A cold drizzle hissed through the Whispering Woods, turning fallen pine needles into a slick, russet carpet beneath Mo Lianyin's bare feet. She moved like a fever dream half driven by her own panic, half tugged along by the ancient presence coiled inside her chest.
Keep north, little lotus, Lord Kareth murmured, his voice an icy whisper inside her skull. There is shelter ahead: a cave with an underground spring. Rest while you can.
"Rest?" Lianyin rasped. Her soaked robes clung to bruises she hadn't noticed until now. "The Dawnlight Sect is on my heels. They won't stop until my head is on a spike."
True. But you'll reach that fate faster if you collapse first.
She hated that the ghost was right. Every muscle shuddered in protest with each step. She had been sprinting—then swimming—then stumbling for what felt like endless hours since escaping the temple. Between the new, burning meridians inside her and the guilt clawing at her mind, she was a cracked vessel barely held together by will.
Lightning flashed, illuminating a jagged cliff face only thirty paces ahead. At its base, a dark cleft yawned like the mouth of some stone fox.
"There," she whispered and half-slid down the muddy slope toward it. Her vision blurred as the rain intensified, but she could just make out faint orange glimmers dancing within the cavern.
Firelight, Kareth warned. You may not be alone.
"Any safer out here?" She ducked inside before fear could overrule desperation.
The cave walls narrowed, funneling her toward the glow. The air smelled of damp moss, iron, and something coppery—blood. She stilled, letting her breathing slow the way Kareth's memories taught: inhale to count of four, hold, exhale without sound. A soft crackle echoed ahead, accompanied by a muffled groan.
She edged forward until the passage widened into a chamber lit by a single, struggling camp-fire. There, propped against the far wall, sat a young man in tattered silver-embroidered robes. His hair, pale as frost under the firelight, was plastered to his forehead with sweat. A crimson bloom stained his side where fabric had been hastily bound with a sash.
A sword—broken halfway down the blade—rested across his knees. Runes of suppression flickered faintly along the shards of steel and across the bronze manacle clasped around his left wrist. Even in such a sorry state, the stranger's bearing was unmistakably noble, as if no amount of mud or blood could dull the memory of a throne.
But what drew Lianyin's gaze most was the thin, silver-white filament of light snaking from his chest toward hers, tugging faintly at her sternum like a thread seeking its needle.
She pressed a hand to her ribs. "What in"
The young man's eyes snapped open, revealing irises the cloudy blue of dawn after snowfall. He scrambled for the broken sword, but pain wrenched a hiss from his lips.
"Stay back," he rasped. "I have nothing worth stealing."
Sealed cultivation, Kareth noted. See the inscription on that shackle. Someone shackled his core before leaving him to die.
Lianyin raised both palms in a gesture of truce. "If I wanted to rob you, I'd have done it already." Her voice trembled less than she expected. "Your wound's festering. Let me look."
He studied her—wild hair, rain-soaked rags, bloodstains—and clearly weighed his odds. Finally, exhaustion beat pride. He slid the sword aside with a clang. "Fine. Just… don't touch the shackles."
She knelt, peeling back the improvised bandage. An ugly puncture gaped near his ribs, surrounded by angry red streaks. The scent of rot confirmed infection. Beneath the crusted blood, she spotted a familiar sigil scorched into his flesh—three concentric circles broken by a sword of light.
"Dawnlight Sect mark," she muttered.
His jaw clenched. "Also known as attempted murder. They called it purification."
Their eyes locked—two strangers united by fresh scars. Without thinking, Lianyin tore a strip from her ruined sleeve, dipped it in the spring pooling at the chamber's edge, then pressed the cloth against the wound. The young man sucked a breath through his teeth, but didn't flinch away.
"I'm Lianyin," she offered. "Mo Lianyin."
A humorless chuckle. "Soren Aldir." He paused, as if waiting for recognition that never came. "Formerly Crown Prince of Ashmark."
Something about the title tugged at the Demon King's memories inside her. Ashmark… a minor border kingdom that dared shelter demon-blooded families. Dawnlight burned it last week. Kareth's tone darkened. I felt their pyres from half a continent away.
Lianyin swallowed hard. "How did you escape?"
"Didn't." Soren gestured to the sealing manacle. "They butchered my guards, slaughtered our scholars, then bound my cultivation and left me for the beasts. Said a prince corrupted by demons should feed crows, not courts."
Thunder rolled outside, punctuating his words. Lianyin rinsed the cloth again. "Hold this yourself." She guided his hand to press the compress. Her fingertips brushed his, and the silver filament between them pulsed—warm, rhythmic, unsettling.
They both jerked back.
"You saw that?" Soren whispered.
"I feel it. Like… a thread." Lianyin flexed her fingers. Shadows licked across her palm, smothering the camp-fire glow until she willed them still. "I don't know what it means."
Soren eyed the darkness curling around her hand. "I do." He leaned closer, studying her crimson irises with haunted fascination. "Soul-threads form only between fated cultivators—bonded lives. If one dies, the other feels the tear."
A chill crawled down her spine. She thought of the disciple she'd slammed into stone hours ago. If this bond meant Soren would share any death she reaped…
Kareth interjected, Threads can be severed, guided, or strengthened. For now, it proves he cannot intend you harm—killing you would risk himself. A useful ally.
Lianyin ignored the calculating tone. "I'm being hunted," she warned Soren. "The same sect that left you here." She explained—in as few words as possible—the massacre, the hidden passage, the voice that guided her. She left out the name Kareth, but Soren was quick.
"You host a demon soul." No accusation, just realization. "Yet you saved me. That complicates the sermons I was raised on."
"Your kingdom was destroyed by those sermons," she said softly.
He managed a weak laugh. "Fair." Then winced as fresh blood seeped around the cloth.
She needed herbs, but the forest was treacherous in the dark. Her gaze fell to the shadows pooling near the cave wall. Could my power…? The idea sickened her, but Soren's fevered breath quickened.
"Forgive me," she whispered, pressing two fingers to his wound. Darkness bled from her skin, sinking into the gash like spilt ink. Soren stiffened, eyes wide, but pain faded from his features. In seconds, the inflamed flesh cooled; the bleeding slowed. When she withdrew, the skin knitted crudely but firmly—a scab of living shadow.
He touched the patch with awe. "You harvested pain."
"I borrowed it," she corrected, unsettled by how easy it had been. "It'll return if you push yourself."
Footsteps echoed down the outer tunnel—multiple sets splashing through shallow puddles.
"Search every cave," a distant voice ordered. "Our compass shows demon taint nearby."
Soren attempted to rise, but the manacle flashed and drained what little strength he'd regained. He sagged. "Leave me. They're after you. I'll only slow"
Lianyin grabbed the broken sword, balancing its weight. "If that thread truly connects our lives, I'm not leaving you to die. Besides, two targets mean twice the confusion."
Atta girl, Kareth crooned. The world expects demons to destroy, not defend. Use that.
She ignored him. "Can you walk if I help?"
Soren managed a nod.
They extinguished the fire, plunging the chamber into darkness save for faint moonlight spilling from cracks above. Lianyin guided Soren toward a rear fissure she hoped led deeper, her free hand summoning silken wisps of shadow to mask their presence.
A lone tear rolled down her cheek—grief for Master Chen, for little Tam, for a crown prince who'd lost a kingdom. But when it fell, the darkness swallowed the droplet without a sound, as if night itself refused to witness her sorrow.
Together, thread bound and hunted, they slipped into the cavern's throat while dawn's first pale light struggled to pierce the storm-clouds outside.
And somewhere far away, under the dying embers of the Temple of Last Mercy, the Dawnlight Sect's spirit-compass spun violently, its needle locked on two intertwining pulses: one demon, one human, both destined to shatter the world or save it.