Sleep would not come.
Li Xian sat inside his chamber with the window open to the cold night, waiting for his pulse to settle. The candle beside him burned low, its flame bending toward him as if drawn by the charge in his veins. When his eyes finally closed, the darkness did not stay empty.
It split—quietly, cleanly—like silk torn underwater.
He was no longer in the sect. A city rose around him, built from obsidian and moonlight. Towers floated in the air, each tethered by chains of lightning. Above it all hung a broken moon, spilling silver dust across the sky.
And there, on the throne at the city's heart, sat himself—or what looked like him. The other Li Xian, older, colder, dressed in robes that shimmered between shadow and flame. His eyes were molten silver, and when he smiled, the world bent a little at the edges.
"You've returned," the figure said. "After so many cycles."
Li Xian tried to speak but found no voice. The other one rose, stepping down from the throne. Each footfall echoed like thunder hidden beneath silk.
"Do you remember what you were before they gave you a name? Before you pretended to be mortal?"
The scene shifted without motion. The city melted into a plain of glass stretching beneath a storm. Countless figures knelt there, their faces bowed. Every one of them glowed faintly blue, and their bowed heads formed the pattern of a vast sigil that burned into the sky.
"They called me Tianxu," the other said softly. "But that was only what Heaven feared. What I truly was—what you truly are—lies deeper."
A hand touched Li Xian's chest. The world inverted.
He fell through memories that weren't his:
• A boy standing atop a cliff, defying a god.
• A battlefield where stars fell instead of rain.
• A woman in golden armor calling him by a name he couldn't bear to hear.
Each vision burned away as soon as he reached for it. The voice that followed was neither Tianxu's nor his own—it was older, vast, and sorrowful.
You were meant to guard the gate, not break it.
The pain hit like a blade through the center of his mind. He gasped and woke to darkness. The candle had gone out, the window still open, the air thick with static.
Sweat ran down his spine. His reflection in the glass trembled—not with the wind, but with another presence staring back. For an instant, the eyes in that reflection were not his. They gleamed silver.
A whisper coiled through the room. "Piece by piece, you'll remember. And when you do, Heaven will tremble again."
Li Xian pressed his palms together, forcing breath into his lungs until the tremor eased. The echo faded, leaving him alone with the wind.
He looked toward the mountains beyond the window. "If I was you once," he murmured, "then I'll learn why you fell—before you make me fall again."
The lightning mark on his chest flickered, then steadied.