The march began beneath a sky already deepening toward indigo.
The gates of Nan Gau closed behind them with a low, resonant groan of iron and timber, the sound swallowed quickly by falling snow. Lantern light pooled briefly around the road before thinning, replaced by torchlight and the pale glow of dusk reflected off the mountains.

The pass stretched ahead, narrow and winding.

At first, the land was harsh and unforgiving. Stone rose sharply on either side of the road, jagged and frost-bitten, with pines clinging stubbornly to the slopes. Snow lay thick across the ground, packed hard where countless boots and hooves had passed before, softer at the edges where wind sculpted it into drifting ridges. Each breath came out in pale clouds. The air burned faintly in the lungs.

Sound carried strangely here.

Footsteps crunched in uneven rhythm. Metal shifted softly against leather. The wind threaded through the pass in low whistles, tugging at cloaks and hoods. Somewhere above, snow slid loose from a branch and fell in a quiet cascade.
As they moved farther north, the cold began to ease.

Not all at once, but subtly. The wind lost some of its bite. The snow thinned, turning wet beneath their boots. Dark soil began to show through in patches beside the road, unfrozen and soft. Steam rose faintly from the earth in places, barely visible but unmistakable once noticed.

The mountains opened slightly, the pass widening into gentler slopes.
Here, vegetation clung more readily to the land. Leafless trees gave way to hardy shrubs. Frost-coated grasses bent beneath their weight instead of snapping. The air carried a different scent now, mineral and damp, touched faintly with warmth from beneath the ground.
The road curved once more.

Nan-Li emerged from the haze of falling snow.
It was small, just as it had been described. An Edo-style farming village nestled against the lower rise of the mountains. Low wooden homes with sloped roofs clustered close together. Narrow paths wound between them, leading toward terraced fields now half-buried beneath melting snow.
And it was silent.

Too silent.

There were no lights in the windows. No smoke from chimneys. No figures moving through the streets.

Closer inspection told a harsher story.
Baskets lay overturned in the road, produce spilled out and half-frozen where it had fallen. A bundle of firewood rested abandoned beside a doorway. A cart stood crooked near the edge of the village, one wheel sunk into soft earth as if it had been left mid-motion.

Nothing here suggested an orderly evacuation.
It looked instead as though the villagers had fled in haste, or vanished where they stood.

The warmth beneath the soil lingered, undeniable.
But Nan-Li itself felt empty.
And waiting.

The road ended at the edge of the village, snow and mud clinging to boots as the group approached the first abandoned homes, dusk settling fully over the land.

Whatever had happened here, it had not finished yet.