“Ah!”
With a blade-sharp scream, the three smashed through the ice like glass and burst free. Bai Zhi looked ragged compared to the other two, yesterday’s wounds still blooming like bruised petals under frost. Poor Tangxue thought a week-long prison would hold; it didn’t last a single minute.
“Qianya, you could’ve cracked that ice in a heartbeat. Why wait a minute?”
“Before you ask me, Miss Xuewei, why did you wait?” Her voice curled like smoke in winter air.
“…I was waiting for you to move first.”
“So was I.”
“Liar.”
Qianya smiled, walked a few paces, and lifted her chin to the sky, its clouds like a frozen mirror. “Mm. Time’s about right. We should give chase.”
“…?”
“You really don’t get me, do you?” Qianya looked at Xuewei, exasperation like a sigh of cold wind. “The brother you adore is flying toward the ice up there. Aren’t you going?”
“!”
Xuewei went pale as moonlight, her face shifting like a storm of clouds. A beat later, she kicked her magic into a violent surge and blasted toward the sky like an arrow.
“Hey, hey… what did you tell my dear sister?” Bai Zhi’s guard rose like a drawn curtain. She’d barely climbed out of the ice when Xuewei rocketed upward into the cold.
“Chasing her beloved brother, of course.” Qianya’s smile showed the glint of a sly fox under starlight. “By the way, Bai Zhi—shouldn’t you do something? World-saving is a big deal. As a ruler, sitting here to wait for doom doesn’t fit your crown.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you won’t lift a finger, lend me the Saintflame Orb the Korlinveil lineage has guarded. I’ll break the ice. If you’ll come with us, don’t lend it. As long as it does its job.”
Bai Zhi went quiet, her gaze steady as winter ice on the Queen of the Blood. She hunted for a crack in Qianya’s eyes and found none; only a tilted head and a fox-sly smile.
“Fine. If that’s truly what you’re after.” She drew a deep breath, the air cold as steel. She could feel Qianya’s feelings for Tangxue were real, a coal glowing under snow. So she would help. The Saintflame Orb was their ancestral relic, a sun sealed in crystal. Whole, it could grant a common person god-tier power—roughly what Bai Zhi held now. New emperors once relied on it before they reached the divine. In her branch, they hadn’t needed it for generations.
“So generous, Bai Zhi.” Qianya’s tone skimmed the edge of mockery, but her gaze steadied like a blade. “I’ll work hard for your share too. You guard your people.”
“Then I’m counting on you.” Bai Zhi’s voice carried a clean chill. “If the Blood Clan is in danger, I’ll help—so long as the Radiant Empire stays safe.”
“No need.” Qianya’s smile was soft as falling ash. “If you can’t help yourself, help then. I trust my people in a crisis.”
Even if they all die, it’s fine. Her true loyalties had burned out during the empire’s coup, leaving only gray embers. The ones who lived were numb officials, reeds bending to any wind. In her heart, only Qingsheng Tangxue remained like a single flame in a long winter.
Bai Zhi watched her, and misread that ash as warmth. She moved herself with her own story, like a prayer in the cold. “I will. Go safely.”
“?”
Qianya’s brow lifted, as if she’d felt a curse brush her shoulder. She said nothing. She turned, leaped, and unfurled ghost wings like a storm-black canopy. A hard gale tore past. She vanished into the sky.
“The future of the world rests on you… take care.” Bai Zhi lifted her eyes to the starfield, closed them, and offered a blessing like a candle in wind. Then she remembered the mess Tangxue had left behind.
“For the love of—why freeze an entire city?!”
…
The higher they flew, the colder the air bit, like knives in clear glass. At a certain height, time and space held still, a winter pond without ripples. Dizziness rolled in like fog, and both Xuewei and Qianya faded from the open sky.
“Where… am I?”
Xuewei sat up from wet grass, the blades glistening like dew-lit needles. Above her stretched an endless sea of stars, night draped like velvet. A moon hung huge and silver, a coin pressed into the dark.
“Right… I came to find my brother… but this place—?”
“We blacked out mid-flight,” Qianya’s voice drifted from behind, soft as a shadow over snow. “Do you remember what happened?”
Xuewei turned toward the voice, and memory surged like water breaking a dam. “We got close to my brother. She countered us. We got lost in the ice shadow. You used the Saintflame Orb to blast the ice. Then we blacked out.”
“Right.” Qianya nodded, her head dipping as if weighing stones. “We opened our eyes and found this place.”
“Hey, Xuewei…” She started to say more, then let it go like breath in the cold, mindful of Xuewei’s… processing speed.
“What?”
“Nothing. Let’s look around. This feels like the inner space of the ice. Maybe Tangxue is here.”
“Got it.” At the word “brother,” Xuewei sparked back to life, flipping up from the damp ground like a springing cat. She scanned the surroundings, the air smelling of wet earth.
“There are houses nearby. Should we check them?”
“Why ask me?” Qianya watched her with interest, eyes like lanterns in dusk.
“Go together. I don’t want you slipping away behind my back.” Xuewei threw her a cool glance, a blade in silk.
“Sure.” Qianya’s smile curved like a crescent. She had no plan to run. She knew her place in Tangxue’s heart sat below Xuewei’s, a star dimmer than a moon. If they split and danger rose, he would save his sister first. So staying with Xuewei was wise.
They straightened their clothes, shaking off clinging dew like silver threads, then sprinted toward the buildings. Some field pressed down on the air, grounding their magic like snow packed hard. But Qianya’s ghost wings could still carry her a short glide.
From above, she saw a vast plain spread like a frost-white sheet, and a black forest crouched not far off like ink spilled on paper. Ahead rose a gigantic academy, its gate arching like stone antlers in the night.
“Why is there an academy here?!” Confusion clanged in her chest like iron. The stranger it seemed, the more certain she felt Tangxue’s trail lay there.
Must go.
As they closed in, Qianya landed with Xuewei and folded her wings like night folding its cloak. They walked toward the academy, passing clusters of students flowing in like a tide.
