“So this is Xiao Village where you and your sister live—nice view, like hills breathing under a pale sky.” Eli cradled his head and moved forward, one slow step after another, like a weary pilgrim on a gravel path.
His chest tightened first, a weight like cold iron; only then did the thought settle. When he digs up his lost healing memories, he’ll set them like warm lamps and treat Edlyn properly.
So young, forged into a blade—pity cut like winter wind. And her mind, sometimes fogged like a river at dawn.
Edlyn ignored him and slipped a necklace from her neck, the door key glinting like a drop of ice, ready to speak to the lock.
Eli watched, curiosity flickering like a moth near flame. “Wait, if your sister’s home, why’s the door still locked?”
Edlyn frowned, lines tightening like ripples on a pond. “In a tiny village like this, everyone does that. If you go out and don’t take the kids, you lock them in, like chicks kept safe in a coop.”
She pointed around; the empty lane lay quiet as a dry streambed. “Don’t you think the people we passed were far too few, like leaves thinned by a hard frost?”
Eli nodded, the gesture small as falling ash. “Yeah. Did something happen, like a storm that never left?”
“I’m not sure.” Her confusion shook like reeds in a wind. “When I first moved in, the elders told me something like that.” She turned the key and opened the door, a soft click like a pebble dropped in water.
Eli stepped inside. First impression: clean, like a room washed by rain—or rather, sparse, like a hillside with only a few stones.
The living room was small, two little sofas like paired shells. A table crowded with potions sat sealed behind clear crystal, a frozen pond trapping bright fish. Beside it stood a shelf swollen with books, a stacked forest of paper trunks.
The kitchen opened next; on the small dining table, an empty bowl sat like a moon after the tide, proof the little master had already eaten.
There must be a bedroom as well, a quiet cove behind a door.
Edlyn didn’t bother with Eli’s glancing here and there, sparrow-quick; she opened the bedroom. Inside, a girl in pink lay still, like a blossom asleep on spring soil.
Edlyn stepped close and gently shook her sister, a touch light as raindrops on petals.
The little one rubbed her eyes, lids heavy as dusk. “Mm… Sis, you’re back.”
Edlyn stroked her hair, fingers smoothing like wind over grass, and sighed; the future felt misty again, a road disappearing into low cloud.
Eli leaned on the doorframe, a tree-shadow keeping watch, as the two hugged like twin shoots. His pity rose, a tide pulling higher over a stony shore.
Not far away, at the village edge, weeds swayed like green knives.
“A mass grave in a place like this, bones sleeping under a thin sky.” The man in white robes pressed at blood-holes in his waist, red seeping like wine, then wiped his mouth, the smear bright as sunset.
Weimi stepped up, worry flickering like a candle in wind. “Sir, are you okay?”
The white-robed man shook his head, a dry leaf brushing off rain. “I’m fine. Took a few spears of light—won’t die today.”
Sande and Pelin stood with their mana half sealed, faces drained like lanterns after midnight.
Pelin’s anger snapped, a spark leaping from iron. “Isco, why didn’t you tell us he was a Hero?”
The white-robed man—Isco—gave a cold laugh, steel on stone. “Didn’t I say he mattered? You wanted trouble, stirring muddy water. If I hadn’t watched from the shadows, he might’ve killed you, quick as a hawk.”
“You—” Pelin took a step, thunder coiling, but Sande barred her with an arm, a fallen branch across a path.
He shook his head, calm settling like snow. “Enough, Pelin.”
“Hmph.” Her snort was a hot coal, but she dropped it and held her tongue.
Isco drew breath to mock, then stilled; a prickle ran over him like frost. His eyes sharpened, and he stepped back, one pace like a pebble skittering down a slope.
Above, the sky burst with bats, a black rain fanning wide. They swarmed Pelin and Sande, who had no defense, and in a heartbeat—no time for a scream—they fell as husks, bodies crumpled like dried leaves.
Their faces twisted in pain, masks carved by lightning, telling how much agony burned them in that single blink.
Isco pulled the stunned Weimi behind him, a shepherd guarding a lamb, and narrowed his eyes, blades sheathed but ready. “Didn’t expect a dump like this to hide a marquess-tier Bloodkin, a shadow lord under a waxing moon.”
The bats scattered, smoke unraveling, and a man in black stepped out with a gentle smile, warm as tea yet wrong as midnight. “Oh my, someone knows the Bloodkin that well. I ought to give you a proper welcome, like a host with sharp wine.”
Isco’s face tightened, granite under strain. At his peak he’d not fear this man, mountain against mountain; but Eli had just wounded him, and Weimi needed shelter like a chick under wing. His look soured, storm-cloud gathering.
“I, this king, took a stroll days ago, a walk through fields and markets.” The Bloodkin in black glanced around, playful as a cat with silk. “Came back to find my lovely neighbors gone, a street emptied like a drained well. Those people did it, didn’t they?”
Isco took off his mask, the gesture a curtain lifted, and pointed to the X at his eye corner, a brand like scarred bark. “At your tier, you know our organization—the New Era Sect.”
He could only hope the Bloodkin would spare them for that name, a talisman raised in a storm.
Facing a marquess-tier monster now was a dream on thin ice.
The Bloodkin saw through him, easy as a hawk seeing mice. He glanced toward the mountain village where Eli and the others stayed, a slope holding small fires.
“Don’t circle me with questions.” He smiled, winter bright. “That little mountain village—every creature there is my blood thrall, my field of red grain. And now, there’s an uninvited guest trampling through.”
He stopped and studied Isco, smile like a blade wrapped in silk. “Do you understand?”
Isco frowned, lines cutting his brow like plowed earth. He knew who stood ahead, mountain casting mountain’s shadow. He figured the man was weighing costs; beating Eli would take blood like rain. So he was hunting a helper—or a scapegoat to feed the wolves.
