Solstice Souls Book 2: Black Fire, White Flame

Grace Under Fire

Lan Zhan's POV

The next few days are busy as plans are hashed out on who will go where, because time is of the essence now.

They must garner support from wherever they can, so that they are able to stand up to the hundreds and thousands of Wen soldiers who will fight against them. Everything depends on this final effort before the Wens show their true colours; because as with any battle, it is the preparation beforehand which leads to victory or defeat.

Lan Zhan is fighting a personal battle now.

He hasn't let himself think about their impending trip to Yiling. It is simply easier to push it to the back of his mind for now, because he has more pressing concerns at the moment.

Every day, he is making progress on accepting his own emotions, and Wei Ying has been with him every step of the way, holding his hand both figuratively and literally throughout the arduous task. His support has been invaluable, and he offers to listen any time Lan Zhan feels like talking.

Just that support alone feels monumental.

Lan Zhan has never had anyone tell him it's okay to speak about his thoughts, his opinions on the people surrounding him, and the impact they had, and continue to have on his mental health.

Wei Ying shows him daily that his feelings matter, and there is no such thing as "you shouldn't be feeling like that", no disapproval of his emotions at all. Wei Ying displays a startling maturity in this area that Lan Zhan discovers all at once, the sense of a deeper person underneath the outward joviality and light-hearted persona that he shows to the outside world.

It is a metaphorical, emotional mask that he wears to deal with the pressures and stresses of being a Clan heir himself.

There are also bad dreams.

Lan Zhan is trying not to let it get to him, but he's suffering from the red nightmare.

It's not every night, but enough to affect him.

The dream starts off fine, with red decorations and a wedding procession. But every time he lifts the veil next to him, Wei Ying isn't there.

He's not sure if it's a premonition, or if his own mind is playing tricks on him.

Of course, Lan Zhan tries to be vocal about himself and what he's going through.

At the times when he doesn't feel like talking, Wei Ying is there to ease him into it, to ask him clever questions, ones that inadvertently get Lan Zhan to probe deeper in his mind, searching for clues as to why he has responded in a certain manner.

Every night, Lan Zhan falls into a deep sleep, exhausted by the trials of his mental challenges, and he wakes up refreshed, ready to do it all over again.

So when the day arrives that they have to leave to go to Yiling, first he is surprised that it has come so soon.

And then he lets himself understand where he's got to go.

The feud between the Lan Clan and the Wei Clan has lasted the best part of five hundred years, give or take a few weeks. The resulting war it sparked led to thousands of lives being lost on both sides, with mistrust and fear increasing day by day.

With their natural ability to control resentment energy, the Wei Clan was always under scrutiny and suspicion by the Lan Clan for suspected use of an artifact; a deceitful practice in anyone's eyes, and it was this inability to trust their word that led to further bloodshed.

Now Lan Zhan was going to have to stick his face in the Tiger's mouth, so to speak.

Perhaps a better analogy was treading on a Tiger's tail; the objective being not to. If the path before him was fraught with possible danger and fear, he had to find a way to navigate it, whilst not stepping on the tail and thus bringing about certain destruction.