"The Jade and the Fang: A Midnight Council in the Temple of Forgotten Winds"

Spring, 1550 A.D., beneath a moonless sky

The temple sat silent on the cliffs east of the Great Wall, wind-choked and forgotten, its stone lions worn smooth by time and sand. Once a monastery for sky-watching monks, it had long since been abandoned, save for the spirits who lingered, whispering in a dozen dead tongues.

And yet tonight, footsteps stirred the dust of its cracked floors. A Mongol warlord clad in wolf-pelt and iron—Altan Khan, the Garou Shadow Lord and leader of the Oirat—stepped beneath the eaves of the temple with the silence of a predator. His amber eyes glowed faintly beneath a carved helm shaped like a snarling beast, and a massive scar tore across his throat, a wound once mortal, now reborn with rage.

Across from him, dressed in the unadorned robes of a wandering sage but guarded by unseen watchers hidden among the shadows of broken stone, waited Zhu Houcong, the Jiajing Emperor of Ming. His face was thin, his eyes clouded not by age but by secrets long carried. Though the blood of dragons no longer ran true in him, there was something ancient behind his gaze. He was kin—weak-blooded Gharal, distant child of the Celestial Bear—but with power in the world of men that no Garou could rival.

Altan Khan did not bow, but inclined his head.“You know why I have come,” he growled, voice low like distant thunder.

Zhu nodded, voice barely above the whispering wind.“You claim my capital is ruled by devils from the West. Prove it.”

Altan stepped forward, unslinging a scroll case from his side and casting it to the cracked tiles between them. From it spilled maps, symbols written in blood, accounts from slain monks, traitorous eunuchs, and a handful of Kinfolk still hiding in the alleys of Beijing.“They came with silk and shadow. A Brujah Sultan claims your Silk Road, a Setite elder rules your scholars with lies, and in the bowels of the Forbidden City itself, the blood-leeches sleep beneath jade floors.”

Zhu did not flinch. “I have felt… something. An absence in the prayers. A hollowness in the dragon lines. But these things are not so easily believed.”

“They are not meant to be,” Altan hissed. “That is how they win. Not by fire or sword. But by corruption. By whispers. By false loyalty.”

Zhu stepped to the edge of the temple, gazing down at the distant valleys, silver in starlight. “You hate us. The Ming. You burned our villages. We dug your graves.”

“I hate nothing,” Altan said, voice sharp as his blade. “But I do remember. And I know the price of failing to act. We’ve fought each other for centuries, but this—” he paused, the growl rising— “this is worse than either of us. If they take the soul of your people, there will be nothing left to rule.”

For a long moment, silence reigned between them. Only the sigh of wind in old bells broke it.

Then the Emperor spoke.“You ask for war in my own city. Do you understand what that means?”

“I do,” Altan answered. “It means death. Yours and mine. Soldiers. Spirits. Maybe even the children. But they feed already. Better a city bleed clean than rot from within.”

The Emperor’s hand curled into a fist behind his back. “What would you have me do?”

“Nothing… that shows your hand. Not yet.” Altan’s eyes narrowed. “Open your mines. Arm your soldiers. Let your trade grow stronger. Make them believe your Empire thrives, unaware. I will send spirits and kin through the wall, beneath it. Find their havens. Their sleeping places. When summer rises, we strike.”

Zhu turned from the cliffside. “And what then?”

Altan’s grin was fang and fury. “Then we show them what it means to awaken monsters in the East.”

They stood apart as morning’s first blue glow touched the peaks. No pact was signed. No hand was shaken. They did not bow. But as the crows circled above the Temple of Forgotten Winds, two ancient enemies parted not as friends, but as leaders burdened with a terrible truth.

Each to their camp they returned, fire in their hearts. And though neither would ever speak of the meeting, Spring gave way to blood-warm summer, and Beijing would burn in ways no historian would ever dare record.