location: Lower Realm - Frontier Territories / Multiple

Date/Time: 5-6 Ashwhisper, 9938 AZI

The frontier stretched endless and empty beneath a sky the color of old bruises.

Xingteng stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking a valley that had probably never seen dragon wings, her haunted dark grey eyes scanning terrain that refused to yield answers. Wind pulled at her dark hair—human form, always human form now—carrying scents of pine and distant snow and absolutely nothing useful.

Three weeks.

Three weeks of systematic searching. Three weeks of following cold trails and questioning nervous villagers and sensing for silver essence that should have blazed like a beacon to anyone with their bloodline.

Nothing.

”Anything?” Yinglong’s voice came from behind her, gentle in the way her sister had learned to be gentle—never startling, never sudden, always announcing her presence before she got too close.

”Empty.” Xingteng didn’t turn around. ”Like everywhere else. Like the whole realm decided to swallow them whole.”

Yinglong moved to stand beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. Her orange-to-amber eyes swept the valley below with the tactical assessment of a warrior, but Xingteng knew she was really watching her. Making sure she was holding together.

Always watching. Always worried.

I’m not going to shatter, Xingteng wanted to say. I’m stronger than I look.

But that wasn’t entirely true, was it? Some days she felt held together by nothing but duty and desperate hope. Some nights she woke gasping from dreams of bronze scales and cruel amber eyes and a voice that whispered you’re mine now while her screams echoed off uncaring stone.

She pushed the memory down. Locked it away where it couldn’t touch her.

”The resonance should be stronger here,” she said instead. ”Frontier territories. Fewer cultivators. Cleaner essence signatures. If they’re anywhere in the Lower Realm, I should be able to feel something.”

”Maybe they’ve moved on. Left the realm entirely.”

”Then the trail would show it. Realm crossings leave marks—essence disturbances, spatial ripples. We’ve checked every crossing point within five hundred miles. Nothing.”

Yinglong was quiet for a moment. The wind filled the silence between them, mournful and cold.

”It’s like they vanished,” she said finally. ”Like they never existed at all.”

That was exactly what it felt like. And that impossibility gnawed at Xingteng more than the frustration of empty searching.

Silver dragon essence didn’t just disappear. It was too pure, too distinctive. Even suppressed, even hidden, it should leave traces that someone with Xingteng’s sensitivity could detect. She’d felt the pulse that started this whole hunt—felt it resonate in her blood like a song she’d forgotten she knew. The silver queen was real. She existed.

But finding her was proving impossible.

***

The Ley Mirror pulsed with soft light as the sun began its descent toward distant peaks.

Xingteng activated it with a touch of essence, and the polished surface rippled like disturbed water before resolving into her eldest brother’s face. Xinglong looked tired—dark shadows under fierce orange eyes, the set of his jaw suggesting days without proper rest.

”Report,” he said without preamble.

”Nothing.” Xingteng kept her voice steady. ”We’ve covered the northern frontier from the Ironspine foothills to the Whisperwood border. Every village, every settlement, every hermit cave we could find. No one’s seen travelers matching their description. No essence traces. No rumors. Nothing.”

Behind Xinglong, she could see Heiteng’s massive form, the Black Dragon King’s mercury silver eyes catching light from some unseen source. His expression was unreadable, but something in his posture suggested the same frustration she felt.

”Same here,” Xinglong said grimly. ”Heiteng and I have canvassed every major city in the eastern territories. Port towns, trading hubs, cultivation academies—anywhere they might have sought supplies or shelter. We’ve bribed informants, questioned innkeepers, even checked the bounty boards to see if anyone else is hunting unusual travelers.”

”And?”

”Ghost stories. That’s all we have. A few rumors about strange lights in the Dark Forest months ago. Some farmer who swears he saw a giant beast with fur like midnight, but his description changes every time he tells it.” Xinglong’s jaw tightened. ”It’s like chasing smoke.”

The mirror rippled again, splitting to show a third image—Huifu’s broad face, Hulong’s leaner features visible behind him.

”You’re getting our reports too?” Huifu’s voice was rough with frustration. ”Good. Save me repeating myself.”

”Southern trade roads?” Xinglong asked.

”Completely dry.” Hulong leaned into the frame, analytical orange eyes sharp despite exhaustion. ”We’ve interviewed thirty-seven caravan masters, two hundred merchants, and every traveler we could find who’s moved through the region in the past month. No one remembers a silver-haired woman, a young girl with unusual features, or a bonded shadowbeast.”

”They might be traveling in disguise,” Yinglong suggested.

”We thought of that. We’re not just asking about appearances—we’re asking about behavior. Travelers who pay in unusual currency. Groups who keep to themselves. Anyone who seems too alert, too aware, too...” Hulong spread his hands helplessly. ”Too dragon. Nothing matches.”

Silence fell across the multiple mirror connections.

Six dragons. Three weeks of searching. An entire realm covered with systematic precision.

And absolutely nothing to show for it.

***

”I don’t understand.” Huifu’s voice carried the growl of barely contained aggression. ”The pulse was real. We all felt it. The silver queen exists—she’s somewhere on Doha. She can’t have just vanished into thin air.”

”She hasn’t vanished,” Heiteng said quietly.

All eyes turned to the Black Dragon King. He’d been silent through most of the report, mercury eyes distant with some inner calculation. Now he focused on the mirror with an intensity that made Xingteng’s spine straighten.

”What do you mean?” Xinglong asked.

”I’ve been trying to sense the fate weave.” Heiteng’s voice was measured, careful—the tone of someone delivering news they weren’t sure how to explain. ”The connection between us and the silver queen. Our bloodline’s purpose. It should be a thread I can follow, however faint.”

Black dragons could sense fate weaves. It was one of their gifts—the ability to perceive the invisible threads that connected beings to their destinies. Heiteng had ruled for millennia, and his sensitivity to such things bordered on precognition.

”And?” Xingteng pressed.

”The thread exists. I can feel it.” Heiteng’s mercury eyes seemed to glow faintly. ”Strong. Dangerously strong, in fact. Whoever this silver queen is, her fate is woven into the fabric of reality itself. The things she’s connected to...” He shook his head slowly. ”I’ve never sensed anything like it. Not in all my years.”

”Then why can’t you follow it?” Huifu demanded.

”Because something is blocking me.” Heiteng’s voice dropped. ”Not hiding the thread—that would leave traces I could detect. This is different. It’s like... the thread runs into a wall. A perfect, seamless barrier that my senses simply slide off of. I know she exists. I know the connection is there. But the moment I try to trace it to its source, I hit—nothing.”

”Nothing?”

”Complete absence. Like trying to track a river that suddenly flows into a void.”

Xingteng’s hands clenched at her sides. A barrier that even Heiteng couldn’t penetrate. Protection so complete that it masked not just essence but fate itself.

”What could do that?” she asked. ”What kind of power could hide someone from a black dragon’s fate-sense?”

Heiteng was quiet for a long moment.

”Very few things,” he said finally. ”A god’s direct intervention. An artifact of the highest order. Or...” He hesitated. ”Or she’s found shelter in a place that exists outside normal reality. A dimensional fold. A pocket realm. Somewhere, the threads of fate don’t reach because it isn’t truly part of Doha.”

”The Pavilion,” Xinglong breathed.

Everyone went still.

The Starforge Nexus Pavilion was legend even among dragons—a creation of the Luminari during the Golden Era, said to exist in folded space between dimensions. Most believed it was lost or destroyed during the Sundering. But if it still existed...

”It’s possible,” Heiteng acknowledged. ”If she somehow gained access to Luminari technology, it would explain the complete absence of traces. The Pavilion was designed to be undetectable. Even the gods couldn’t find it when the Luminari wished to remain hidden.”

”How would a silver queen find the Pavilion?” Hulong’s analytical mind was already working on the problem. ”The Luminari have been gone for forty thousand years. Their technology is scattered, most of it dormant or destroyed. The odds of accidentally discovering a functional Pavilion are—”

”Astronomical,” Heiteng agreed. ”Unless someone led her to it. Unless she has allies we don’t know about.”

***

The sun had fully set by the time the Ley Mirror conversation ended, leaving the frontier valley shrouded in deepening twilight. Stars emerged overhead—different constellations than the ones Xingteng knew from the Dragon Realm, arranged in patterns that felt foreign and somehow hostile.

She sat on the cliff’s edge, legs dangling over empty air, and let herself feel the frustration she’d been suppressing all day.

Three weeks. They’d been searching for three weeks, and they were no closer to finding the queens than the day they’d arrived. Meanwhile, other factions were hunting too. Bronze dragons might not have access to the Lower Realm—the dwarves had seen to that—but the greens were here, the reds were here, and every day that passed was another day for their competitors to stumble onto the trail the shadow dragons couldn’t find.

And the Temple. Sharlin’s hunters were out there somewhere, searching for the same quarry with far less noble intentions.

If anyone found the queens before they did...

Xingteng’s hands clenched on cold stone. She knew exactly what happened to young females when they fell into the wrong hands. Knew it in her bones, in her dreams, in the scars that didn’t show on her body but ran deep through her soul.

Never again, she’d promised herself in that sanctuary filled with fading silver essence. Never again will a queen suffer what I suffered.

But promises meant nothing if she couldn’t find the one she’d sworn to protect.

Yinglong settled beside her, moving with the careful grace that had become second nature between them. She didn’t speak—just sat close enough that her warmth was a comfort against the growing chill.

”What if we’re too late?” Xingteng whispered. ”What if someone else found her first?”

”Then we’d know.” Yinglong’s voice was firm. ”The pulse we felt—if she died or was captured, we’d feel the thread snap. Our silver heritage would scream it to us. She’s alive, Xingteng. She’s free. We just haven’t found her yet.”

”Yet.” The word tasted bitter. ”How long is ’yet’? Days? Months? Years?”

”However long it takes.”

”And if the Temple finds her first? If Sharlin’s hunters—”

”Then we take her back.” Yinglong’s hand found hers in the darkness, squeezing gently. ”Whatever it takes. However many we have to kill. She won’t stay captured. Not while we draw breath.”

Xingteng closed her eyes. Let her sister’s certainty wash over her, borrowing strength she couldn’t quite find in herself.

”Xinglong wants us to expand the search pattern,” she said after a moment. ”Move further west. There are territories we haven’t covered yet—the frontier beyond the frontier. Places so remote that even the Lower Realm’s natives consider them wilderness.”

”Good hunting ground for someone who wants to disappear.”

”Or a terrible hunting ground for someone trying to find them.” Xingteng opened her eyes, staring at stars that held no answers. ”If they’re truly hidden in a Pavilion, none of this matters. We could search for decades and never find a trace. The Luminari built their sanctuaries to be unfindable.”

”Then we search for decades.” Yinglong’s voice carried absolute conviction. ”We were created for this, Xingteng. Shadow dragons exist to protect silver queens. It’s our purpose—the reason our bloodline was forged in the first place. If it takes decades, we spend decades. If it takes centuries, we spend centuries.”

”The other factions won’t wait centuries.”

”No. They won’t.” Yinglong’s amber eyes glinted in the starlight. ”Which is why we search smarter, not just longer. Heiteng said the fate-thread is strong—dangerously strong. Connected to things beyond normal comprehension. A queen with that kind of destiny won’t stay hidden forever. Eventually, something will draw her out. Some event will force her to act. And when that happens, we’ll be ready.”

”What kind of event?”

Yinglong was quiet for a moment. ”I don’t know. But fate that strong... it doesn’t stay dormant. It moves. It creates ripples that reshape everything around it. Whatever she’s destined for, it’s big enough that even the gods would take notice.”

Xingteng thought about that. A destiny so vast that even Heiteng—ancient king of the black dragons, sensitive to the weave of reality itself—had never sensed its like.

What kind of queen was hiding out there?

What kind of power was gathering in the shadows, waiting to emerge?

***

Dawn found them breaking camp, preparing to move further into the unmapped territories.

Yinglong handled the practical details—checking supplies, confirming their route, and ensuring their concealment artifacts were functioning. Xingteng stood apart, eyes closed, reaching out with senses that had found nothing for three weeks and would probably find nothing for three more.

But she tried anyway.

Where are you?

She pushed her awareness outward, searching for the silver resonance that had blazed so bright during the pulse and now seemed to have vanished entirely. Searching for the warmth she’d felt in that abandoned sanctuary—the echo of laughter and safety that still lived in the stone.

I felt you. I know you’re real. I know you’re out there.

Nothing answered. The world remained stubbornly empty of silver light.

Please. Let me find you before they do. Let me protect you the way Xueteng should have been protected.

Still nothing.

Xingteng opened her eyes, swallowing disappointment that had become familiar as breathing. Three weeks of reaching out. Three weeks of silence.

But she wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Because somewhere out there, two queens were hiding—one pure silver, one of mixed heritage—and they didn’t know that hunters from every faction were closing in. They didn’t know that the only ones who meant them well were the ones who couldn’t find them.

They didn’t know that their survival might depend on being found by the right people before the wrong ones got lucky.

”Ready?” Yinglong asked, appearing at her shoulder.

Xingteng nodded slowly. Straightened her spine. Let determination replace despair.

”Further west,” she said. ”Into the deep frontier. If they’re hiding somewhere remote, that’s where we’ll find traces.”

”And if they’re in a Pavilion?”

”Then we search until they come out.” Xingteng’s haunted eyes hardened with purpose. ”They can’t stay hidden forever. Eventually, they’ll need something from the outside world. Supplies. Information. Contact with civilization. And when they do—when they finally emerge from whatever sanctuary they’ve found—we’ll be there.”

”Waiting.”

”Protecting.”

Yinglong smiled—the fierce, proud smile of a sister who’d watched Xingteng crawl out of darkness and refuse to stay broken.

”That’s my girl,” she said softly. ”Let’s go find our queens.”

They moved out as the sun cleared the eastern peaks, two shadow dragons in human form walking into territory that had never known their kind. Behind them, the frontier valley lay empty and silent, keeping its secrets.

Ahead, the unmapped wilderness waited.

And somewhere—hidden behind barriers that even fate couldn’t penetrate—two queens continued their own journey, unaware of how many forces were hunting them.

Unaware of how close the hunt had come.

Unaware that their hunters wouldn’t stop. Would never stop. Would search until the end of time itself if that’s what it took.

Because that was what guardians did.

That was what shadow dragons were for.

***

Far to the east, in a trading city, Xinglong and Heiteng had already searched twice, a caravan master accepted a group of unusual travelers.

A young woman with a veil and dark hair. A girl who moved with quiet grace. A massive creature that everyone’s eyes seemed to slide away from. A white kitten that somehow made hardened merchants feel uneasy.

They paid in standard coin. Gave standard answers to standard questions. Left no impression beyond the vague sense that they’d been there at all.

The caravan would depart in two days, heading toward the mountain passes.

The shadow dragons searching the city would leave in one.

So close.

So impossibly, agonizingly close.

And neither side would ever know.