Kael's world was dark, filled with the sharp, jangling echo of thunder and the feeling of being
torn apart. He was vaguely aware of being lifted. He smelled a faint, impossible scent of
winter-lotus and something burning.
When he finally woke, it was to a dull, throbbing ache. He was in a small, clean room. Not the
orphanage. A rented room above a quiet teahouse. Lin Yue was sitting in a chair by the window.
She was not the ice-goddess. She was… tired. Her perfect blue robes were smudged with dust
and a small, dark stain he recognized as his own dried blood. Her hair was not in its intricate
style; it was tied back simply. She was pale, and for the first time, she looked her age. Nineteen.
And she looked worried.
"You're awake," she said. Her voice was flat, but her shoulders, which had been rigid, slumped
in relief.
"How long?" Kael rasped. His throat felt like sandpaper.
"Three days." She pushed a cup of water toward him. He tried to sit up, hissing as his entire
body lit up with pain. His broken arm was in a splint. A crude, wooden one.
"I… I couldn't heal you," she said, her voice quiet, frustrated. "Your body... it's still void. My Qi
can't enter. I can't mend your bones or clear your meridians. I had to… I had to hire a mortal
physician. He set the bone. He said… he said the lightning should have turned your organs to
ash. He doesn't understand how you are alive."
Kael looked at his arm. He could already feel the bone knitting. His passive regeneration,
supercharged by the "experience," was working overtime. What would have taken a mortal
months was taking him days.
"The orphanage?" he asked, his voice rough.
"Safe. The wall is… being rebuilt. I paid for it. The matron thinks you are a god." She paused.
"Kael. Yan Fei is gone. He fled. But the battle… it was seen."
She stood and walked to the window. "A message came. Yesterday. From my sect."
"They're coming for you," he stated.
"They gave me a choice." Her voice was devoid of emotion, a cold, clinical recitation. "Return to
the Sect. Face the disciplinary council for striking a sect-ally. Accept punishment... which would
be the 'Ice-Bind' prison for a decade. And, of course... abandon you to Yan Fei's family to
'appease' them."
Kael's blood ran cold. "And the other choice?"
"Be branded a traitor. A rogue cultivator. To be hunted by my own people, and by the Raging
Sky Sect. To lose everything. My home, my status, my Path."
She turned to look at him. Her face was calm. "I destroyed the messenger-glyph."
Kael's breath caught. He stared at her. This woman... this arrogant, cold, terrifyingly powerful
prodigy... had just thrown her entire world into a fire, for him. For a "mortal cripple." For an "ant."
"Why?" he whispered.
Lin Yue was silent for a long time. "I have followed the Path of my sect since I was five," she
said, her voice distant. "It is a path of power. Of 'efficiency.' Of logic. You… you are illogical. You are inefficient. You are, by every measure, weak. And in that street, when that lightning struck,
you were the strongest person I have ever seen."
She met his gaze. "I am a cultivator of the Dao. And your Path... it is a Dao I need to
understand. Even if it costs me everything."
She had made her choice. She was a pariah. And, in a world that had only ever seen her as a
tool or a prize, she was, for the first time, free.