Nova stood outside the Lotus Palace as twilight bled into full darkness.
Seven days. Seven days of waiting, of hoping, of telling himself that maybe Luna had just been busy, that maybe she'd send word tomorrow, that maybe—
But there had been nothing.
The ice-blue crystal petals of the palace glowed faintly in the moonlight, ethereal and untouchable, just like the woman who lived within.
Nova's hands trembled, though whether from age or anger, he couldn't say.
Three hundred years. Three hundred years of service, and she couldn't even remember one simple promise. Not cruelty—just... forgetfulness. As if his dying wish carried the same weight as remembering to water a plant.
Maybe that was worse.
"Screw it," Nova muttered, his voice barely audible over the sound of his own heartbeat.
He'd spent three centuries being careful, being obedient, keeping his head down and his thoughts to himself. Three centuries of swallowing his pride, his anger, his disappointment.
What was the point now?
Death was coming either way. At least he could face it having said his piece, having stood up for himself once in this miserable, wasted life.
Nova thought back to his hundred years—no, three hundred years—in the Black Tide Sect. The endless cleaning, the constant vigilance, the way he'd learned to make himself small and invisible just to survive. Swallowing humiliation like bitter medicine, day after day, year after year, century after century.
The broken teeth swallowed in silence. The bitterness his alone to bear.
His legs felt weak as he approached the palace entrance, but he forced them forward anyway. The doors were unlocked—they always were. Luna had no fear of intruders. Who would be foolish enough to enter the Sect Leader's private chambers uninvited?
Me, apparently, Nova thought with a bitter laugh.
The main hall was dark and empty, illuminated only by softly glowing spirit stones embedded in the walls. Nova had cleaned this hall so many times he could navigate it blind. Every tile, every column, every decorative vase was seared into his enhanced memory with perfect clarity.
He opened his mouth to call out—to demand an audience, to air three centuries of grievances—
And then he heard it.
A sound.
Soft, breathless, almost musical.
Coming from the direction of the bathing chamber.
Nova froze.
His first instinct was to leave. This was already dangerous enough without stumbling into... whatever that was.
But something kept his feet rooted to the spot.
Curiosity? Confusion?
Or maybe just the reckless momentum of a man who'd already decided he had nothing left to lose.
The sound came again—a quiet gasp, tinged with something that made Nova's face heat despite himself.
Is she... with someone?
The thought struck him as absurd even as it formed. In three hundred years, Nova had never seen Luna Ophelia show interest in anyone. She was distant, untouchable, as cold and perfect as the ice-blue palace she inhabited.
The idea of her with a companion, a lover, seemed as likely as the sun rising in the west.
And yet...
Nova found himself moving toward the bathing chamber before he'd consciously decided to do so.
This was insane. This was beyond insane. If Luna caught him—
If she catches me, what? Kills me? I'm already dying.
The thought gave him a strange sense of freedom.
The bathing chamber door was closed but not sealed. Wisps of steam curled out from the gaps, carrying the scent of medicinal herbs and something floral. Lotus petals, maybe. How appropriate.
Nova pressed himself against the wall beside the door, his heart hammering so hard he was certain it would burst.
Another sound—half gasp, half moan—drifted through the door.
Nova's mouth went dry.
This is wrong. This is so incredibly wrong.
But he'd come this far. And if he was being honest with himself, after three hundred years of barely being acknowledged as human, after being forgotten like yesterday's dust...
Didn't he deserve something? Anything?
Even if it was just this—this tiny act of defiance, this momentary claim to autonomy?
His hand moved almost of its own accord, finding a small gap in the ornate paper screen that covered the upper portion of the door. Just wide enough to see through if he positioned himself correctly.
Nova leaned forward, his breath held, and looked.
The bathing chamber was wreathed in steam, the air thick and hazy. A large pool dominated the center of the room, its surface scattered with crimson lotus petals that seemed to glow in the dim light of spirit lamps.
And there, at the pool's edge, was Luna Ophelia.
Nova's breath caught in his throat.
She was leaning against the carved stone edge, her head tilted back, her long black hair cascading down like a waterfall of silk. Her eyes were closed, her expression somewhere between pain and something else entirely—something desperate and unguarded that Nova had never seen on her face before.
The water came up to her collarbones, but the steam and the wavering candlelight revealed glimpses of pale skin, the elegant curve of her neck, the delicate line of her shoulders.
Even through his shock, Nova couldn't help but think: she was beautiful. Devastatingly, impossibly beautiful.
But something was wrong.
Luna's breathing was rapid and shallow. Her hands gripped the pool's edge so tightly her knuckles had gone white. The spiritual energy around her flickered erratically, pulsing in waves that made the water ripple and the steam swirl in unnatural patterns.
Another sound escaped her lips—not pleasure, Nova realized with sudden clarity, but distress.
She was in pain.
"Foolish," Luna gasped, her voice strained and barely audible. "So... foolish..."
Her body arched, and the spiritual energy around her surged violently, sending water splashing over the pool's edge.
Nova found himself leaning closer despite every instinct screaming at him to run.
What was happening to her?
Luna's eyes snapped open suddenly, and for one heart-stopping moment, Nova thought she'd sensed him. But her gaze was unfocused, glazed, as if she couldn't quite see the world around her.
"The Primordial Yin-Yang Fusion Scripture," she whispered, and there was something like desperation in her voice. "Should never have... tried it alone..."
Nova's enhanced memory helpfully supplied information he'd absorbed decades ago while cleaning Luna's study. The Primordial Yin-Yang Fusion Scripture—one of the Black Tide Sect's most powerful and dangerous cultivation techniques.
It required balance. Yin and Yang in perfect harmony.
Without a cultivation partner to provide the Yang energy...
Oh.
Oh no.
Understanding crashed over Nova like a avalanche.
Luna hadn't been cultivating normally. She'd been attempting to practice a dual cultivation technique alone, trying to force her way through a bottleneck by sheer will despite lacking the necessary counterbalance.
And now she was paying the price.
Her spiritual energy was eating itself, her Yin essence consuming her from within, pushing her toward what cultivation texts referred to as "demonic possession"—a state where a cultivator's own power turned against them, driving them mad or simply killing them outright.
Luna's body convulsed, and she let out a cry of genuine agony.
Nova should leave. This was none of his business. She'd forgotten about him, dismissed him, treated him as furniture for three centuries.
He should absolutely, definitely leave.
His hand was already reaching for the door handle.
What the hell am I doing?
The door slid open with a soft whisper of wood on wood.
Luna's head snapped toward the sound, her eyes wild and unfocused. For a moment, she seemed not to recognize him.
Then her expression twisted into something between fury and desperation.
"You..." she gasped, her voice barely human. "You dare—"
She tried to stand, tried to summon her cultivation to strike him down, but her body betrayed her. She collapsed back into the water with a splash, her spiritual energy spiraling even more chaotically.
Nova stepped into the room, the steam wrapping around him like a shroud.
Three hundred years of caution.
Three hundred years of obedience.
Three hundred years of knowing his place.
And in this moment, facing the most powerful person in the sect at her most vulnerable, Nova found himself smiling.
Not cruelly. Not mockingly.
Just... wearily. The smile of a man who'd finally, finally reached the end of his rope.
"Sect Leader," he said quietly, his voice steady despite the absurdity of the situation. "It appears you need assistance."
Luna stared at him, her chest heaving, her perfect composure shattered completely.
For the first time in three hundred years, she looked at him—truly looked at him—as if he were actually there.
"You," she whispered, and there was something almost like recognition in her eyes. "You're... the servant..."
"Nova Solis," he supplied, his voice steady despite the hammering of his heart. "Your servant for three hundred years. The one you promised a companion to before I died."
He took another step forward, emboldened by her inability to strike him down.
"I came here to demand you keep your word. But it seems..." His gaze swept over her trembling form, the chaotic spiritual energy swirling around her. "You have bigger problems right now."
Luna's beautiful eyes darkened with fury and shame, even as her body betrayed her with another violent shudder. "How dare you—a filthy servant, a lowly dog—how dare you see me like this!"
The words were venomous, but there was desperation underneath them.
Nova should have felt fear. Should have prostrated himself and begged forgiveness.
Instead, he found himself almost... pitying her.
"Sect Leader," he said quietly. "I may be a servant. I may be dying. But right now, I'm also the only person who can help you."
"Help?" Luna spat the word like poison. "You think I would let a maggot like you touch me? I would rather die!"
But even as she said it, another wave of chaotic energy crashed through her, and she gasped in pain, her grip on the pool's edge tightening until her knuckles went white.
Nova watched her struggle, watched pride and desperation war across her exquisite features.
"Then die," he said simply. "I'll leave. You can maintain your purity and your pride, and tomorrow someone will find your corpse in this bath. A fitting end for someone who couldn't even remember her own servant's dying wish."
He turned as if to leave.
"Wait!"
The word burst from Luna's lips before she could stop it.
Nova paused, glancing back over his shoulder.
Luna's face was flushed—with shame, with rage, with the fever of qi deviation burning through her meridians. Her eyes, usually so cold and distant, were now desperate and wild.
"You..." she bit out through clenched teeth. "You think you understand what's happening? The Primordial Yin-Yang Fusion Scripture is a supreme-tier technique. Without proper Yang energy to balance it, it's tearing me apart from the inside. My cultivation that I've spent centuries building is about to devour itself."
"I know," Nova said calmly. "I've read about it. In your study. While cleaning."
Luna's eyes widened slightly. "Then you know that even attempting to assist would be dangerous for someone at your level. The energy exchange could kill you instantly. You're practically a mortal."
"Yes," Nova agreed. "But I'm dying anyway. So what difference does it make?"
The silence that followed was deafening.
Luna's expression cycled through disbelief, fury, calculation, and finally... something that might have been despair.
"This is absurd," she whispered, her voice breaking slightly. "Impossible. I'm the Sect Leader. You're a servant. You're in Qi Refining. You're old, you're weak, you're—"
"I'm all you have," Nova finished quietly.
He approached the pool's edge slowly, as one might approach a wounded predator. Despite her weakened state, Luna Ophelia was still infinitely more powerful than him. One moment of recovered control and she could erase him from existence.
But she didn't.
Instead, she watched him with those wild, desperate eyes as he knelt beside the pool.
"You know what I think, Sect Leader?" Nova said conversationally, as if they were discussing the weather. "I think you've spent so long cultivating, so long chasing power and perfection, that you forgot something important."
"And what would that be?" Luna's voice was icy, but her body trembled.
"That you're human," Nova replied simply. "That even the mightiest cultivator still has limits. That asking for help isn't weakness—it's survival."
Luna laughed—a harsh, bitter sound. "Philosophical words from a dying servant. How touching."
"Mock me if you want," Nova said. "But your options are: accept my help and live, or refuse and die. Pride doesn't keep you warm in the grave, Sect Leader."
Another surge of chaotic energy, and Luna cried out, doubling over in the water. When she looked up, there were tears at the corners of her eyes—whether from pain or frustration, Nova couldn't tell.
"If I accept..." she said slowly, each word seeming to cost her. "If I accept your help... this changes nothing between us. You're still a servant. I'm still the Sect Leader. This is merely... a transaction. Medical necessity."
"Of course," Nova agreed easily. "Just a transaction."
Luna's hand shot out, grabbing the front of his robe with surprising strength. She pulled him closer, close enough that he could see the fever burning in her eyes, smell the lotus petals in her hair, feel the heat radiating from her skin.
"And if you speak of this to anyone," she hissed, "I will ensure your death is so painful that you'll beg for the mercy of simple oblivion. Do you understand?"
Nova met her gaze steadily. "Understood, Sect Leader."
"Good." Luna's grip loosened slightly, and some of the fight seemed to drain out of her. "Then... help me."
Still not a command. Still a request.
Nova nodded and began removing his outer robe.
The ice-blue crystal petals of the Lotus Palace gleamed in the darkness outside, beautiful and cold and perfect.
Inside, the temperature of the bathing chamber rose steadily. Steam filled the air until it became a hazy, obscuring mist. The lotus petals on the water's surface swirled in gentle spirals as two figures moved together in the ancient dance of Yin and Yang.
Nova, who had been repressed for three centuries, and Luna, whose body desperately craved the Yang energy to balance her technique, became entangled in mutual need.