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"Such a pretty thing. Wen Chao grinned. Such a shame, but! Even a lovely little face like yours will mean nothing in the burial mounds."
Wei Wuxian's wings had been stripped; captured defending her brother and husband in the war. The Lan Elders came to her, criticizing how she'd endangered their lives by leaving to aid Yunmeng, coming back weakened and injured. Leaving her husband without her aid in defending the kingdom against Wen Zhuliu. Anyone with a womb could have borne the heir apparent; what use was wedding Wei Wuxian if their Warrior Queen was so useless in Gusu's hour of need?
She had pressed her months-old child into the nurse maid's arms and flew to battle, a great warrior in her own right, who had only just sacrificed most of her magic core to stabilize her dying brother after the slaughter of her maidenhood home. It didn't matter. Jiang Cheng lay healthy and resting in the recovery room, soon to heal from his afflictions and rejoin the fight. He would be safe so it did not matter. Their sister was well-guarded behind the Jin stronghold. All that had mattered, at the time, was getting to Lan Zhan and destroying the magic-eater before he sunk his teeth into her beloved.
Wen Zhuliu didn't scream as he died, spewing blood and bile across the corpse-soaked field as Wei Wuxian, Queen of the Lan, used all of her dwindling strength to tear him apart. For this it had been enough.
"WEI YING!"
Lan Zhan's voice seared through her along with the lightning that scorched her back. She screamed, tried to spin out and fly away but her wings were not responding.
Wen Lingjiao had her wings in her grasp, cut through and locked on an iron hook in Wei Wuxian's shoulder. They fought and twisted, the Lan Queen fighting for her freedom but it was no use; she had exhausted what little reserves of energy and magic she had, her body finally caving at the cost of defending her homes months after giving birth. Of cutting out a part of herself and sealing it into her brother. She felt what little remained of her own core destabilizing as the magic flickered and melted. The wrongness of it all.
With another twist of the hook and the sound of her beloved's voice from far below, Wei Wuxian's world went fuzzy and black.
She awoke suspended over the edge of a mountain, the world still a haze of smoke and cotton as she bit and scratched at the arms that held her.
Spat in Wen Chao's face when he leered at her. "I will come back to end you" she hissed, "I will curse you all."
And then she fell.
For a moment she stopped; some soft sharp tendrils in the dark first cushioning then dragging her descent. The ground was not kind when she landed.
Wei Wuxian, Pixie Queen of the Lan Elves, sister of Yunmeng Jiang, mother to future Crown Prince Yuan, and only wife to Hanguang Jun died in the burial mound that day.
What crawled out in her skin was something fiercer.
Something that looked like a Sprite and moved like a Demon.
Xichen had returned; missing for all of three weeks before being escorted back by the bastard son of a Jin, a Wen spy.
It was nothing compared to how long Wei Ying had been taken. Wangji searched for her in every Burnt-out Wen encampment they encountered, both grateful for the carnage that terrorized the ones who took his Wife and terrified all the same that he might find her buried beneath Wen corpses, that he might not find her body at all amid the ash and dying flame. Relieved and frantic when he did not see her in the months that passed.
Jiang Wanyin made for a constant companion. Lan Wangji had never much cared for his brother-in-law, less so for the way he treated Wei Ying. Never the less, Jiang Wanyin made for a a valuable resource after his untimely recovery; preserving Wei Ying's wings with ancient magic and offering further insight into where their beloved one might be.
Wei Ying could have escaped.
She had broken the Jiang survivors out of a Wen encampment, nearly by herself.
Even without wings Wei Ying was a fierce fighter and a skilled inventor; with anything at her disposal she might have stood a chance.
It was hard to keep hope as they pressed through the darkness, through the remains of what had once been fleets of soldiers and weapons scattered into dust, fertilizing the scorched fields and forest groves.
Four months since he'd last see Wei Ying. One month since they had fought a proper battle in this war. Something was hunting the Wen. Something the Wen couldn't burn.
The Lan-Jiang contingent pushed through to the next camp. They had been tracking Wen Chao for months and were closing in on Qishan's capital. When they reached the edge of camp, Wangji realized the thing hunting the Wen had gotten there first.
It was silent but for the screaming of a single soul and the sound of a flute.
"Wei Ying!" the Lan King yelled, outpacing his guards, Jiang Wanyin flying on his heels.
There is a figure writhing in the ground, screaming as he claws the flesh from his face with his own hands. The figure is missing half of each leg, and a specter of a woman appears to be eating from his stomach.
"Wei Ying." he breathes.
Wangji inhales a sharp breath. It is only the flame brocade barely visible through the deep red robes that appear soaked and shredded that causes him to stop. It is not Wei Ying on the floor. It is not Wei Ying eating the flesh out of another. There is a snapping, slithering cloud twisting in and out of itself like limbs carved from oil and smoke just beyond the pair.
They have caught up to the thing that has been hunting the Wen. It is a Demon.
His heartbeat stops along with the music. Could Wei Ying have survived this?
Layers of darkness peel back like an armored flower unfurling. He hears the slide of steel behind him, his aoldiers unsheathing swords. When the final layer swirls away it is not to unspeakable horror but to a blessed face drawn thin with hunger and glowing red eyes.
"-Xian!" he hears as Jiang Wanyin flies at his wife, he has seen this before and his own body works into motion, Wei Ying will end up flattened on the ground but her once strong limbs look like they could shatter from the affection they once had years of practice bearing.
Instead, Jiang Wanyin stops. His arms around the Queen of Lan, but she has not budged. Dark tendrils slide out from between them, lowering Wanyin to his sister's arms after stopping him dead in the air.
"A-Cheng" she greets him, something warm trickling into her hollow voice.
"Where the fuck have you been?" Wangji heard his brother-in-law yell. The man finally let go and Wei Ying's eyes traveled from his face to Wangji's. Her moonlight eyes were burning red.
"Wei Ying" Lan Wangji felt himself breathe.
"Husband." she greeted, tone a so cold he'd never heard it before. She flinched away as Lan Wangji wrapped his arms around her.
"Wei Ying." he said, concerned, "Are you hurt?"
"Ah, Lan Zhan." One corner of Wei Ying's mouth turned up, "I'm fine, aren't I?"
"Here!" Jiang Wanyin grunted, thrusting a sword that appeared plain as an oak root yet was as strong as Wangji's star-forged blade at his sister. "Carry your own crap!"
Wei Ying hesitated, her hand hovering before finally conceding, placing the blade into a pouch. It wasn't hers; the wrong shade of red and a sun where a lotus should have rested. Stolen, then. "You could have used it." She pointed out.
"Suibian sealed itself. While you were gone." Wangji said. Her sword was powerful and would not open for anyone. Even if the sword remembered his wife’s loved ones, it proved a strong and loyal companion which Wangji had could not unseal.
Wei Ying gave a flat, tired smile. "Is that so?" She twirled the flute between her fingers.
"Help me!" the screaming seemed coherent again, one of the half-eaten lumps of flesh seemingly regaining consciousness after the flute stopped. "Save me, please! Demon! I'll give you anything!"
A mask slipped over Wei Ying's face then, viscous and sharp. "Lingjiao, did I say you could stop?" she asked. The sick crunch and squelch of flesh torn in teeth resumed. "Wen Chao. And his abominable mistress." She explained as though introducing dinner guests.
"Did you..?" Jiang Wanyin asked. Wei Ying inclined her head. "Good." Jiang Wanyin nodded, eyes ablaze.
Wen Chao's unintelligible screaming had not stopped.
"Are you quite finished?" Wei Ying asked, turning back toward the writhing mass of torn flesh and bodily fluids. Wangji grieved at the sight of her profile; the weight she’d happily gained gorging herself on pregnancy cravings gone; she seemed more bone than muscle, like her body had spent time consuming itself. “Do you want me to stop?”
"Please! I'll give you anything!" Wen Chao sobbed.
"There is only one thing I want from you." she said, "But don't worry. I’ll take it from you and put an end to this... For now." She snapped her fingers and lit the corpses and Wen Chao aflame. Wei Ying raised her flute to her lips, played a tune so haunting Wangji did not wish to linger on the notes.
As the flames died down she turned to her brother, "I could bring him back. Make him prostrate before Uncle’s grave, before your mother’s. Beg their forgiveness. I could make him aware. Make him walk himself to Wen Ruohan's doorstep. Tear himself limb from limb. I'll do it, if that's what you want." She says.
Jiang Wanyin states at her, caught in a mix of want and horror. He does not say anything,
"Perhaps another time, then." Wei Ying says. She walks forward, dodging Lan Wangji's grasp when he reaches out to hold her.
“Wei Ying!” Wangji yells, chasing after her.
“Go home, Lan Zhan.” She tells him, disappearing in a tangled twist of blackened limbs and dust.
In Gusu, a cradle rocked as a child was pressed against its mother’s breast. She could no longer produce milk, but A-Yuan had since been fed by a nursemaid. The Demon of Yiling rocked her child in the darkness of the new moon. He settled against her, breathing in her scent and gripping hard to a lock of hair.
In two years, Lan Wangji would look at his son and question the origin of the red ribbon wound securely around his wrist A-Yuan would tell him firmly, “Momma gift it.”
The King would look at his son, knowing that his wife had fallen after battle; that she had set Wen Ruohan and his army of the dead aflame, then had torn herself apart in a storm of darkness and dust. He would know Jiang Wanyin never stopped looking for her; he had not exchanged words with the man since…. had barely allowed Xichen to supervise visits with A-Yuan. But his son would be so adamant, and A-Yuan would never lie to his father.
Wangji would search for his fallen Queen.
For now, Wei Ying would rock her son in her arms, feeling the most alive she feared she would ever feel again after crawling back from death.