Liao Hua’s dying father neither saw his daughter nor offered her a kind word. No matter how much she tried, Hua’s father only demanded her brother or cursed out her grandmother. There was no space for her existence.


    She rose. Bitterness lodging its way in her throat, she still kissed his hand, before leaving him behind.


    Her sister saw her expression and didn’t say the dreaded ‘I told you so’ that all children seemed to instinctively know when to say to inflict maximum damage. They exchanged a look that said volumes: that their father was dying, that their Clan would be vulnerable, and that they needed to get stronger.


    “I’ll always be around for you,” Liao Hua promised before leaving the temple.


    “I know,” she heard on the breeze.


    The journey back to the Patriarch’s estate was wearisome. Hua felt more keenly the losses she had experienced. Qing, missing from this world. Her brother, who might have died on his journey. The peace and stability she had grown up in. The future where her father was strong enough to hold back the wolves and could give them space to grow to greater heights.


    Here, in the heart of the Clan compound, it was hard to imagine the world was destroying itself. Against the sickly yellow sky, the peaceful courtyard felt like a curse. There would be a price to be paid for this pocket of stability, she just knew it. Heaven’s blessings came equally with curses. The aftershocks of the great battle had devastated the Earth.


    As above, so below, she thought cynically, glaring at the heavens. One day, you’ll know the same slaughter and pain.


    Liao Hua still lived with her immediate family in the Patriarch’s Estate instead of the complex for unmarried women. Her rooms looked out to the same gardens and mountains she had seen since childhood. This stone courtyard she stood within was familiar. The stone arrangements overgrown with moss were her earliest friends.


    She wanted, desperately, to crouch down and place her head against the tallest of the stone plinths. Speak everything in her heart and find some measure of peace. Her dying father. Her broken city. A clan in disarray. Love lost to the whims of the Heavens.


    If she just let herself lose control for a moment, she could scream her fury for all the world to hear. Just one damned moment that she could never have.


    “Sit with me, granddaughter.” Hua turned around, startled to see her grandmother in the courtyard with such composure that one would never think the skies were smoky and parts of the clan compound were flooded. “Must I repeat myself?”


    “I am honoured, Grandmother, but there is work that must be done. I am still needed.”


    There wasn’t time to mourn. There would never be time to mourn. All that was left was the work.


    Her grandmother took a seat elegantly, making a dragon’s throne of a simple bench, a curtain of silver flowing down the seat. It was grace Liao Hua had failed to emulate her entire life. Grandmother was a tall lady whom Hua had inherited her height, though not to the same extent. Even sitting with her lotus shoes crossed, Grandmother was taller than some men.


    There was a painting in the main hall of her grandparents together. She with the silver hair, painted red lips, and green eyes, he with black hair and blacker eyes. They carried with them a nobility worthy of one of the Great Three Clans but only one set of features had bred true in subsequent generations.


    “More will die if you do not sit with me,” Grandmother said in her blunt way and gestured to the space next to her.


    Hua gingerly sat on the bench, keeping as much space between her and Grandmother as possible. Not due to Father’s words, that was the standard paranoia she’d grown up with, but simply because her grandmother was an imposing person. Always had been since Hua’s earliest memories. But still, Grandmother had a soft spot for her and the twins. Showed them kindness and allowed liberties that got others whipped.


    Grandmother had a necklace made of spirit stones. The Qi in them was potent, attuned to Lightning. A rare treasure for a Clan that cultivated from the Scripture of Five Thunders. Whether it was bride price or dowry, Hua did not know, but it had been promised to her when she was an adult or whenever Grandmother died. Not that anyone believed the latter would happen. Grandmother’s eyes were still sharp as any blade, and she regularly sent Hua flying when they trained. If she was getting slower, weaker, older in any way that mattered, it was beyond Hua to observe.


    Grandmother met her gaze, seeing the change to her eyes. She could feel it, echoes of divine lightning trapped in her very eyes. Then Grandmother spoke because golden eyes were less important than everything else.


    “How fares the city? I’ve given shelter to the families of our retainers, what remains of them, but the stories are disjointed and difficult to parse. Everything from floods to fire to earthquakes. The compound was spared fire at the very least.”


    There had been time enough for Grandmother to get a full report of the city from her myriad sources. Time enough for her to find out about the nonsense with the Song Sealord. This, as with all things with her, was a test.


    “If we only lose a third of the population in the next decade, I will consider it a miracle,” she admitted, her voice breaking as she imagined the clouds of ash that would soon come. This would taint the legacy of her clan.


    “A few hundred thousand is no small number. You don’t know the stink of ten thousand corpses left to rot in the fields let alone a hundred thousand. That many deaths can shake even a hardened killer. One day you will learn it, and on that day, you will curse me for being your teacher. Do not find yourself hesitating or you will be cut down.”


    “Father curses you enough for the whole clan.”


    “He always has a mouth on him What an unfilial boy. His generation name has no bearing on truth.”


    Her father was of the Xiao Generation. That name was spelt with the character for filial piety.


    “Father told me not to trust you again. Called you a monster and some things I won’t repeat to you.”


    “He always does,” Grandmother said fondly though not as fondly as she remembered the killing fields. “He inherited his father’s paranoia. Not the worst trait to inherit. It led us through the dark years when we were barely a Clan worth anything and saw us ascendant after the Yellow Cap War. Annoying to work around but, well, it proved true when your uncle, Xiaoyuan, tried poisoning him for the position of clan head. He was always an emotional boy, that eldest son of mine. Too emotional to rule and it got him killed after he tried fratricide. I’d hoped I taught him some degree of temperance, but it fucking came to nothing. The boy didn’t even learn my lessons on using poisons properly. At least the bout was an excellent showcase of your father’s lightning, and it secured his rule.”


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    Hua blinked slowly, processing this piece of history she knew nothing about. Trying to understand if she hadn’t truly died in the flood and sunk to one of the hells. Because this was not the clan history she knew. But Grandmother wasn’t laughing, wasn’t hastening to say she was joking.


    Is that all you have to say to your sons murdering one another? That one killed the other better and used that death for political ends?


    “Fratricide, the lethal Qi Deviation of the Patriarch, and now our lands breaking beneath divine lightning. One might say the heavens have cursed our family line and they wouldn’t be wrong.”


    “Don’t be overly dramatic. A bit of kin slaying is acceptable in each generation. If you think we are bad, then you’ll be horrified to hear about the Westerners who practice cannibalism on their family. A horrible form of Cultivation only barbarians would indulge in.”


    Her sons. Hua’s father and uncle. The generations between them were bridged by fratricide. Heaven truly had been upended and Earth shattered to its foundation if these truths were emerging, gushing like the swollen River Liao. And like the river, those named Liao cared not at all for those they harmed.


    “I wonder if they would call you the barbarian for watching your sons murder each other.”


    “What have you lost to think you can judge my actions?”


    “Qing is dead,” she admitted, finding the words strangely easy to say. Perhaps she had been hollowed out by grief, scoured down to the bedrock of her soul by that loss. What point was there in emotions if they could not undo time?


    “You have my condolences. If her father lives, I will see that he is taken care of. My people will find him, I promise. He carved a few jade pieces we have in the clan.”


    “I know. Qing showed them to me.”


    “Then you have something to remember her by. Few are so lucky.”


    For a moment, compassion cracked her grandmother’s stern visage. For just a moment, she recalled that human experiences were difficult things filled with pain and that they had once affected her. Then, when that moment ended, the coldly pragmatic woman returned.


    “Harden your heart, child. What I will ask of you is difficult and your fragility will break you.”


    “Can I refuse?”


    “Would you refuse your duty to the clan? I did not raise a granddaughter who would, and I know Xiaosan did not succour his children on cowardice.”


    “What would you ask of me, Liao Furen?” she bit out, reminding grandmother that she was the foreign daughter, that lightning was not hers by blood as it was Hua’s. A petty and weak attack.


    “I would have you become Lord Liao in your father’s stead,” Grandmother said, absolutely shattering Hua’s defences.


    “You’re mad. You have run mad. Grandmother! You’ve gone crazy to even suggest that. I… do you want me to be killed like Uncle Xiaoyuan? Must there be one every generation who gets killed for usurpation? Weijiang will cut me down and he would be right to.”


    Grandmother cackled and oh, Hua knew what it meant to see the dragon for the first time. She had been raised at its foot and played with its claws, never knowing how sharp they were. Delighted in toothy grins, never understanding that those fangs had sheared human flesh from bone. And now she was seeing the threat for the first time. Not the dragon letting her play with its tail but the predator on the prowl.


    This dragon liked human flesh, but it especially loved the flesh it had sired.


    “It would be interesting to see how far you’ll have surpassed him if he ever returns, but no, I have no need for more generations of murder. I simply need you to assume his role. An heir ruling in his father’s stead is a reasonable thing.”


    “No. It’s madness.”


    “Child, heed my words and understand that there truly is no other option. There must be a sitting Lord Liao.”


    “Then let an Elder become Lord Liao.”


    “Those children lack the strength to make the role mean anything. Everyone knows the weakness they possess. But the son of the Radiant Lightning Body might reach his strength and even surpass it. I would have you be that son.”


    Children, she said of elders in their eighties at the peak of Qi Condensation. The foremost experts of their clan. Children. The word reverberated in her head because how could Hua match up if those who taught her weren’t good enough.


    “No one will ever believe another son exists. No one important. Our family records are well known. Half the province cursed my brother’s birthday, and the other half eagerly gossiped about who would get to marry one of the three Liao daughters.”


    “Stories carry with them a certain power. The story of the Liao Clan with a dying patriarch and no male heir would invite the Yu snakes roving outside our territory. But a son blessed by the heavens, with this old lady training him, and a Patriarch growing strong behind Closed Door Cultivation, now that is a story that can protect us. Against Yu, against Zhao, against even the Dragon Court, we require that story now.”


    “The elders will never permit it.”


    They did not permit you to rule, and they will not let a lesser daughter rule, she did not say but it was heard anyway.


    “I chose my freedom, grandchild and though you may not know it, you have benefited from the story I created for us all. Do not think that in your grief you have found intelligence, let alone wisdom. Do not think you yet know enough to judge the century I have been the Lady Liao.” The chastisement stung and she bowed her head in acknowledgement. Grandmother waved the apology away before Hua could speak it. Always pragmatic, always moving forward. “The Elders understand how precarious our circumstances are. They will bite their tongues and choke on their blood before they weaken our position.”


    Someone would make them choke on their blood, but it wouldn’t be out of choice. She knew the Elders too well to believe that they genuinely supported this plan. Her Cousin Weiji would have been their preferred choice. He was also a child of the main line and wielded lightning with great proficiency.


    He was also a son.


    “My brother—”


    “Is not here. That is the simple truth. He is not here but you are. You were the one seen helping in the city, organising people, stopping both looting and violence. Where was your brother in all of that? They will not care for a boy who is probably dead. But you, child, are a true daughter of lightning. The Scripture of Five Thunders lives within you. Nothing else will matter once the dragon’s roar is announced.”


    “Brother is alive, I know it. He’ll survive and return to us just as I would. He will lead us.”


    “Foolish hope. You were always the greater one.”


    “You overestimate me, grandmother.”


    “No, I see accurately what others refused to acknowledge your entire life in favour of these boys of middling talent. The path to heaven is walked by those with the talent to surmount the challenges in their path. But more than that, there is no one else we can rely on to hold back Yu or Zhao alone, let alone together. Your father’s strength could. Just the legend of the Radiant Lightning Body was enough to ensure decades of peace. You are the actualisation of my hopes and dreams for a true Cultivator so I know you will achieve what he did and then you will surpass him.”


    “You’re mad.”


    “I am not, and even if I was, I would force it to be true. You will be my legacy, child. The legacy of Liao and lightning.”


    “I refuse.”


    “You will not.”


    “I can’t do this alone.”


    “The Liao Heir can mobilise the clan’s resources and speak in the name of the Patriarch. You will not be alone. I will back you and woe be to any who challenge this old lady,” Grandmother said with the authority of a Cultivator that had established the foundation to heaven.


    “This lowly daughter was never meant to lead one of the Great Three Clans.”


    “Fuck the Great Three, it''s just Great Liao.”


    “Grandmother!”


    “I speak only the truth. Those rats have been circling since the very beginning, but they are rats trying to feast at our table. They have no right to a seat, and I will not give them one. I will not let them claim one.”


    Hua was finally seeing the woman who had reigned as regent before her father ascended. The one who led them in the internecine clan wars and bled the province to establish her legend. The woman who could watch one son kill another and move on with little more than a passing regret that her lessons weren’t better learned.


    Hers would be a legendary history. The first of their clan to establish the Foundation to heaven. The foreigner who birthed lightning in a great son and perhaps, if Hua did this great task, a grandson as well. She would allow nothing less. History would yield to the grand vision of Xiao Jiu, the Lady Liao.


    There was only one name she could choose. If she was to be the legacy of a dragon, then Hua’s new name would reflect that.


    “I will be known as Liao Weilong.”


    Her grandmother’s teeth were sharp as the dragon Hua named herself after.


    “A good name. A powerful name. A name for a worthy Lord.”


    This would be her name from now on. The legacy she would bear if it meant her Clan would endure. No matter the weight of it, she would match that legacy.


    She must. There was no other choice.


    Let all know her as The Great Dragon of Liao.