A silver rain whispered against the lacquered tiles of the House of Briarwood, veiling the estate in a sheen of melancholic opulence. Lanterns swung in the evening wind, their golden glow flickering through beads of stormwater, painting trembling halos on silk curtains. Beneath the curved roof of the southern gallery, a string quartet plucked a delicate nocturne—one written in the old key of mourning, though no one seemed to notice.
Inside, laughter floated above the music like oil on water. Nobles in coral and jade silks passed goblets between manicured fingers, their gestures smooth, rehearsed, and venomously polite. The scent of orchid perfume mingled with roasted suckling deer and spiced plums, hiding the faintest metallic whiff of fresh blood beneath their sandals.
"Ah, the masked gentleman returns," Lord Yethram drawled, peering over the edge of his jewel-encrusted chalice. "So shy at supper, yet always on time for wine. I'm starting to think you're a spirit conjured from the bottle."
The man he addressed stood at the threshold of the grand feasting hall, framed by the carved arch of two intertwining dragons. He was tall, draped in layers of pale green and obsidian silk, the lower half of his face obscured by a veil embroidered with curling vines. His skin—what little was visible—had a scaled luster, like moss-polished stone. His eyes were not eyes. They were slitted, emerald-glass things set too deep into the skull, like they might blink sideways.
He inclined his head with a motion so fluid it felt boneless. "I am a spirit, Lord Yethram. But not from the bottle."
Laughter again—uneasy this time. The guests' mirth thinned as the newcomer stepped fully into the light.
"Now, now," said the Dowager Briara with a cluck of her tongue. "Don't be cruel to our guest. You know we never refuse an envoy when they bring something new to drink."
"And you'll find none like this," the stranger said, producing a carved jade bottle from the folds of his robe. He set it gently on the table. "Distilled from swamp-root and ghost-peach. A delicacy in the eastern isles. Best shared among… friends."
A servant moved to pour it, but the stranger raised a hand—long-fingered, claws painted black.
"Let me."
He moved from guest to guest, pouring himself, sleeves dragging just above the rim of each cup, lips murmuring something low and melodic as he filled each goblet with pale green liquor that shimmered like oil on water. None could quite hear the words, though they felt oddly cold in the air, as though spoken backwards in a language the body remembered before the mind.
Briara leaned forward. "You're a diplomat from… where, again?"
"A nation no longer on your maps."
"And what does it want from House Briarwood?"
"Only a memory. And a moment of silence."
The laughter was gone now. Even the music had trailed off. The quartet had stopped playing somewhere during the fourth cup. One of them, the cellist, was staring down at his hands. Blood was dripping from his fingertips, unnoticed. His strings were quietly hissing as the fluid ate through them.
Yethram chuckled nervously, wiping at his forehead. "Well, shall we toast, then? To old maps, lost nations, and strong spirits?"
He raised his goblet. Others followed, slowly, the air thick with something not yet named.
The stranger did not raise his own.
Instead, he leaned close to Briara and whispered, "I forgive you."
Then the screaming began.
It started with the youngest daughter, a red-silk thing barely seventeen, who dropped her cup and stared at her hands as a pattern of black vines began to bloom beneath her skin—veins turned into roots, skin into bark. She opened her mouth and expelled a puff of spores. Her sister recoiled, choking.
Servants tried to run. The doors did not open.
The floor writhed.
The tapestries fell, mildew racing up the cloth in seconds, rotting it to threads.
Yethram staggered back, convulsing as something moved under his skin—worms of light and shadow tangled in his chest. He clutched his throat, gagged, and coughed out a stream of green foam that hissed as it hit the lacquered wood.
"You—" he rasped.
The stranger was already walking away, untouched, robes dragging green-black trails across the now-slime-slick floor. Every step he took left behind footprints shaped like curled thorns.
As he passed each guest, their eyes turned to follow him, even as their limbs twitched and failed. Some wept. Some tried to pray. Some simply accepted it.
He did not look back until he reached the central column of the feast hall, where the house's sacred relic hung: a steel sigil of their bloodline, shaped like a twisted lily, once dipped in the Emperor's own blood.
He touched it with a single claw.
It rusted and fell apart.
"Tell the Choir," he said aloud to no one, voice gentle. "The rot remembers."
With a flick of his fingers, the great doors opened—not with a creak but with a soft exhale, as if the house had been holding its breath. The stranger walked into the storm.
Behind him, the House of Briarwood fell quiet. The music never resumed. The nobles inside—poisoned from the blood inward, their bones softening, their eyes flowering—would never speak again.
But the city would.
By dawn, all of Kurosei would know: something old had returned.
Something green.
Something that never forgot how they killed him.
—