The Twelfth District is still rebuilding. Blade had a line that hit like a hammer: the Twelfth is either rebuilding, or on the road to rebuilding. In a handful of months, it got leveled three times like a field under a flood, yet it still claws its way back to life. Tell me, could any other district pull that off? Could they?

If this world had a Guinness World Records, the Twelfth could apply for Most Disasters Struck, sure to take first. Even if it couldn’t, it deserves a page in the chronicles of Magic Maidens—on one condition: that the Twelfth keeps living on, whatever shape it takes.

Tests and assays showed Yuan Dai’s Magic Stone wasn’t the same as before. Something unknown had touched it, like a shadow on still water. A few readings matched the earlier results, but the rest of the stone turned to fog. Its attributes, its half-etched Magic Spells, all twisted off in violent directions.

The lab predicted the stone would keep changing, keep warping, until it lost the shape of a stone and became something else. But maybe because Yuan Dai died, that change froze like ice in a cold snap.

They watched it for about a week. No further shift, no new fractures. The numbers slid back toward normal. Only the altered inner sectors stayed stubborn, hard to restore, like scars that refused to fade.

To the researchers, the stone was ruined. Finding a successor had always been a roll of the dice; now the dice were loaded against it.

Worse, it carried a hidden barb. If it found a new owner and then started changing again… it would almost certainly hurt the one who claimed it.

Blade didn’t see it that way. She remembered the day Qianchun clenched a masterless stone and it let out a faint, muted glow, like a firefly caught in mist—if her eyes hadn’t lied.

This stone had turned toward the unknown. Isn’t that the very miracle Qianchun’s been chasing?

Blade left Yuan Dai’s Magic Stone with Qianchun. She laid everything out; Qianchun accepted it with a clear heart, for many reasons that tangled like roots.

She wanted to do more. Help more. She didn’t want that taste of helplessness again. She didn’t want others to lose the people they love. The world cut her, but the world also held her, so she loves the world back, carrying Yuan Dai’s belief like a lantern.

The stone seemed to resonate with Qianchun. It didn’t match her attributes, and its Mana didn’t suit her at all. Yet it somehow gave her what she’d lost when her own stone was gone—an efficient cycle and storage of Mana, like a spring restored to flow.

Maybe Yuan Dai’s and Qianchun’s shared faith jolted a dead stone awake. Or maybe heaven spared Qianchun a small mercy.

Draped in white mourning, standing before the low, rolling hills, Qianchun held the Magic Stone. It warmed her palm. A halo of pure white rose like breath in winter and began to cover her whole body, then faltered and shattered as it tried to settle.

This stone couldn’t make Qianchun its successor. It was incomplete, the contract-bond with people broken like a snapped string. Yet because it was broken, it could answer her heart and hum.

“Time’s about up.”

Qianchun checked her phone. She glanced around and didn’t see Blade, but heard an engine slicing the wet air in the distance. At this hour, no one else would be coming.

“Raining again… this weather, it’s a pain.”

Blade, in white mourning hemp, stepped off by a broken strip of concrete. She popped an umbrella and muttered. Qianchun, bare to the rain, quickened her steps and slipped under Blade’s canopy.

They had a rare half-day when the whole branch was off. Deep in the hills, at a dojo like a quiet shrine, they would see Yuan Dai off.

They followed a muddy path to the edge of the dojo. On both sides, the ground still held the long dents left by fallen trees. The pits had been filled; the smell of new earth, mixed with rain, sent up a green, raw tang.

Lu Jin, Lu Shi, Dawnlight, Qiu Sheng, and Chen Xiaoyin stood at the entrance with many from Cantata Two. Xia Qingqing and the crowd from First Symphony waited behind them. They faced the Moon Owl inside the hall, silent as standing stones.

Moon Owl had come early—no, she’d stayed the night. She gave the ravaged hall a quick tidy, even as the old tiles still trickled rain like a sieve.

Leaning over an empty coffin, her eyes were rimmed red. She never showed her feelings in public, but who knew how many times she’d cried here in secret, tear-streaked like a tabby.

To Moon Owl, Yuan Dai was different. She was her early mentor. She guided her in so many things, gentle as the mother Moon Owl lost too soon.

Blade patted Moon Owl’s shoulder. She fished two napkins from her suit pocket and handed them over, a small signal to begin.

“You’re the Warden of the Twelfth District. This won’t do. Here—tissue. Wipe the tears.”

Moon Owl nodded and wiped the corners of her eyes. She was the Warden now, the successor to Warden Yuan Dai, the District’s example. She couldn’t show the crowd a soft belly.

Once the air settled, Blade and Qianchun went to go over the eulogy.

“The mountains sob. The blue heavens wail. Mourning music turns like a low tide. Comrades grieve. The whole District falls silent.”

“Here—here we bid our Warden, Yuan Dai, farewell in tears.”

“Our Warden—Yuan Dai fell in battle with a Prince in Year 12 of the New Calendar. She left us forever. She left at only twenty-seven. She left the parents who raised her. She left the kin and friends who miss her. She left the land she tilled with her blood and hands.”

“Mist and cold rain—ten thousand miles of blossoms congeal into bloody tears. Her voice and face have fallen quiet—the clear brook runs on with grief. At the third watch the moon chills and the cuckoo still cries. Ten thousand miles of empty cloud, a lone crane flies.”

“We feel a grief beyond words at losing such an excellent Warden, such an excellent Order Keeper, such a true friend.”

“With immeasurable sorrow, we offer our deepest condolences.”

Moon Owl sat below the dais with lowered eyes. When Qianchun and Blade finished, everyone stood without a word. They bowed toward Yuan Dai’s cenotaph and fell into silence.

A small wind walked through, and dust freckled Qianchun’s cheek. She raised her hand to shield her eyes. Tears slipped through her fingers and fell into the earth.

Blade’s body shook. Her lips trembled. Tears tracked down her pale cheeks and soaked the cloth over her heart.

Yuan Dai’s mother cried louder, a wail like breaking ice. A white-haired mother sending off a black-haired child.

“You old fool—always talking about honor, about how great it is to be an Order Keeper… and look at us now… our daughter honored herself right out of our arms!”

She sobbed and scolded Yuan Dai’s father, but he only held his wife close.

“To guard home and nation—isn’t that honor? I’m proud of my girl…”

But tears don’t lie. His firm voice started to shake. He covered his eyes with his other hand so no one would see. No doubt his palm was slick with tears.

Moon Owl stepped onto the dais. The mourning proper had ended. As the successor to the Warden’s seat, she had to say a few words.

“On the battlefield, Senior Yuan Dai, with a wounded body, held Cantata Three by force. She made a contribution we couldn’t have won without. She is gone, but her fearless spirit will be carved into me.”

She cleared her throat and pressed Mana down on her shaking voice.

“As the new Warden of the Twelfth District, I swear this. A Warden of the Twelfth never fears death. If an enemy comes, they step over my body first. They grind my bones and flesh. They devour my life. Otherwise, I will still be standing in their way.”

Moon Owl laid her palm to her heart, then lowered it. She kept it short. It was better that way. Today was for Yuan Dai. She stepped down.

They burned paper offerings in the center of the hall. The bearers lifted Yuan Dai’s cenotaph. Everyone followed them to the cliff at the hilltop. They’d agreed to bury her there.

“I’m certain she’d like her final rest. She lies on a mountaintop, still watching us.”

The hill wasn’t high, but from here you could see the Twelfth District stretched like a map. Yuan Dai was a mountain—windbreak and rain-shield for the Twelfth. This was fitting ground.

“It’s so quiet here…”

At the cliff’s edge, Qianchun heard a few bird calls. Other hills sank into the rain’s curtain. Drops beat leaves and earth and jumped into pale mist. The mist rose to mid-slope and blurred the mountain and the half-built Twelfth.

They buried Yuan Dai’s cenotaph in the earth and marked the end of a life.

The half-day slipped away. Dusk thickened. They came down from the hill. Night pressed in, and the work of the Order Keepers began again.

New Aklatia’s growth couldn’t stall. Qianchun hung Yuan Dai’s Magic Stone at her waist and climbed into Blade’s car. It was the fastest way. No contest.

Wind, brush over the empty mountain, and thread the trees like a silver needle.

Wind, you can’t move an empty mountain; the living crowd gathers behind it.

Wind, blow past the grief behind us; the road ahead is already there.

The stubborn mountain stands. It hardly changes. Only the wind comes and goes, now and then, and keeps it company.