The animal smiles and then resumes galloping. Asorotany holds on tighter from being thrown off, breath hitches in his throat.

The temperature continues to fall as they venture deeper into the forest, closing onto the boundary of Shinwa Shrine.

Goosebumps raises along his arms.

He leans forward, buries deeper into the ram’s fur and breaths in its scent. The tips tickle his chin and nose. Its fur smells like death. Roses and mandarin and ashes and decaying bones.

He can feel the pulse running under the ram’s skin. Warm. Solid. Strong. Alive.

“What will happen to Emi?” He murmurs.

“Gei.” The ram corrects, though it quickly backtracks. “But I supposed it’s legitimate that you can refer to her as Emi, now.”

“How come Gods always have so many names?” Asorotany muses.

“Not all. Only those who chooses to mingle with mortals.”

“Like Emi.” He says.

“Like Emi.” The ram echoes.

“So what will happen to her?”

“Not a punishment a mortal can comprehend.” The ram says as it charges harder forward. The muscles of its torso lengthens and rippling, concentric and eccentric in a rhythmic movement. “A god living in a mortal body, under a mortal name. Strip of her joy and driven to seek some fleeting entertainment in the world she used to rule over. A toy for everyone to play around, a disgrace to her kind. You cannot compare the pain and shame of a three thousand-year-old Goddess to mortal’s level of few decades.”

Asorotany is quiet. “It would be better if she died.” He says after a long moment of silence.

“Immortals or mortals, alive or dead, we all deserve a different fate.” The ram hums. “Your brother doesn’t deserve to die, Carion doesn’t deserve to live. What can we do about that, though? Unmei is deaf, so our complains will never reach her ears.”

Asorotany mulls over, but says nothing.

They are at the outskirt of Shinwa Shrine. The ram slows as it skirts down a slope.

The tall black dead almond trunks, crippled and naked in the cold of the night, entwined and strengthen by iron cast, looms ahead of him. There is no other landmark, but the tone in the air instantly shifts to a gloomy, sleepy state that turns fingertips cold.

“I can walk from here,” Asorotany nudges the animal’s with his heels. It obligates.

He dismounts and scans his surrounding.

Grave markers peak up and down, uneven. Here and there, he can see some grave markers are made out of polished cobble, black and glinting under the silky moonlight, towering over the surrounding ground. Those fancy afterdeath mansion are of the officials and the Priests. Most are merely a mound of dirt eroding and a straight stone stake drives into the earth, choking with weed.

The ram turns its head and bares its teeth at him, nodding. Asorotany rubs his hands before trailing after it. His stomach a bit queasy as he steps onto the Cemetery ground.

Shinwa folks don’t often come to the Cemetery, unless there’s a funeral, but then, the number of attendees can be count by your fingers. When you bury your beloved, that’s the last time you know you will see them. There’s no more ash scatter or annual grave clean. The monks are the ones that take care of the Cemetery, however it goes unsaid that they also overlook this duty. Once the dirt had pressed tight, they turn on their heel and walk away, buried their grief along inside their heart.

Once the lights were out and each locked his room, once all the businessmen in black suits and black socks retreated to the hotel on the other side of the town, once smell of ashy incense from the Shrine rinse their soul, once everything is done and done, Shinwa is reduced to a stricken sorrowful site.

Asorotany thinks back to what Uncle Tarrow said.

Perhaps it’s true that Shinwa is cursed.

Every day, they try to smile through the pain. And every night, the smile they wear on their face leave a permanent ache in their facial muscles. The people, like it or not, wear deadweight of guilt and expectations on their body, heavy and dangling like chains. Their precious emotion is neither joy nor satisfaction, it’s having a purpose to live, to experience those missing emotions.

Wind whips at his face, frenzy and damp, jabbing its fingers through his hair.

“Where’s my brother?” He asks. They’re near the centre of the Cemetery.

“Few more minutes.” The ram answers.

They cross a clearing and enters the small, roofless temple, with columns half-crumbled and floor crack by dandelion, wild weeds and small animals.

He hesitates at the last step, but he pushes himself to go in.

The temperature is freezing inside, as if the wind has been trapped inside, wrestling to get out. Asorotany almost buckles under the strong current whirls inside the temple. The wind here is different from the wind he knows of Are. This wind is more aggressive and violent, like a caged animal, hungry for vengeance and blood. It lunges forward, ripping him apart.

The ram steps in front of him, protecting him. Still, Asorotany’s wrists and shoulder caps and collarbone hurt. The wind’s grip Asorotany still strong, sharp nails piercing through the skin.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be here.” He says.

“No. Stay.” The ram says. But Asorotany shakes his head and hurries back out.

In front of the temple, Kanashi Pond glitters under the half moonlight, little waves splashing against the stone outline, gently rocking the lily pads.

A chill graces his skin. Asorotany blinks, combing his bang back from his eyes, jolting back to attention. Somewhere, he hears a singing. A shrill, missing, woeful voice, rippling like black water.

Unconsciously, his steps falter. He raises his chin, looking out at the silhouettes cast by dead tree hulls, tracing for the source of the cry. He can feel an arteries pulses strong in his neck, strong throughout his body.

Black shadow lurks under his feet.

He knows the song. Knows the notes. He’ve heard it before, many many times.

It’s Are’s song.

A long-hauling toll rumbles, causing a murder of crow to flee, cawing, scattering like blood across the bruise sky.

Everything still. Even the wind.

Asorotany holds his breath, doesn’t dare to move or so much as glancing out the corner of his eye.

A tinkle echos across the vast space.