The pact sealed, the Red Sigil vanished with the dawn wind — a flicker of cracked laughter and drifting embers that stained the snow red where he sat. He left no staff, no bones — only a promise humming behind Li Shen's ribs like a fresh scar.
By midday, the wind drove them down from the shrine's frozen crown. Li Shen and Yue Lan picked their way along an old goat trail, pines hunched like black ghosts on the slopes above.
Below, the lowlands waited — valleys thick with drifting mist and rumors of blades hidden behind every prayer flag.
---
They found shelter by dusk — an abandoned watchtower from some old sect's border war. Stone walls half-collapsed, roof open to the stars, but it was enough. Yue Lan kindled a fire in the tower's old hearth, feeding it scraps of spirit moss she gathered under frost-bitten pines.
Li Shen watched the flames. He felt the Codex's whisper — quieter now, its hunger more a caged tide than a crashing storm.
Your leash, Ku Mo rasped behind his teeth, will snap. Your blood will call me back. One day—
Li Shen shut the voice out. He focused instead on Yue Lan — on her gentle hush as she traced healing sigils along the bruise blooming under his ribs.
"You should rest," she murmured.
He caught her wrist — not hard, not pleading, just there. "You first."
She almost smiled — but it faded. "If I sleep, I dream of them."
Li Shen knew who she meant: the Warden Blades she'd ordered aside, the Saintess she'd buried in the frost behind them.
He squeezed her hand. "Then dream here."
---
They fell asleep that night side by side — not quite touching, but close enough that the chill couldn't slip between them. Above, stars turned like quiet watchers behind drifting ash clouds.
---
By dawn, the storm broke.
Li Shen felt it before he heard it — a ripple of Qi brushing the edge of his dreams. A scent of blood on snow, a whisper of silk and steel gliding through drifting mist.
Yue Lan's eyes snapped open at the same heartbeat his did.
He rose first — blade in hand, boots scraping old stone. Yue Lan's threads shimmered awake around her wrists.
Through the tower's cracked window they saw them — pale shapes slipping between the pines below. Robes trimmed in black jade, talismans coiling up their sleeves like leashed snakes.
Sect blades. Not mercenaries. Not bounty hunters.
Moon Sect — the elders' personal hands.
And at their head: a figure robed in shadow-dyed silk, hair bound by seven iron pins, a talisman mask hiding all but burning eyes.
Elder Zhuan.
Yue Lan's breath caught. She had not spoken his name in months — not since she first stepped out of the sect's marble halls with Li Shen's ruin chained behind her heart.
"He's here himself," she whispered.
Li Shen felt the Codex's runes stir under his skin. "Good."
Yue Lan turned, spirit threads drifting like frost from her fingers. "He trained me, Li Shen. He's not like the others. He'll bind your spirit and burn your bones clean."
Li Shen's grin cut sharp and cold. "Let him try."
---
Below the tower, Elder Zhuan raised a single finger. His blades spread out — silent wraiths drifting over old snow, feet leaving no trace, talismans drinking the moonlight.
His voice reached them on the wind, calm as stone.
"Li Shen. Yue Lan. Come down. Do not make this uglier than it must be."
Yue Lan's throat tightened. She glanced at Li Shen — his eyes already glowing with the Codex's new, chained storm.
"What if we run?" she murmured.
He laughed — low, raw, bright as the stars above.
"Then he hunts. If we stand, he bleeds."
---
They stepped through the broken arch — frost biting their ankles, the tower's warmth left behind. Wind whipped Yue Lan's hair across her eyes; she didn't push it away. Her spirit threads burned bright enough to paint sigils in the mist.
Li Shen stopped ten paces from Elder Zhuan. The old master's talisman mask shifted, catching the faint dawn light.
"You are still a boy playing with knives," Zhuan said, voice like dry snow sliding down stone.
Li Shen's grin bared teeth. "And you're still a priest playing at king."
He drew his blade — steel humming with Ku Mo's chained snarl.
Beside him, Yue Lan raised her hands — threads flickering like lightning waiting for the first drop of rain.
Above them, the stars watched in cold silence.
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⚡ End of Chapter Twenty
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