To Lie Divine

The Oracle's Pulse

The moon hung too high. That was the first thing Wei Wuxian noticed.

He stood alone in one of the palace courtyards — not the grand ones with carefully laid pebbles and ginkgo trees, but a smaller one, forgotten, hidden between old pavilions and a collapsed colonnade. A place no one thought to clean, to walk through, or to haunt. And yet tonight, the moon had chosen this very courtyard to linger above — too bright, too still, too silent.

Wei Wuxian’s fingers trembled as he pressed them against his temple. The golden lines — they had returned. Crawling along his forearms like molten roots, pulsing once… then again.

Not now, he thought. Please, not now.

The wind did not listen.

Somewhere deep inside his ribcage, the first tear began — not of flesh or bone, but something else.
Something older. A splintering, as though the weight of the visions had finally begun to crack him open. He dropped to one knee, the world around him spinning.

His breath fogged in the air. Too cold, too fast. His mouth opened — no sound came. But inside his skull, the echoes began again:

> A man sits on a throne with no eyes. 
> A child sings lullabies to a forest on fire. 
> A sword points north, but the blood flows east.
> The stars are wrong, the stars are wrong, the stars are wrong.

And then — silence.

Wei Wuxian collapsed fully, his hands scrabbling against the gravel, trying to claw at something — at anything — to hold onto himself.

“Bleeding again, are we?” a small voice said.

Wei Wuxian froze. He twisted his head, barely able to lift his chin.

There, not three paces away, stood a child.

Barefoot. Unmarked. Dressed in what looked like festival silks, far too fine for a street urchin, yet far too worn to be court-woven. He stared at Wei Wuxian with wide, unblinking eyes — black, not with malice, but with too much knowing.

The child took one step closer, head tilted.

“You are the one who bleeds gold when broken.”

Wei Wuxian didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Something inside him surged, coiled, retreated — as though it feared being seen by this boy.

The child crouched down. “It must hurt,” he whispered. “To carry all that truth.”

Wei Wuxian turned his face away.

“Do you want me to leave?” the boy asked gently.

Wei Wuxian forced out a hoarse word: “Who…?”

The child stood. “I’m just someone who listens. Even when no one else does.”

And with that — he was gone. No footsteps, no rustle. The courtyard was empty again.

Wei Wuxian curled in on himself. The golden light dimmed. His breathing slowed. But a chill settled into his bones that would not leave.

---

Across the palace, Lan Wangji stood on a stone bridge, staring up at the stars.

They were moving again.

It was subtle — just enough to shift constellations slightly. Just enough to disturb the rhythm of his dreams. Just enough that he’d begun waking up with poems in his mouth — lines he hadn’t written, in voices he didn’t recognize.

He’d started tracking them. Small signs. A nightjar that repeated the same phrase each dusk:
Truth is not a lantern. Truth is fire.

A shadow behind a silk screen that vanished when touched. 
A bowl of tea that cracked in his hands — and inside, instead of leaves, a dead moth.

He hadn’t seen Wei Wuxian all day. No riddles.
No half-laughter. No bright eyes watching him from behind silk pillars. The absence clawed at him in a way that felt irrational.

He should not care. He should not care.

And yet — he turned from the stars. His footsteps echoed down the walkway, heart beating a little too fast.

Something had shifted. Something was unraveling.

---

Beneath the earth, a chamber with no doors. 
A woman with blindfolded eyes sat in a circle of candles. She smiled as the wax wept. 

“The pulse is quickening,” she whispered. 
And all the lights went out.

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