South of the Moon Sect's marble towers, dawn broke cold over the lowlands. Mist drifted between pines and ancient standing stones, and frost clung to every blade of grass like a promise yet to be broken.
Yue Lan rode at the head of the Warden Blades — twenty Moon Sect disciples clad in pale armor, spirit seals bound to their shoulders and wrists. Silver talismans fluttered from their hilts like captive birds.
They moved like a single ghost through the early fog — blades ready, bows strung, every step an oath forged in the Saintess's name. And in their center, Yue Lan looked like ice carved into flesh.
But inside her, the mask frayed.
Each hoofbeat pulled her mind back to a memory she hated — a rain-drenched night on a forgotten trail, a boy half-dead and half-mad, staring at her like the world had betrayed him first and last.
You gave him a sip of hope.
And now you ride to shackle his throat.
At her side, Warden Captain Ruo Han kept his eyes on the trees. He was young for his rank — iron-willed, loyal to the elders, and suspicious of any crack in the Saintess's calm.
He spoke softly so the others wouldn't hear. "We strike at dawn tomorrow. He hunts near the river shrine. The bait's ready."
Yue Lan didn't turn. "The bait?"
Ruo Han shrugged. "A village boy — fourteen. Small enough to look like him once. We bind him to the old stones. The Bloodbound won't ignore a scream."
Yue Lan's fingers tightened around her reins. A tiny tremor cracked the frost on her sleeve.
"Release the child," she said.
Ruo Han frowned. "Saintess—"
"Release him. Use your blades, not your coward's rope."
Ruo Han hesitated — then bowed stiffly, anger coiled behind perfect manners.
"As you command."
They rode on in silence. The mist parted for them, revealing the shrine's broken roof in the distance — half-swallowed by vines and drifting crows.
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That night, Yue Lan knelt alone by the old shrine's spirit pool. Her Warden Blades spread in a loose circle through the trees — silent shadows at the ready.
She dipped her hand in the pool's dark water. The reflection that stared back was not the Saintess — it was the girl beneath, raw and tired and afraid of what came next.
Li Shen. What am I to you now? A cage? A curse? A broken promise?
She felt him before she saw him — the Codex's pulse like a heartbeat in the dark.
When she rose, he was there — standing among the crooked trees, red eyes catching the moonlight through drifting mist. He looked thinner, harder, the Codex's glow a faint crown beneath his collarbone.
For a breath, neither moved. The wind caught his hair. Her spirit threads brushed the edge of his killing aura like silk on a blade.
"You should have run farther," Yue Lan whispered.
Li Shen's laugh was soft — a crack in a stone coffin. "And leave you to bind my ghost anyway?"
She stepped closer. "You know why I'm here."
"Chains," he said. He flexed his fingers — the Codex's runes pulsing up his wrist like veins of molten iron. "Or a sword through my throat."
Yue Lan's breath shuddered. "You could come back with me. I could swear the elders to spare you."
Li Shen's grin was a knife with no sheath. "No you couldn't."
She closed the last step between them — so close she could see the tired boy behind the demon's eyes. Her hand rose, palm hovering over his chest — the place where the Codex glowed, where Ku Mo's hunger pulsed like a second heart.
"I see you, Li Shen," she whispered. "The boy who wants to live. The man who won't kneel."
His voice cracked — softer than a broken prayer. "Then don't bind me."
She looked past him — at the shadows in the mist. She felt her Warden Blades tightening the circle. She saw the trap she herself had set and hated the chains in her own hands more than the demon before her.
Her fingers trembled over his skin.
"Run," she whispered. "Tonight. Before I can't stop them."
Li Shen's eyes flicked to the trees — saw the shapes moving, the faint hiss of talismans unspooling.
He caught her wrist — not gently, not cruelly. Just two ghosts holding on to a memory that couldn't save either of them.
"Come with me," he said.
Her breath caught. For half a heartbeat, the world dared to be simple.
But the trees erupted — silver talismans blazing in the dark. The Warden Blades sprang from mist and shadow — swords drawn, bows ready, the circle closing.
Yue Lan jerked her hand free — mask snapping back into place as if it had never cracked.
"Li Shen — run!"
But this time, he did not flee.
He stepped forward instead, blade half-raised, the Codex's hunger coiling behind his eyes like a storm.
"Then come break me yourself."
The mist swallowed their clash in the hush of steel and breath and promises already betrayed.
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⚡ End of Chapter Thirteen
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