Caiyi stumbled through the Qi clan compound, Lethean's blood-drenched form cradled tightly in her arms. Her face was a mask of pallid shock, the elder's words—"vein-locked trash"—echoing like a death knell in her mind.
Her heart ached with a sorrow so profound it threatened to swallow her whole. She had felt Lethean's desperate, innate hunger for power since the day he was born. She knew this verdict would shatter him.
Shaking her head violently, she tried to bury the terrifying thoughts. She had to focus. She had to save him.
She glanced down at his limp body, her worry a sharp, physical pain. Yet, a sliver of relief pierced the panic. Though most of Elder Qi Mo's medicinal energy had dispersed, the wisp that had circled his body had done its work, knitting together the worst of the internal tears and cracks. It was no longer immediately life-threatening.
Stumbling through the door of their small, dilapidated courtyard, she rushed to their humble bed, laying him down with trembling reverence. She dashed to a small, wooden chest, frantically pulling out the meager pouch of resources allotted to slaves each month. Her fingers closed around a single, low-grade healing pill.
Returning to his side, she crushed the pill into powder, gently tipping it into his mouth and using a trickle of her own spiritual energy to guide it down his throat. She then placed her palms on his chest, her face a portrait of fierce concentration as she carefully guided the pill's energy through his ravaged meridians, praying for a miracle.
---
Meanwhile, in the depths of his unconsciousness, Lethean stirred.
He found himself standing in a vast, endless desert under a cruel, blazing sun. The ground was parched yellow earth, and a wind heavy with heat and dust whipped at his servant's robes.
"Where… is this place?" he muttered, his voice a dry croak in the immense silence.
As he surveyed the barren wasteland, the ground began to tremble. On the horizon, where there had been nothing, four faint silhouettes now flickered, obscured by a rising sandstorm.
The wind howled, whipping his long, silver hair across his face. Squinting against the sun's blinding rays and the stinging sand, he began to walk toward the distant figures.
With every step, the sandstorm intensified. Grains of sand lashed his skin like tiny daggers, leaving angry red marks on his pearl-white skin. The silhouettes seemed to recede the closer he tried to get, a maddening, paradoxical distance.
Gritting his teeth, he broke into a run. His heart began to pound, not with fear, but with a strange, primal excitement that thrummed in his very blood. It was a call. A summons.
The wind roared, now a physical wall threatening to halt his progress. He tripped, falling hard onto the scorching sand. He cried out as the heat seared his palms and knees. Pushing himself up, he saw his skin was red and blistered, but he felt no pain—only a burning, stubborn determination.
He ran again, driven by a need he couldn't understand. He could hear them now—faint, distant roars that were not of anger, but of… reverence. Of praise. They echoed in his soul, and an intense, desperate longing bloomed in his chest.
He had to reach them.
He pushed forward one more step into the gale. The force was unimaginable. It lifted him off his feet and threw him backward as if he were a leaf, a raw shout tearing from his throat as he landed hard.
He climbed to his feet, staring at the four luminous figures that now shone like beacons through the storm. He tried to step forward again, but this time, a light—pure, blinding, and absolute—erupted from the figures and consumed him.
---
Back in the small room, Caiyi poured the last of her energy into Lethean. Suddenly, a brilliant, terrifying light erupted from his chest, throwing her back with a gasp.
She scrambled backward, hand flying to her mouth to stifle a scream. It was the same light that had heralded his birth—the light that had killed his mother. Pure horror iced her veins.
The light pulsed, growing so intense it filled the entire hovel. Then, as quickly as it appeared, it recoiled, sucking back into Lethean's body.
Where a bloodied, broken boy had lain, now rested Lethean, perfect and whole. Every wound was sealed. Every trace of blood was gone. His skin was once again flawless pearl, and he seemed to radiate a faint, otherworldly calm.
His eyelids fluttered open. The events of the hall and the overwhelming, mysterious dream rushed back. The memory of those four silhouettes made his blood sing with that same strange, boiling excitement.
He took a sharp, steady breath and turned his head.
His mother sat frozen beside the bed, the look of sheer horror slowly melting from her face, replaced by dazed confusion and then overwhelming, tearful joy.
She lunged forward, pulling him into a bone-crushing embrace.
"D-don't… don't ever scare mommy like that again… okay?" she sobbed, her voice ragged, tears soaking into the shoulder of his robe.
Lethean froze for a moment, surprised by the force of her emotion. Then, with a tenderness that belied his age, he brought his small hands up and gently stroked her back, comforting her as she cried.
Eventually, her sobs subsided. She pulled back, cupping his face in her hands, her eyes red and swollen. "You must think I'm so silly, crying like a baby," she whispered with a soft, watery laugh.
Lethean didn't smile. He just looked at her, his deep blue eyes holding a new, unreadable depth. Then he moved, darting back into her arms and burying his face in her shoulder.
"Thank you," he whispered, the words so quiet they were almost lost.
Caiyi paused, her heart swelling. She wrapped her arms around him again, resting her cheek on his snow-white hair, holding the boy who was her entire world.