I woke to the cold stone beneath my legs. Not silk. Not bedding. Just stone. Hard and wet, seeping into my robes.
For a moment, nothing made sense. The world tilted sideways, blurred at the edges, bathed in the dim orange glow of a swaying lantern above. Shadows flickered long across the ground. The walls weren't walls at all—they were carved into solid rock, uneven and slick with moisture, water gathering in thin trails before dripping in slow, deliberate rhythm.
We were upright, but slumped forward, tied to a thick wooden pole. When Lianshui stirred, I became aware of the dull ache in our shoulders and the tight pull of rope cutting into our wrists behind us. Our ankles were bound too. Our arms had already gone numb, and everything around us felt cold and damp.
That was when the panic hit. Sudden. Tight in the chest. Hard to breathe.
As her eyes adjusted, the room began to take shape—and she froze.
Skeletons lay scattered around them in careful rings. Not random. Arranged. Some still had scraps of Luyang uniforms clinging to their bones. Others wore the faded remnants of Qiuli gear. Soldiers. A lot of them. Maybe dozens.
Their bones were laid out with arms spread wide, skulls turned toward the center like they had been placed that way on purpose.
Like they were all looking at us.
Lianshui? My voice in her mind trembled. Are you okay? Where are we?
Her reply came in a whisper, barely a breath. "I don't know."
But something about the scene made me feel like my stomach dropped.
This looks familiar, I said, even though I wished it didn't. It looks like that cave we found near the border. The one with the summoning altar. The ritual to summon the Goddess of Water.
Her breath caught slightly. Not fear exactly. Recognition.
It wasn't just the arrangement of the bones. It was the feeling in the air. Heavy. Watching. Like whatever had been called here once had never truly left.
I couldn't move. I couldn't scream. But inside, my thoughts were clawing at the walls.
No no no. Not again. Not another cave. Not another death circle. Why is it always caves?
Two figures stepped into the room.
Their movements were soundless, like the shadows themselves had peeled away from the walls and decided to walk. They wore long robes, hooded, faces hidden behind smooth masks—bone white and expressionless. One held a staff carved with a twisting pattern of dark metal. The other's hands were bare.
They didn't speak at first. Just stared.
Then the taller one tilted his head slightly.
"She is awake," he said. His voice was low, distorted behind the mask. "Let's begin."
The other nodded once.
"Yes, Master."
He stepped forward, kneeling on the stone with eerie reverence. Then he placed one palm flat against the cold floor. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the darkness moved.
Smoke, thick and black, poured out from beneath his hand. It slithered across the stone like it was alive, rippling toward us in a rush.
Lianshui's breath hitched.
Her voice cracked through the silence, hoarse and raw. "What is that? Who are you? What do you want?"
Still nothing. Only the growing hiss of smoke slithering across stone. It reached our bound feet. Twined around our legs. Crawled higher.
Lianshui, I whispered in her mind, what is that—what is that—what is it doing to us—
She flinched. Only slightly, but I felt it like a lightning strike in our shared nerves. Her composure cracked. This time, the fear wasn't just mine.
The smoke climbed higher.
It coiled around our waist, our ribs, our throat. It moved like it knew where to go. Like it had done this before.
Then it reached our chest.
The pain erupted instantly.
A sharp, blinding heat tore through her body like fire ripping through silk. I felt it the way I'd felt Shen Kexian's pain that day when we carved the array. Deep. Immediate.
But this time, I couldn't push back. I couldn't reach her. Couldn't soothe it or shield her or channel anything through.
I felt her nails dig into her palms, the cords of our throat strain as the sound ripped out of her. Her heart pounded so fast it barely felt like beating. The smoke kept pushing in, clawing deeper into her chest like it was looking for something. Digging. Ripping.
Please stop, I begged silently. Please, you're hurting her—
But they didn't stop. I felt so helpless.
Her pain was my pain. Not metaphorically, not symbolically. I could feel it ripping through her chest like jagged metal. Every scream vibrated through my mind like thunder in a locked room and I could not do anything.
I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I could only watch her suffer in the dark.
Then—something shifted.
A spark bloomed beneath our right shoulder. Small. Gentle. But real.
And then it spread.
A warm current pulsed through the skin, slow at first, then growing. It cascaded down across her chest, washing through the agony like light pushing back a tide of smoke. It wasn't enough to stop the pain. Not yet. But it was there.
The array.
I gasped inside. The Soulthread Array. It activated.
It must have sensed the danger. The wound. The imbalance in the soul.
Lianshui, hang in there. Please. Shen Kexian will know. He'll come. He'll come for us. He promised.
But she was still screaming.
Even with the light wrapping around her heart, even with the magic pulling taut like a lifeline across dimensions, the pain didn't stop. Her body trembled against the ropes, voice breaking, breath ragged. The smoke fought back, swirling tighter, clawing deeper into her spirit like it was trying to hollow her out.
I pressed against her mind as much as I could.
I'm here. I'm here. You're not alone. Just hold on a little longer.
She couldn't speak now. Could barely think. All I could feel from her was pain and panic and the terrible, shattering instinct to survive.
"Master," the shorter one said, his voice tight with frustration, "it is not working."
The smoke stilled.
Then, just as suddenly as it came, it began to retreat. Pulled back into his palm like a serpent obeying its leash.
And the pain stopped.
Lianshui's body slumped forward, sagging against the ropes. Her head dropped, her breath a thin rasp. Then nothing.
Her eyes closed.
Lianshui?
No response. I couldn't see anymore. I was locked inside, blind in the dark of her mind. Floating.
But I could still hear them.
"We don't have enough corpses?" the shorter one asked.
There was a long pause. A heavy silence.
"Impossible," the Master answered at last, voice clipped and displeased. "We are missing something."
Another pause. The faint scrape of feet on stone. A breath. A shift.
Then—
Nothing.
Silence fell like a blade. Absolute and sudden. No more voices. No more smoke. No more sound at all.
Just the slow, growing fear blooming in my chest like ink in water.
Lianshui, please wake up.
But she didn't stir. And I was alone in the dark. I don't know how long it was.
Minutes? Hours? Time didn't exist in that place. Not without light. Not without breath.
I just floated. Listening to nothing. Feeling nothing but fearing everything.
Then—I felt her stir.
Lianshui? Are you okay? Please. Say something.
A breath. A flutter at the edge of sensation.
Then her voice, faint and frayed but real, brushing against the edge of my mind.
"Miss Mei Lin," she whispered, "I am okay."
The relief hit so hard it nearly knocked the air out of me, even though I hadn't taken a single breath.
You're awake, I said, stupid with relief. You're awake. Thank the gods.
She didn't respond again right away.
"Who… are they?" Lianshui's voice was barely more than a breath. "Why are they… hurting us?"
I wanted to hold her. I wanted to pull her somewhere warm and safe, even if it was only in our mind.
I don't know, I whispered. But I think… I think they're trying to finish the ritual.
There was a long pause. I could feel her confusion, her ache. Every part of her body felt like it had been scorched from the inside out.
The last one didn't work for them, I added. So they're trying again. With us.
"I am scared, Miss Mei Lin," she said.
Hang in there, Shen Kexian and possibly everyone will come to save us.
I prayed that they would arrive before it was too late.
"So that is what we were missing," the Master said.
His voice came from somewhere just beyond the lantern light. Calm. Cold. Certain.
Lianshui stirred. Her breath trembled in our throat. She forced our eyes open, but the world still spun at the edges. Blurred and shifting. She tried to turn her head. To see him.
But the smoke had drained her strength. Even the darkness pulsed too loud.
Still, she spoke.
"Who… are you?"
A quiet step. Then another. His mask came into view—pale and smooth, like bleached porcelain, hovering just above us.
"Goddess of Water," he said. "We underestimated you."
I felt Lianshui's breath catch.
Then he tilted his head.
"And who would have thought… you have another soul inside you?"
I froze. My mind went still.
He knows.
The words echoed through me like ice cracking over a lake.
He knows I'm here.
Lianshui didn't speak. Couldn't. His presence pressed closer, heavier.
"You are... interesting," he said softly. "Both of you."
"Clear out the corpses," the Master ordered. His voice was still calm, but something in it sharpened like a blade being unsheathed. "We need a new ritual first."
The shorter man hesitated.
"Master… you mean—"
"Yes," he said. "Let's separate them. Get the scroll."
My blood turned to ice.
What?
No. No, that couldn't be right.
What do you mean to separate us?
Panic surged like a wave breaking too fast, too high, crashing through my thoughts with no warning.
This is bad. This is really bad. Lianshui, please—please wake up more, we have to get out of here, they're going to—
But she was still slumped, her limbs heavy, her pulse faint and unsteady beneath the skin we shared. I could feel her struggling to stay awake, to keep her grip on the body. But she was fading again.
And I—I couldn't do anything.
The short man moved quickly, muttering to himself, hands already glowing with a faint, pulsing red light. Something in the corner of the cave shifted. A chest opened. A scroll was retrieved, old and brittle and humming with energy I didn't understand.
The Master stepped forward. Slowly. Deliberately.
"I suspected," he murmured, voice low. "Two souls in one vessel. It explains everything."
He stopped just in front of us.
"But soon," he said, "she will be the only one left."
They didn't start the ritual right away.
Instead, more figures entered the chamber. At least four, maybe five, all robed like the others, their faces hidden behind plain masks. They moved without speaking, each one slipping into the space like they'd been waiting just outside, just out of sight.
One knelt beside a skeleton and carefully began to lift its bones, piece by piece. Another gathered shattered skulls into a wooden crate lined with black cloth. A third began to sweep away the ash circles etched into the stone.
They were clearing the room. The Master turned to the short man. "When the space is clean, draw the new array. This time we will anchor her soul before we release the second soul."
Release the second soul.
The words echoed in my head.
Then it clicked.
They mean me.
They were going to tear me out. Rip my soul from Lianshui's body like I was just some splinter jammed in a wound. Separate us.
Oh god. Oh no. This is bad. This is really bad.
I started spiraling. Fast.
What do I do? What do I do? What do I do—
They finished clearing the chamber.
The bones were gone. The floor scrubbed clean. In their place, a new array had been drawn—larger, sharper, more complex than before. It pulsed faintly with a dark blue glow, its edges lined in ink that shimmered like oil over water.
The Master stepped into its center.
His hand began to glow. Faint at first. Then stronger. Like it was heating from within, casting pale, flickering light across the rock.
Lianshui stirred. She lifted her head with what little strength she had left.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked. Her voice cracked on the last word. "Who are you?"
"Goddess of Water," he said, almost gently, "I pity you. But this is not about you."
He tilted his head.
"I just need your power. Nothing personal."
And then—
He activated the array.
At first, nothing happened. There was no flash of light or dramatic sound. Just silence.
Then I noticed something strange. The noise around us faded. It felt like the air had thickened, like the world had been muffled. My thoughts started to echo in my own head, and everything around me began to lose focus.
The lantern's light looked distorted—stretched at the edges. The room seemed off, like the walls weren't holding their shape anymore.
Then the cold started to set in.
Not all at once. It came slowly, inching in like rising water. And it wasn't Lianshui's body that felt it—it was me. I could feel myself slipping, like I was gradually being pushed out of place. Out of the world.
I tried to hold onto something. Anything.
No. This can't be happening. I'm still here. I'm still—
Even my thoughts were starting to fall apart.
"Miss Mei Lin!"
Lianshui's voice broke through, sharp and desperate.
"Miss Mei Lin!"
She kept calling for me, but it sounded distant, like she was yelling from far away. Like we weren't even in the same place anymore.
The cold climbed higher, tightening around my chest. I couldn't see anything through her eyes anymore—just static. Then, nothing at all.
No sight. No sound. Just the odd feeling of falling inward. Like I was folding into myself.
Was this what dying felt like?
It wasn't violent. It wasn't painful. It just… happened. Quiet. Empty. Like releasing something I hadn't meant to let go. And then one last thought stayed with me:
I never said goodbye to Ming Yu.
It hit hard. He would pretend to take the news well. He'd be calm, polite, even grateful. And then, once no one was watching, he would break. I knew it.
That was the part that hurt the most.
I'm sorry, Ming Yu.
And then, without warning, I was yanked back. Hard. Like someone grabbed me and pulled me upright all at once. My chest heaved. I couldn't breathe. I didn't know how.
But I was here again.
The ground came up hard. I felt it—rough stone beneath me, jarring and real. My body ached like it had been dropped from a height.
Lianshui's voice burst through my thoughts, loud and shaking. "Miss Mei Lin! You're here! You're here!"
I blinked, disoriented. Just a moment ago, I'd been sinking into nothing. Now I was slammed back into awareness like someone had thrown a switch. My thoughts spun trying to catch up.
Through Lianshui's eyes, the room was chaotic. Shouting echoed off the walls. Spells cracked through the air. The ritual circle was a mess of smeared chalk and broken lines. People were running. Some had already fallen. Smoke hung low, curling in thick streaks as more spells misfired.
And then I saw him.
White robes. Clear, sharp against the dark.
Lan Wangji.
He didn't hesitate. He stepped forward and cut the ropes binding us with a clean sweep of his sword. The cords snapped instantly. Lianshui crumpled forward, breathing hard, but we were free.
Then another voice came through the noise.
"Lianshui!"
Shen Kexian pushed through the smoke, hair loose, robes streaked with dust and blood. His usual calm was gone. He dropped to his knees beside us, checking our wrists, eyes scanning quickly for damage.
"Are you hurt? Lianshui, can you hear me?" His hands were steady, but his voice wasn't. He paused just long enough to ask, quieter, "Mei Lin. Is she still here?"
Lianshui gave a weak nod. "She's here."
Our breath caught. I couldn't speak. But I was still here.
He let out a shaky breath, half laugh, half relief. "I'm getting you out of here."
Without hesitation, he scooped us into his arms. One swift, effortless motion. As if we weighed nothing. As if he'd done it before. As if he had been waiting to do it all this time.
Our head fell against his shoulder, and I felt the warmth of him. The steady beat of his heart against ours.
Safe. Or getting there.
"Get her to safety!"
The voice rang out across the stone chamber, sharp as an arrow.
Ming Yu.
Of course he was here too. Even half-conscious, my chest twisted at the sound of him.
Shen Kexian didn't pause. He just nodded once, eyes still focused on us, and kept moving.
We burst out of the cave and into the cool night air. The shift from suffocating stone to open forest felt like being reborn.
He didn't stop until we reached the base of a tall tree with thick roots where they tied their horses. He knelt and gently lowered us onto the mossy ground, careful not to jostle the bruises along our wrists.
"Lianshui," he said, brushing the hair from our face. "You're safe now. Just breathe."
She blinked up at him, dazed. Her breath stuttered.
I was still there. Still floating inside. But everything felt distant. Like I had survived a fire only to wake up in smoke.
Shen Kexian reached into his robes and pulled out a flask. He uncorked it and lifted it to our lips.
"Drink this," he said softly.
Lianshui obeyed. The water was cool and sharp, grounding. She coughed once, then took another sip. Her fingers trembled, but he steadied them with his own.
"Lianshui," Shen Kexian said, his voice quiet but steady. "How did you end up here?"
Lianshui blinked, still groggy. "I don't know," she murmured. "I remember falling asleep in my bed… and then waking up in that place."
Shen Kexian exhaled slowly, like he'd been holding his breath since the moment the array sparked to life.
"The Soulthread activated," he said, voice rough with strain. "I felt the pull. The pain. I knew something was wrong." His gaze dropped for a moment, shadows gathering in his eyes. "We came as fast as we could. Mei Lin was right to keep the thread between us… if she hadn't…"
He didn't finish. He didn't have to.
The expression on his face—tight, haunted, too raw to hide—made my chest ache. He looked like he'd been through hell just to get here. And knowing it was for us made it worse.
Tell him he's being dramatic, I whispered through to Lianshui, a small attempt to ease the weight in his eyes. It'll make him feel better. Maybe even smile. Trust me.
Lianshui turned her head slightly and repeated it, her voice light, just a hint of mischief. "Miss Mei Lin said you're being dramatic."
Shen Kexian blinked. For a second, he looked startled. Then he gave a soft laugh—barely there, but real. And without a word, he pulled her into a hug.
"Little monkey," he murmured against our ear, voice thick and trembling, "you have no idea."
My heart stuttered. It wasn't fair—how warm he sounded. How safe.
Seriously, I groaned internally. Why is he doing this?
If I could blush, I'd have gone full imperial peach garden.
Stop hugging us like that. We are not equipped for this kind of softness after being half-sacrificed in a cave.
But Lianshui didn't pull away. And for once, I didn't want her to.
A moment later, the others returned.
Wei Wuxian was the first to step out from the trees, his robes streaked with soot and battle ash. In his hands, he carried a lacquered black box, its surface carved with deep, intricate runes, sealed tight with glowing red talisman paper that pulsed faintly with residual power.
Lan Wangji followed close behind. His sword remained unsheathed, lowered at his side. He scanned the scene in one silent sweep—us, Shen Kexian, the broken remnants of the array—then gave a single, subtle nod. Sharp. Measured. Reassuring.
But it was Ming Yu who ran.
He reached us in seconds, falling to his knees beside our collapsed form, his hands hovering uncertainly like he didn't know whether to check our pulse, cradle our face, or pull us into his arms. His breath came quickly and unevenly.
"Mei Lin," he said, voice tight. "Are you alright?"
Lianshui nodded, still pale but steadier now. "She's here," she said softly. "She's alright."
Ming Yu exhaled—hard. Like he'd been holding every breath since the array flared. The tension drained from him in a visible wave, shoulders sagging as his hand finally rested gently on ours.
I wanted to reach for him. To say something clever. To tease him for being so dramatic. To tell him I was okay.
But all I could do was watch through Lianshui's eyes—and hope that the way she said it, the way he looked at her, was enough.
Shen Kexian turned toward Wei Wuxian. "What happened in there?"
It was Ming Yu who answered, his voice tighter than usual, each word deliberate. "Xiyan Sect."
The name dropped into the clearing like a stone in still water.
Everyone stilled.
"The men who ambushed us wore no sect markings," he continued, his gaze hard. "But when we searched their belongings… we found talismans, cultivation manuals, and formation notes tied to Xiyan's ancient practices. They were trying to absorb her power."
There was a sharp intake of breath from someone in the group.
"But they killed themselves before we could ask why," Ming Yu finished. His expression didn't change, but something in his voice cracked—just slightly. Enough for me to hear the guilt he wouldn't let show on his face.
He nodded toward the lacquered black box Wei Wuxian was now setting gently on the ground. The talisman still pulsed faintly across its seal.
"That's all we recovered. Rituals. Diagrams. Incantations. Everything they used to construct the arrays." His jaw tightened. "Nothing that tells us why."
Lan Wangji's voice cut in then—quiet, level, immovable. "Let's get back first."
It wasn't a suggestion.
The journey back blurred together. We rode fast, in silence. No one spoke much that night.
The next morning, we gathered again. Wei Wuxian spread the documents across a low table in the war tent, his brow furrowed as he read, cross-referenced, and muttered under his breath.
But it didn't help.
We still didn't know who they really were. Or why they needed the power of the Goddess of Water. Or how far this plot had spread.
All we knew was that the ritual hadn't worked. So they tried to force it. Tried to separate me and Lianshui like peeling apart two layers of the same soul.
Lianshui told them what we remembered—how I felt it happening. The pull, the fading. The sense of slipping deeper into myself like water filling my lungs.
"I could feel her unraveling," she said softly. "She wasn't dying… but she was being erased."
Everyone listened in silence. No one interrupted. No one dared.
Because now, it was clear: this wasn't just a cult. It wasn't just politics.
Someone out there believed they could claim a god. And they had been willing to kill for it.
Shen Kexian stood with his arms folded tightly across his chest, his gaze fixed on the floor like it held answers he couldn't bear to speak aloud. The others had fallen into an uneasy quiet, the weight of what had nearly happened pressing down on all of us.
"We don't know if they'll try again," he said finally, his voice low and rough around the edges. "That ritual… it wasn't just dangerous. It was precise. They knew what they were doing. And if we'd arrived even a few minutes later, Mei Lin would've been…"
He stopped. His jaw clenched, and he looked away. Whatever he had been about to say caught in his throat and stayed there. But his face said enough. Pain, fear, guilt—all of it flickering across features usually composed enough to pass for carved stone.
It drove a spike of dread through me.
He's right, I thought. They tried to separate us. And if they had succeeded…
Then Lianshui did something no one expected.
"So… the soul can be separated," she said quietly, turning her gaze toward Shen Kexian. "Can you separate me and Miss Mei Lin?"
Inside her mind, I went still. Lianshui… what are you saying?
My voice echoed sharply in the shared silence of our thoughts. That means one of us has to die. Do you know that?
Shen Kexian froze like someone had thrown a blade through the conversation. His expression, normally unreadable, cracked for the briefest second. Then his voice came, low and urgent.
"Lianshui… no. That—we cannot do that." His tone shifted, suddenly frantic in its calm. "You two share one body. If we separate your souls like this… one of you will not survive."
Across the room, Ming Yu stiffened. His jaw clenched so tightly I thought he might crack a tooth. His hands curled slowly into fists at his sides, silent but shaking with a fury I recognized too well. It was the kind born not from anger—but from fear.
"Release me," Lianshui said.
And just like that, the room forgot how to breathe.
What??No. Lianshui, wait—please, wait!
I started shouting inside her, the words tumbling out of me in a panic I couldn't contain. Let's talk about this. We'll find another way. There's always another way!
But she just sighed, soft and tired, like someone who had been carrying something too heavy for too long.
"Miss Mei Lin," she said gently, and it made my heart twist, because she still called me that. Because even now, she was being so polite. "Would you please calm down… and let me explain?"
I shut up.
She took a steady breath and let it out slowly.
"My time here was fun," she said. "Strange. Scary. And painful in ways I didn't expect." She paused. "But this isn't really living. Not for me. Not for you."
Her gaze dropped to her hands for a moment, then lifted again. "Sharing a body like this... it's too complicated. We're always trying to make it work, but we both know it's not that simple."
She looked at Ming Yu, then at Shen Kexian. Her expression was calm, but tired.
"And we're starting to hurt the people we care about. Even if we don't mean to."
"It's time," she said. Her voice was steady, but there was something in it that had already let go. "Time for me to move on. And let you live your life. You've been holding back for my sake. You didn't ask to share your body. You didn't ask for me. But you carried me anyway. Protected me. Let me feel again."
Her words cut gently, like silk through skin.
"I'm not sad," she said. "I'm ready. I want to start my next journey. Whatever that means. Wherever that might be."
She sounded so sure. So peaceful. And it was killing me.
"Lianshui…"
Shen Kexian's voice broke.
Just that one word. Fragile. Unraveling.
She turned her head slightly, her expression soft.
"Kexian," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "It's time."
"I didn't say goodbye to you last time," she continued, and even her calm wavered for a breath. "This time… let me say a proper one. Will you?"
His throat worked around silence.
Tears welled in his eyes, blurring that perfectly steady mask he always wore. His hands, the same ones that had carried us out of the darkness, curled into the edge of the wooden bench like he needed something solid to keep from falling apart.
No one spoke.
Not Wei Wuxian. Not Lan Wangji. Not Ming Yu.
Because everyone understood what this was.
This wasn't a farewell out of desperation.
It was a choice. A peaceful one. And that made it hurt even more.