( His own frustration, his concern, the stretch of time between them and sixteen years he'll never have back, his darkness the only swallowing stretch he'll ever know, the mark of time passing and his certainty, then, that it was simply the hell he was due, beats against the cage of his lungs.

He breathes out, sharp, release and headache all at once. )

Jiang Cheng, if I didn't trust you and Lan Zhan and Lan Sizhui and the rest of everyone in that farmhouse to handle it, do you think we'd be talking right now? Unhalad's dead won't want to move into Anurr's forests, and they're going to be slow before the sun warms them. They'll slow again by nightfall. Think, you know it like I do, while they focus on you, and you hold them off, am I not supposed to look for how to cut them off? How to make sure this doesn't happen again while we escape this forsaken region?

( There will be another sort of joke, later, that it is not Wei Wuxian who will target Unhalad, that he will not be the driving force after that creature, when it gains the field. He's not trying to win this battle, but he sure as hell won't let them retreat to regroup and come again. )