“Stop!” Rafi’s shout split the air like a struck gong.

Her body, frozen by fear, thawed like ice under a sudden spring sun.

Her knees hit the floor with a dull drumbeat, dust puffing like pale fog.

She hurled her torso forward and flung her arms wide like wings in a storm.

She folded Nina to her chest, a shield of flesh like a tree bracing against wind.

Eyes screwed tight, she met death like a candle ready to burn out in one breath.

Seeing that she‑wolf shielding her cub, Ling’s face pinched with awkward heat like a cloud blotting the moon.

Her outstretched hand crept back like a guilty cat sheathing its claws.

—Great, now I look like some storybook villain wearing a painted skull.

She’d braced for death, but pain never fell, like thunder that never breaks.

She pried her eyes open, trembling like leaves, and met Ling’s winter-still face.

“Why?” Rafi asked, the word fluttering like a lone leaf in wind.

Rafi stared at Ling, whose stone mask gave nothing, save a flicker like a knife of scorn.

“Why what?” Ling’s voice snapped like a dry twig.

“I mean… why not kill us?” Her breath wavered like a wavering candleflame.

A black cloud crossed Ling’s face, her thoughts clattering like pebbles in a gourd.

First, she’d never planned a kill, like a blade left sheathed under snow.

Second, in this scene, how am I supposed to strike without torches coming for me like a righteous hero’s mob?

“I never planned to kill anyone,” she said, voice flat as cold water in a basin.

—At least not since Nina showed up, a moth-soft thought brushed her mind.

Rafi didn’t buy it; that last strike had kissed her life like a knife at the throat.

But disbelief stayed caged like a bird; living now was light borrowed from dawn.

Nina, every inch a little girl, leapt and clung to Rafi like a sparrow to a bough.

Tears burst like summer rain, warm and sudden, soaking a heartbeat.

“Big Sis Rafi… Nina… Nina… doesn’t have to die,” she sobbed, voice ringing like a bell in mist. “Nina can stay with Big Sis Rafi!”

Rafi’s hand smoothed Nina’s hair like palm over soft fur, voice warm as a quilt. “Mm… mm… I know, I know.”

Ling watched the two sink into a pink haze, sweet as candy clouds at dusk.

The air carried a bright orange scent, and it tugged her thoughts toward her own Alicia like a tide moon-drawn.

Right—Rafi’s one of the Demon King’s people; that thread could lead me to the Yanluo King like a path through briars.

“You two… come here,” Ling called, cool as frost on stone, a north wind through a door.

Rafi and Nina sprang up like startled deer; no one wanted to cross the mountain that was this big shot.

On two facing sofas, Ling lifted a cup of red liquid, sipping like testing a pomegranate’s bite.

They said these leaves were grown in the Underworld, dark as embers under ash.

To Ling, it still lost to the soda back home, fireworks in a bottle on the tongue.

She set the cup down, porcelain clicking like a pebble in a pond.

She glanced at the tense pair, their fingers locked like ivy and brick.

From the moment they sat, they spoke without words, pink bubbles rising from their joined hands like cherry petals.

“Ahem!” Ling coughed, a pebble tossed to ripple the quiet.

The already-nervous pair shivered like taut bowstrings plucked once.

“Then… I’ll get straight to the poi—forget it!” she blurted, itch under skin like ants in her sleeve. “Tell me what’s going on, or it’ll gnaw at me!”

Her fingers raked her hair into a bird’s nest, twigs of frustration poking everywhere.

You couldn’t blame her; their sweet lily-scented vibe fanned her gossiping heart like a cat’s tail twitching.

Rafi hadn’t expected that to be the first question, her rehearsed lines scattering like cards in a gust.

Nina, guileless as a brook, spoke up quick and clear.

“Nina was caught by the Daemon race before,” she said, words spilling like beads from a broken string. “I’m here thanks to Big Sis Rafi bringing me back.”

“Oh? There’s a story,” Ling murmured, her eyes lighting like sparks catching dry tinder.

Ling wanted every crumb, curious how someone like Rafi had won this cute girl like a crane coaxed to land.

Maybe one day she’d snatch—no, woo—one herself, like fishing with a ribbon in moonlight.

Rafi gathered her thoughts, a lake settling after thrown stones, and opened her mouth. “I—”

“Shut up!” Ling’s glare cut like a drawn knife, shoving Rafi’s words back down her throat like a cork.

Listening to the little one beats hearing Rafi drone, and Nina’s river kept running, oblivious to banks.

“But first, I need to explain a few things,” Nina said, stacking stones in neat rows with her tone.

She lifted her hair; two cat ears popped out like buds breaking through snow.

She tugged her dress hem, and a tail sprang free like a reed flicking up by a stream.

“Nina’s less than one-tenth Beastfolk,” she said, her voice thinning like mist. “Mother is human, father…”

She bit her lip like swallowing a thorn, and stepped past the grave in her words.

“Forget my parents; I’ll talk about me,” she said, doors shutting softly like rain on shutters.

“From birth, I was unwelcome, a weed between stones under two suns.”

“Half-baked Beastfolk blood kept me from the clans like a bridge missing a plank.”

“My tail and ears barred me from humans like signs painted on every gate.”

“So my father left me at one, tossed like a runt no pack would claim.”

She paused, swallowed a pebble of silence, then let the wind move again through her throat.

“In short, I survived alone in the forest till eleven,” she said, thorns and shade her only blankets.

“This year, the divine race fell from the sky like stars smashed to gravel.”

“Daemons out on a cruel romp netted me like hunters bagging a hare.”

“They planned to send me to the auction house, a cage under bright lamps.”

“They said Beastfolk like me are rare, a curiosity on a hook under a crowd’s gaze.”

“Nina knows,” she whispered, eyes dull as a cracked mirror. “Nina’s an ugly existence.”

Ling snorted, a cold blade of sound scraping stone. “‘Ugly,’ huh? Tasteless outworlders,” she muttered, spitting ash at their so-called taste.