The battlefield was quiet now — too quiet. Smoke drifted from the scorched
edges of tents. The ground was soaked in ash and blood.
Victory had come at a cost.
Dozens of soldiers were gone. General Yuwen lay in the medic tent, still
unconscious from blood loss. Ren Xu stood outside, unmoving, his sword
stained from hilt to tip.
Li Xian worked without rest, splinting bones, grinding herbs, whispering
strength into broken men.
But exhaustion clouded her vision. Her hands slipped. A blade still half-
buried in a soldier's side slipped during extraction.
The sharp metal grazed her ribs, cutting through her outer robe and deep
into her side.
She gasped, staggered.
> "Xian!" Ren Xu caught her just before she hit the ground.
Blood soaked through her sash.
Sky shrieked — not a mimicry this time, but a raw cry of panic. He flapped
wildly, circling above her, then landed near her shoulder, nuzzling her hair.
> "Xian hurt! Xian hurt!" he cried again and again.
Soldiers looked up in alarm. Ren Xu carried her to the healer's tent,pressing a cloth to her wound. "Stay with me," he said.
Li Xian gritted her teeth. "Just a cut... seen worse…"
Sky refused to leave her side, pacing the table edge, wings twitching.
The healers stitched her wound by lantern-light. She bit down on a cloth,
her eyes never closing.
That night, the camp was silent — not out of fear, but reverence.
Sky rested on her chest as she slept, feathers rising and falling with her
breath.
And in the stillness, he whispered, "Brave. Li Xian. Don't go. Don't go."
She didn't reply — but her fingers curled faintly around his claw.
Somewhere outside the tent, Ren Xu sharpened his blade. Watching.
Waiting.