The mountain air feels like a corpse's breath against my skin. I'm running, branches tearing at my exposed flesh, but I can't stop. Behind me, the relative's estate fades into darkness, the sounds of celebration turning to mocking laughter that echoes through the trees. "An advantageous match!" they'd said. "A way to restore our fortunes!" as if selling me to that merchant's daughter would somehow wash away the bloodstains on our family name.

I trip and fall, crashing down a steep embankment, my already injured elbow screaming in agony as I hit the ground. The torn wedding garments I still wear are shredded further by the underbrush. I lie there, unable to move, staring up at the sliver of moon visible through the canopy.

This is where I die, I think. Somewhere in these mountains, just another nameless corpse for the wolves. Perhaps it's for the best.

The night grows colder, impossibly so. A strange wind stirs the leaves around me, forming a spiral that dances just beyond my vision. I hear it then – not the wind, not the animals, but something else. A voice, half-whispered, half-sobbed, carried on the breeze.

"...Ge...ge..." (Elder brother...elder brother...)

My blood turns to ice in my veins. That voice. I'd know it anywhere, even after all these months of trying to forget.

"No..." I whisper, scrambling backward, my back hitting the rough bark of an ancient tree. "No, you're dead. I buried you myself."

The moon suddenly breaks through the clouds, casting everything in ghostly silver. And there he is, standing ten paces away, his form shimmering like water in moonlight. Zhuge Dan, my brother, the one whose decapitated head I found at my feet in that terrible dream – no, not a dream. Memory.

He looks just as he did before... before everything. The same impish smile playing about his lips, the same fire in his eyes. But there's something wrong, something unnatural. His skin has the translucence of aged paper, and I can see the trees through his chest.

"You left me," he says, his voice like wind through hollow bones. "You always left me."

He takes a step forward, and I can smell the iron tang of blood, feel the cold of the grave radiating from his form. My body betrays me, trembling violently, yet a part of me – the traitorous, guilty part – yearns to reach out.

He's here. My brother is here, and somehow, impossibly, he's speaking to me.

"Are you here to save me?" I whisper, not even recognizing my own voice, ragged and broken as it is.

He smiles then, and it might be comforting if not for the way his eyes glint with something ancient and terrible.

"What do you think, ge?"