The Poem That Held the Curse
The blind oracle’s smile did not waver. Her clouded eyes seemed to look through Wei Chenxing, past his flesh, into the marrow of his intentions. The fire pit between them stirred again, ash spiraling upward in lazy coils that formed shapes—a hand, a mouth, a closing eye—before dissolving.
“You carry a weight you do not understand, scholar,” she said. Her voice was dry as fallen leaves, but each word landed like a stone in still water. “And you, prince, carry a weight that understands you too well.”
Yan Lihua’s fingers dug into Wei Chenxing’s shoulder. The black veins had crawled higher since they entered the temple, now threading past his jaw, reaching toward his temple. His breath came in shallow gasps, each exhale carrying a fine mist of black dust that settled on Wei Chenxing’s sleeve.
“We need shelter,” Wei Chenxing said, shifting to keep the prince upright. “Healing. Supplies.”
“You need a miracle,” the oracle replied. She tapped her staff against the stone floor, and the fire pit ignited—flames of pale blue that cast no warmth, only light. The shadows in the temple twisted, elongating, reaching for the walls like grasping fingers. “But miracles are expensive in this land. What will you pay?”
Wei Chenxing lowered Yan Lihua to the ground, propping him against a fallen pillar. The prince’s skin had taken on a grey pallor, the black veins pulsing with a rhythm that did not match his heartbeat. His eyes were half-lidded, unfocused, but his hand still gripped Wei Chenxing’s sleeve with desperate strength.
“I have coin,” Wei Chenxing said, reaching for his pouch.
The oracle laughed—a sound like cracking ice. “Coin? Child, I have been blind for sixty years. I have no use for gold. I want something you carry in your chest.”
“My blood?”
“Your memory.” She stepped closer, her staff tapping a slow rhythm. “One memory. The first time you saw the moon and knew you were alone.”
Wei Chenxing’s throat tightened. The memory surfaced unbidden—age seven, standing at the window of his father’s study, the courtyard empty, his mother’s funeral rites concluded that morning. The moon had been full, fat and cold, and he had understood for the first time that no one was coming to hold him.
“No,” Yan Lihua rasped. His voice was barely audible, but the word cut through the temple like a blade. “Don’t.”
The oracle tilted her head, her blind gaze finding the prince with unsettling accuracy. “He speaks for you, scholar. Interesting. The cursed one protects the one who would break his curse. The irony writes itself.”
“He’s delirious,” Wei Chenxing said. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying.” Yan Lihua forced his eyes open, meeting the oracle’s direction. The black veins pulsed, and for a moment, his pupils flickered—not black, but silver, like the surface of the mirror they sought. “Take my memory instead. I have plenty I want to forget.”
The oracle’s smile widened. “Oh, I know. Your birth. Your mother’s face as she pressed the curse into your skin. The first time you saw your own reflection and understood you were already dead.” She tapped her staff again, and the blue flames rose higher. “But your memories are tainted, prince. They taste of rot. I want the scholar’s—clean, sharp, untouched by the mirror’s poison.”
Wei Chenxing made his decision. “Take it.”
“Wei Chenxing.” Yan Lihua’s grip tightened, his nails biting through fabric into skin. “Don’t. You don’t know what she’ll do with it.”
“I know she’ll help us.” Wei Chenxing met the oracle’s blind gaze. “One memory. In exchange for shelter, supplies, and information about the Mirror’s Heart.”
The oracle inclined her head. “Agreed.”
She raised her staff and brought it down hard. The blue flames erupted, engulfing the fire pit, spreading across the floor in a ring of cold fire. Wei Chenxing felt something tug at the base of his skull—a gentle pull, like a thread being drawn from a tapestry.
The memory rose.
He was seven again, standing at the window. The moon hung heavy in the sky, and the courtyard was empty except for the withered plum tree his mother had planted the year she died. He had pressed his palm against the cold glass, watching his breath fog the surface, and thought: *I am the only one left.*
The oracle inhaled sharply. The blue flames flickered, and for a moment, Wei Chenxing saw something in them—a reflection of himself at seven, small and alone, reaching for a hand that would never come.
Then the memory was gone. Not erased, but taken, folded into the oracle’s chest like a letter slipped into a pocket. He could still recall the facts—the moon, the window, the funeral—but the feeling had vanished. The loneliness that had lived in his bones since childhood was simply… absent.
He felt lighter. And somehow, that was worse.
“Interesting,” the oracle murmured. She touched her chest, where the memory now resided. “You were alone, but you did not become cruel. Most children who learn that lesson grow thorns. You grew roots.”
“The deal is done,” Wei Chenxing said, his voice steadier than he felt. “Help us.”
The oracle gestured, and a door appeared in the wall where none had been before—wooden, warped, painted with symbols that seemed to writhe in the firelight. “Behind that door is a room. You will find medicine, food, and a map of the Mirror’s Heart. Stay the night. Leave at dawn.”
“And the information?” Wei Chenxing asked.
“The mirror does not trap a spirit. It traps a vow.” The oracle’s blind eyes fixed on him, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “To break it, you must remember what you swore to forget.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.” She turned away, her staff tapping a retreating rhythm. “When the prince’s curse reaches his eyes, you will understand everything. And you will wish you did not.”
She vanished into the shadows, leaving them alone with the blue flames and the pulsing silence.
Wei Chenxing helped Yan Lihua through the door. The room beyond was small, circular, lit by a single lantern that hung from the ceiling. A bed sat against one wall, piled with furs that smelled of cedar and dust. A table held a clay jar of water, a bundle of dried herbs, and a scroll tied with red string.
He laid Yan Lihua on the bed. The prince’s body was burning—not with fever, but with a cold heat that radiated from his chest, from the black veins that now crawled across his throat and down his arms. His breathing was shallow, each inhale a struggle.
“Stay with me,” Wei Chenxing said, wetting a cloth and pressing it to Yan Lihua’s forehead. “You can’t die here. Not after everything.”
Yan Lihua’s eyes fluttered open. The silver flicker was gone, replaced by his usual dark brown, but the black veins had reached the corner of his left eye. A thin line of darkness traced the curve of his lower lid, like a tear frozen mid-fall.
“I’m not dying,” Yan Lihua said, his voice a thread. “I’m crystallizing. The curse is turning me into glass from the inside out.”
“Then we’ll stop it.”
“You can’t.” Yan Lihua’s hand found Wei Chenxing’s wrist, his grip weak but insistent. “The oracle was right. The mirror traps a vow. My ancestor made a promise to Yue’er, and when he broke it, she cursed his bloodline. I am the last of that bloodline. When I die, the curse dies with me.”
“I didn’t come all this way to watch you die.”
“You came because the Emperor ordered you.” Yan Lihua’s lips curved into a bitter smile. “Don’t pretend this is anything but duty.”
Wei Chenxing wanted to argue. He wanted to say that he had chosen this path, that he had read the memorials and the histories, that he had dreamed of a woman’s face in a mirror and woken with tears on his cheeks. But the words stuck in his throat, tangled with the memory that was no longer his.
Instead, he reached for the scroll on the table. The red string came undone easily, and he unrolled the parchment across his knees. The map was not of geography—it was of emotion. Rivers of silver ink flowed through valleys of gold, and mountains rose in peaks of crimson. At the center, a black circle pulsed with a symbol he recognized: the character for “vow,” written in reverse.
“She drew this with her eyes closed,” Wei Chenxing murmured. “How is that possible?”
“She’s blind,” Yan Lihua said. “But she sees more than we do.”
Wei Chenxing traced the silver rivers with his finger. They converged at the black circle, forming a pattern that stirred something in his chest—a recognition he could not name. The map was not a guide to the Mirror’s Heart. It was a diagram of the curse itself.
“The oracle said I would understand when the curse reaches your eyes,” Wei Chenxing said slowly. “What did she mean?”
Yan Lihua’s breath hitched. He raised his hand, touching the corner of his eye where the black vein had appeared. “When the curse reaches my eyes, I will see the truth. Every lie, every hidden intention, every secret the mirror has kept. And then I will shatter.”
“No.” Wei Chenxing set the map aside and took Yan Lihua’s face in his hands, forcing the prince to meet his gaze. “I won’t let that happen.”
“You can’t stop it.”
“Watch me.”
Yan Lihua’s eyes widened. For a moment, the cold mask cracked, and Wei Chenxing saw something raw beneath—fear, longing, a desperate hope that had been buried so deep it had turned to stone.
“Why do you care?” Yan Lihua whispered. “You don’t know me. You’ve known me for six days. I am nothing to you.”
Wei Chenxing opened his mouth to answer, but the words that came were not his own. They rose from somewhere deeper, from the hollow where the oracle had taken his memory, from the space where a vow had once lived.
*“Because I have loved you before. And I will love you again. But I will never keep you.”*
The words hung in the air between them, heavy as the blue flames that still burned in the temple beyond. Wei Chenxing did not know where they had come from. He did not know why his chest ached with a grief that was not his own.
Yan Lihua stared at him, the black veins pulsing, his breath caught in his throat. Then, slowly, he reached up and touched Wei Chenxing’s cheek.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice breaking.
Wei Chenxing had no answer.
The lantern flickered. The shadows in the room shifted, and for a moment, Wei Chenxing saw a reflection in the polished surface of the table—a woman’s face, beautiful and weeping, her eyes the same shade of brown as his own.
Then it was gone.
He pulled away, his hands trembling. “Rest,” he said, his voice rough. “We leave at dawn.”
Yan Lihua did not argue. He closed his eyes, and within moments, his breathing evened into sleep. But even in rest, the black veins did not stop their slow crawl. They crept across his skin like roots seeking soil, reaching for his eyes, reaching for the truth that would shatter them both.
Wei Chenxing sat beside him, watching the lantern’s flame dance, and tried to remember the poem that had risen to his lips in the temple. He could not recall the words, but he could feel their shape—a rhythm that matched the beating of his heart, a melody that had been carved into his bones long before he was born.
Somewhere in the darkness, the oracle laughed.
And the blue flames burned on.
“You carry a weight you do not understand, scholar,” she said. Her voice was dry as fallen leaves, but each word landed like a stone in still water. “And you, prince, carry a weight that understands you too well.”
Yan Lihua’s fingers dug into Wei Chenxing’s shoulder. The black veins had crawled higher since they entered the temple, now threading past his jaw, reaching toward his temple. His breath came in shallow gasps, each exhale carrying a fine mist of black dust that settled on Wei Chenxing’s sleeve.
“We need shelter,” Wei Chenxing said, shifting to keep the prince upright. “Healing. Supplies.”
“You need a miracle,” the oracle replied. She tapped her staff against the stone floor, and the fire pit ignited—flames of pale blue that cast no warmth, only light. The shadows in the temple twisted, elongating, reaching for the walls like grasping fingers. “But miracles are expensive in this land. What will you pay?”
Wei Chenxing lowered Yan Lihua to the ground, propping him against a fallen pillar. The prince’s skin had taken on a grey pallor, the black veins pulsing with a rhythm that did not match his heartbeat. His eyes were half-lidded, unfocused, but his hand still gripped Wei Chenxing’s sleeve with desperate strength.
“I have coin,” Wei Chenxing said, reaching for his pouch.
The oracle laughed—a sound like cracking ice. “Coin? Child, I have been blind for sixty years. I have no use for gold. I want something you carry in your chest.”
“My blood?”
“Your memory.” She stepped closer, her staff tapping a slow rhythm. “One memory. The first time you saw the moon and knew you were alone.”
Wei Chenxing’s throat tightened. The memory surfaced unbidden—age seven, standing at the window of his father’s study, the courtyard empty, his mother’s funeral rites concluded that morning. The moon had been full, fat and cold, and he had understood for the first time that no one was coming to hold him.
“No,” Yan Lihua rasped. His voice was barely audible, but the word cut through the temple like a blade. “Don’t.”
The oracle tilted her head, her blind gaze finding the prince with unsettling accuracy. “He speaks for you, scholar. Interesting. The cursed one protects the one who would break his curse. The irony writes itself.”
“He’s delirious,” Wei Chenxing said. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying.” Yan Lihua forced his eyes open, meeting the oracle’s direction. The black veins pulsed, and for a moment, his pupils flickered—not black, but silver, like the surface of the mirror they sought. “Take my memory instead. I have plenty I want to forget.”
The oracle’s smile widened. “Oh, I know. Your birth. Your mother’s face as she pressed the curse into your skin. The first time you saw your own reflection and understood you were already dead.” She tapped her staff again, and the blue flames rose higher. “But your memories are tainted, prince. They taste of rot. I want the scholar’s—clean, sharp, untouched by the mirror’s poison.”
Wei Chenxing made his decision. “Take it.”
“Wei Chenxing.” Yan Lihua’s grip tightened, his nails biting through fabric into skin. “Don’t. You don’t know what she’ll do with it.”
“I know she’ll help us.” Wei Chenxing met the oracle’s blind gaze. “One memory. In exchange for shelter, supplies, and information about the Mirror’s Heart.”
The oracle inclined her head. “Agreed.”
She raised her staff and brought it down hard. The blue flames erupted, engulfing the fire pit, spreading across the floor in a ring of cold fire. Wei Chenxing felt something tug at the base of his skull—a gentle pull, like a thread being drawn from a tapestry.
The memory rose.
He was seven again, standing at the window. The moon hung heavy in the sky, and the courtyard was empty except for the withered plum tree his mother had planted the year she died. He had pressed his palm against the cold glass, watching his breath fog the surface, and thought: *I am the only one left.*
The oracle inhaled sharply. The blue flames flickered, and for a moment, Wei Chenxing saw something in them—a reflection of himself at seven, small and alone, reaching for a hand that would never come.
Then the memory was gone. Not erased, but taken, folded into the oracle’s chest like a letter slipped into a pocket. He could still recall the facts—the moon, the window, the funeral—but the feeling had vanished. The loneliness that had lived in his bones since childhood was simply… absent.
He felt lighter. And somehow, that was worse.
“Interesting,” the oracle murmured. She touched her chest, where the memory now resided. “You were alone, but you did not become cruel. Most children who learn that lesson grow thorns. You grew roots.”
“The deal is done,” Wei Chenxing said, his voice steadier than he felt. “Help us.”
The oracle gestured, and a door appeared in the wall where none had been before—wooden, warped, painted with symbols that seemed to writhe in the firelight. “Behind that door is a room. You will find medicine, food, and a map of the Mirror’s Heart. Stay the night. Leave at dawn.”
“And the information?” Wei Chenxing asked.
“The mirror does not trap a spirit. It traps a vow.” The oracle’s blind eyes fixed on him, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “To break it, you must remember what you swore to forget.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.” She turned away, her staff tapping a retreating rhythm. “When the prince’s curse reaches his eyes, you will understand everything. And you will wish you did not.”
She vanished into the shadows, leaving them alone with the blue flames and the pulsing silence.
Wei Chenxing helped Yan Lihua through the door. The room beyond was small, circular, lit by a single lantern that hung from the ceiling. A bed sat against one wall, piled with furs that smelled of cedar and dust. A table held a clay jar of water, a bundle of dried herbs, and a scroll tied with red string.
He laid Yan Lihua on the bed. The prince’s body was burning—not with fever, but with a cold heat that radiated from his chest, from the black veins that now crawled across his throat and down his arms. His breathing was shallow, each inhale a struggle.
“Stay with me,” Wei Chenxing said, wetting a cloth and pressing it to Yan Lihua’s forehead. “You can’t die here. Not after everything.”
Yan Lihua’s eyes fluttered open. The silver flicker was gone, replaced by his usual dark brown, but the black veins had reached the corner of his left eye. A thin line of darkness traced the curve of his lower lid, like a tear frozen mid-fall.
“I’m not dying,” Yan Lihua said, his voice a thread. “I’m crystallizing. The curse is turning me into glass from the inside out.”
“Then we’ll stop it.”
“You can’t.” Yan Lihua’s hand found Wei Chenxing’s wrist, his grip weak but insistent. “The oracle was right. The mirror traps a vow. My ancestor made a promise to Yue’er, and when he broke it, she cursed his bloodline. I am the last of that bloodline. When I die, the curse dies with me.”
“I didn’t come all this way to watch you die.”
“You came because the Emperor ordered you.” Yan Lihua’s lips curved into a bitter smile. “Don’t pretend this is anything but duty.”
Wei Chenxing wanted to argue. He wanted to say that he had chosen this path, that he had read the memorials and the histories, that he had dreamed of a woman’s face in a mirror and woken with tears on his cheeks. But the words stuck in his throat, tangled with the memory that was no longer his.
Instead, he reached for the scroll on the table. The red string came undone easily, and he unrolled the parchment across his knees. The map was not of geography—it was of emotion. Rivers of silver ink flowed through valleys of gold, and mountains rose in peaks of crimson. At the center, a black circle pulsed with a symbol he recognized: the character for “vow,” written in reverse.
“She drew this with her eyes closed,” Wei Chenxing murmured. “How is that possible?”
“She’s blind,” Yan Lihua said. “But she sees more than we do.”
Wei Chenxing traced the silver rivers with his finger. They converged at the black circle, forming a pattern that stirred something in his chest—a recognition he could not name. The map was not a guide to the Mirror’s Heart. It was a diagram of the curse itself.
“The oracle said I would understand when the curse reaches your eyes,” Wei Chenxing said slowly. “What did she mean?”
Yan Lihua’s breath hitched. He raised his hand, touching the corner of his eye where the black vein had appeared. “When the curse reaches my eyes, I will see the truth. Every lie, every hidden intention, every secret the mirror has kept. And then I will shatter.”
“No.” Wei Chenxing set the map aside and took Yan Lihua’s face in his hands, forcing the prince to meet his gaze. “I won’t let that happen.”
“You can’t stop it.”
“Watch me.”
Yan Lihua’s eyes widened. For a moment, the cold mask cracked, and Wei Chenxing saw something raw beneath—fear, longing, a desperate hope that had been buried so deep it had turned to stone.
“Why do you care?” Yan Lihua whispered. “You don’t know me. You’ve known me for six days. I am nothing to you.”
Wei Chenxing opened his mouth to answer, but the words that came were not his own. They rose from somewhere deeper, from the hollow where the oracle had taken his memory, from the space where a vow had once lived.
*“Because I have loved you before. And I will love you again. But I will never keep you.”*
The words hung in the air between them, heavy as the blue flames that still burned in the temple beyond. Wei Chenxing did not know where they had come from. He did not know why his chest ached with a grief that was not his own.
Yan Lihua stared at him, the black veins pulsing, his breath caught in his throat. Then, slowly, he reached up and touched Wei Chenxing’s cheek.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice breaking.
Wei Chenxing had no answer.
The lantern flickered. The shadows in the room shifted, and for a moment, Wei Chenxing saw a reflection in the polished surface of the table—a woman’s face, beautiful and weeping, her eyes the same shade of brown as his own.
Then it was gone.
He pulled away, his hands trembling. “Rest,” he said, his voice rough. “We leave at dawn.”
Yan Lihua did not argue. He closed his eyes, and within moments, his breathing evened into sleep. But even in rest, the black veins did not stop their slow crawl. They crept across his skin like roots seeking soil, reaching for his eyes, reaching for the truth that would shatter them both.
Wei Chenxing sat beside him, watching the lantern’s flame dance, and tried to remember the poem that had risen to his lips in the temple. He could not recall the words, but he could feel their shape—a rhythm that matched the beating of his heart, a melody that had been carved into his bones long before he was born.
Somewhere in the darkness, the oracle laughed.
And the blue flames burned on.