No stink of aggression from these beasts, no blood, no strength to the tension that rides the lines of their bones or crisps them, stark. Lan Wangji has fought enough creatures of road and cave and forest to know that the ones that gaze at them, open and blank, do not thirst anguish.

Anticipation flows and ebbs. A light breeze tinkers and sweetens grass to come falling down. He tips his head back and finds a bright sky blued like ice-thawed rivers. "They desire something."

A pause, then, as if he reads the calligraphy of a faintly familiar, but long-lost tongue. "A bribe or tribute for our passage."