The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis

The messenger entering the camp of the Red Demons without his tongue.

The horse foamed at the mouth, pushed beyond its limit, and the rider slumped half-conscious in the saddle—barely clinging to the reins. By the time the guards caught up and dragged him into the Red Demon camp, his hands were bloodied, his eyes wide with panic, and the front of his uniform was soaked with piss.

Sun Longzi stood just outside the northern barricade, arms crossed, face unreadable. He waited as the man was tossed to the ground like a sack of rotting grain.

"He came from Baiguang," Yaozu said, crouching to check the man's seal. "Bearing a message from Crown Prince Li Xuejian."

Sun Longzi said nothing.

The man couldn't speak. His mouth was open, jaw trembling, but no sound came out—only the ragged breath of someone who had lived far too long on fear and little else.

Yaozu tilted the man's chin up. "Did you think it would be different here?" he murmured. "Did you think riding into a demon's camp would earn you sympathy?"

The man's eyes flicked toward the soldiers gathering around the barricade—watching from behind lines of oil lamps and halberds.

One of them spat into the dirt. Another drew a dagger just to clean it.

However, Zhao Xinying arrived before either man could move.

She wasn't dressed in finery. No veil. No silks. Her boots were caked in dried mud, and her sleeves were rolled to the elbows. But the soldiers parted for her anyway.

"Alive?" she asked simply.

"Barely," Yaozu replied.

She crouched low. The man tried to scramble back, but his arms were too weak.

Xinying placed a gentle hand on his chest.

"Good," she said. "He'll live long enough."

A flick of her fingers sent thin lines of mist curling from her sleeve—not black, but white, thin and cold as breath on glass. It wrapped around the man's mouth, down his neck, and into his throat like a lover's kiss.

He gagged.

Then he passed out.

Yaozu watched with interest. "Healing mist?"

"Just enough to keep him breathing," she said, standing. "Now take him to the Crown Prince."

-----

The strategy tent was brighter than usual.

Lanterns hung from every corner. Incense burned in small iron dishes near the maps. And Mingyu—freshly bathed and draped in charcoal-gray robes—stood with his back to the door, reading the message that had arrived via carrier bird just before dawn.

Xinying entered without being announced.

Yaozu followed, dragging the broken messenger by the collar.

"Baiguang accuses us of war crimes," Mingyu said calmly, not turning around. "They claim I abducted their Princess, tortured her, and tried to claim her as my concubine."

"How creative," Yizhen murmured from the side table, where he was busy pouring himself wine. "Do they want to create a poem next?"

"They want war," Deming said flatly. "They want to paint you as a demon from hell."

Mingyu finally turned.

His expression wasn't angry.

It was bored.

"They forgot something," he said, reaching for a second scroll. "They forgot I don't care what they or the world thinks of me. They can say what they want, it will change nothing."

He tossed the scroll onto the table.

It was a list of demands.

Kneel in front of Crown Princess Bai Yuyan.

Publicly apologize to Baiguang.

Step down as Crown Prince.

Withdraw all troops from the southern territories and submit to a joint northern tribunal.

Yaozu snorted as he looked at the paper in front of him. "Was this list written by a child?"

Mingyu didn't smile. "Children wouldn't have been so stupid," he sneered, his upper lip twisting.

He approached the messenger, who lay at his feet unconscious, and crouched just low enough to brush the man's blood-matted hair from his face.

"Delivering threats from a man who dares call himself a ruler," he whispered. "Tell your master this."

The messenger didn't respond, but that didn't matter.

The entire tent listened; the message would be delivered.

"Tell him I found his little bride chained to a wall in my land after poisoning my court, and trying to kill my wife. Tell him she nearly succeeded. Tell him I've already sent her home—and anyone else he sends into my territory, I plan to do the same to them. In pieces."

He stood again. "And tell him this isn't the story he thinks it is. I am not the villain of his tale. I am the ending."

Deming inclined his head. "What would you have us do with the messenger?"

"Let him live," Mingyu said. "He needs to limp home on broken legs, crawling if he must. Send him on foot."

Yizhen raised an eyebrow. "A bit theatrical, don't you think?"

"No," Mingyu said. "This is a gift."

He turned to Xinying.

"Would you like to sign it?"

She smiled, slow and deliberate. "With pleasure."

They tied the messenger's broken arm behind his back and placed the scroll in the remaining hand.

The mist that healed him also marked him, curling in pale ink across his jaw and neck in the shape of a single phrase:

"Try again," grunted Yaozu, pointing to the messenger's leg. The youngest member of the Shadow Guard stomped down where it was indicated, crushing the man's leg.

He would live—but he would never run again. That was the point.

When they cast him out of the camp, the Red Demons lined the path in silence. No jeers. No cheers. Just the quiet, watchful hatred of men who had tasted war and found the flavor lingering.

Far above the barricades, Zhao Xinying stood on the northern ridge with Shadow curled at her feet. She didn't speak as the messenger hobbled into the woods.

She didn't need to.

Mingyu joined her a moment later.

"That should do," he said.

"For now," she replied.

They stood in silence for several seconds before Xinying spoke again. "He'll come."

"I know."

"He thinks you took something from him."

"I did," Mingyu said. "I took his lie from him. Now, he will have no choice but to face the truth."