A Promise Made of Ashes
Yara stood beneath the towering arches of the Supreme Lotus Palace, her presence like winter forged into flesh. Long silver-white hair flowed like moonlit silk down her back, the strands catching lantern light as if spun from starlight. Her icy blue eyes — cold enough to freeze oceans — cut through the air, and even the aura around her felt like frost settling over stone.
Her body was a paradox sculpted by gods: narrow waist and broad hips built with a warrior's grace, powerful thighs beneath a black silk dress embroidered in silver lotus motifs that clung to her curves with lethal devotion. A high slit up her leg revealed pale, carved marble skin that made hearts stumble and throats dry. The dress framed her D-cup chest like armor and temptation wrapped into one.
Fin Ravyn stood beside her — black hair, black eyes — unable to stop the pull in his chest. Even with that coldness radiating from her like a blade, she was stunning enough to unsettle the heavens.
His voice dropped, edged with sincerity and something like longing.
"Yara… if the ones who slaughtered your family still live… I'll kill them. I'll avenge them. I swear it."
For a breath, the world held still — banners trapped mid-flutter, palace lanterns flickering like they were waiting to exhale.
Yara didn't falter.
Her expression remained carved from ice.
She shook her head — one simple movement, but it carried the weight of someone who had already died once just to keep walking.
"They should be long dead by now. 'He' was the Supreme Lotus Emperor who exterminated countless sects, even those innocent. How could he have ever let them live?"
She refused to speak the name.
Her brother's name.
The man who had once held her like a shield against the world.
She wouldn't give him that intimacy anymore. Not even in words.
Fin's heart clenched — he'd reached for something soft, and touched a blade instead.
"…That's right."
His attempt at goodwill collapsed between them, leaving awkwardness like broken glass. He laughed — sharp, self-mocking, a shield against vulnerability — and turned back toward the Crystal Lotus Mirror floating in the center of the hall.
Inside the Crystal Lotus Mirror
Light bled across the polished surface like dawn breaking over water.
A memory unfolded.
A boy — Soren Ravyn, six or seven years old — sprinted through rain-damp streets with a newborn baby cradled against his small chest. His black hair, shoulder-length and tangled, whipped like silk behind him. His blue eyes — bright, shaken, impossibly beautiful even in terror — reflected flames as if the world was burning inside him.
Child.
He was still just a child.
His sandals slapped against the ground as he ran toward home.
But he froze when the world betrayed him.
His home was already gone — swallowed by a wall of flame.
The air shimmered with heat; smoke clawed at the sky.
Figures in long robes — Star Clan Cultivators — hovered like carrion birds above the blaze, their insignias glowing like seven-pointed wounds carved into reality.
As if annihilating the entire Sylvan Family wasn't enough, they moved toward the Ravyn Family Manor without hesitation. The firelight flashed across their weapons — cold metal, colder intentions.
On a hill several miles away, the boy stood trembling — arms tight around baby Yara, her silver-white hair a faint glimmer against the dark.
Fear drained out of him like sand through fingertips.
His heartbeat slowed.
His breath steadied.
His eyes iced over.
Something shattered in that moment.
Outside the mirror, someone whispered, a tremor in their voice:
"This… this is the moment he began turning into the Supreme Lotus Emperor."
People around the Crystal Lotus Mirror exhaled in unison — like they'd been holding their breath without realizing.
Soren watched his home burn.
He didn't scream.
Didn't beg.
Didn't cry.
Then — without looking back — he turned and ran.
Not out of cowardice.
But because he had someone to protect.
Dense forest swallowed him whole.
Twisted trees blotted out the moon, their branches like ribs of some ancient beast. The calls of Sacred Beasts echoed through the night — low growls, snapping twigs, hunger sharpened by the dark.
Mortals once. Cultivators now. Everyone watching knew exactly what a forest like that felt like — the way fear sinks its teeth into your spine, the way shadows feel like eyes.
And there he was.
A child, lost in a mountain that could devour him whole.
A baby in his arms.
"He should be terrified," someone murmured.
"Even adults wouldn't survive long there."
Another voice snapped back, bitter and resentful:
"He should taste fear. He deserves it. It's just a pity Yara had to suffer with him."
But Yara — the adult Yara — remained silent.
Face blank.
Eyes cold.
But… just for a heartbeat, her fingers curled. A tremor. Someone who used to feel.
Soren pushed deeper into the forest.
He found a cave — large enough to swallow the darkness, its entrance veiled by moss and roots. He ducked inside, holding Yara close, her small cries muffled against his shoulder.
Fear should have crushed him.
Instead, his eyes were steady.
His pulse calm.
A child stripped of fear — not because he was brave, but because the emotion had been burned out of him.
Outside the mirror, whispers sparked:
"Even then… he wasn't ordinary."
"He was already becoming something else."
"A monster or a god — maybe both."
Yara's infant wail pierced the cave — raw, trembling, a spark of life in that suffocating dark.
Soren jerked upright, panic flickering under his skin — not fear for himself, but for her. He tried to soothe her — swaying, humming tunelessly, bouncing her gently even as his small arms began to shake from exhaustion.
Time blurred.
Eventually, her cries quieted.
He exhaled raggedly, relief shivering through him.
He stepped back out into the night, searching for food. The forest offered baskets of wild fruit — bright skins reflecting like gems under moonlight.
He gathered them, piling them on a woven cloth of leaves, and for the first time since everything burned…
he smiled.
Barely.
Faint as starlight.
But a smile.
That tiny flicker of warmth twisted something in the hearts of those watching.
Night deepened.
He held Yara as she slept — her small body a fragile warmth against his chest. His arms trembled. Muscles ached. But he didn't put her down.
Not once.
He stayed awake.
Guarding her.
Listening to the forest breathe around them.
When she cried again, hunger clawing at her tiny body, he panicked — grabbing fruit, trying to feed her. But she was too small. Her gums soft, teeth not yet formed.
Outside, someone scoffed:
"What a fool. A baby can't eat fruit."
Their laugh died instantly when Yara's gaze cut to them — a silent blade of ice.
She turned back to the mirror — and for the first time, warmth flickered behind her eyes.
At least then… he cared. He really cared…
So why? Why did he become the monster that took everything?
Hatred rose like bile.
Tenderness drowned beneath it.
Her face reset.
Cold.
Untouched.
Inside the mirror, Soren stared at the fruit — helplessness biting deeper than hunger.
No tool.
No knife.
No clean stone.
So he did the only thing he could.
He bit into the fruit, crushed it in his mouth, softened it — then fed it to baby Yara by passing it from his lips to hers.
A murmur rippled through the hall.
Shock.
Embarrassment.
Jealousy sharper than knives.
Fin Ravyn's fists clenched.
"Damn it… I haven't even held her hand, and he—"
His voice stuck in his throat. He swallowed the words and the humiliation burning his pride.
He couldn't say it out loud — he'd be mocked. Called petty.
So he swallowed his anger like poison and turned to her.
Yara didn't react. Didn't blush. Didn't look away.
She stared at the boy in the mirror — Soren as a child — like she couldn't decide if the memory was a wound or a dream.
Fin leaned closer, his voice low, brittle.
"Yara… are you okay?"
Her answer was a frozen blade.
"I'm fine."
No tremor.
No hesitation.
No warmth.
It should have calmed him.
Instead, it hollowed him out.
His heart sank like stone in water, swallowed by cold.
Only then — only when he found no tenderness left — did his breathing steady.