The disc before her spun silently.
Not fast, not urgent — just steady. Like time itself.
It hovered just above the marble floor of the Hall of Judgment, casting faint reflections in gold, silver, and ember-red. Three colors. Three paths.
And all of heaven watched.
Lian Qiao stood in the center, flame-mark pulsing faintly beneath her robes, her heart thudding like a war drum in her chest. The Council's voice still echoed in her bones:
"Three paths.One fate.Choose your trial.Choose your truth."
She didn't understand all of it.
But she felt it — a tug deep in her spirit, like her soul had been waiting lifetimes for this moment.
She reached toward the disc.
But before her fingers touched it—
"Wait."
The voice was smooth, sharp, glacial.
Xue Ran.
Standing now just steps away, her eyes glittering like frozen rivers, her smile polite — and poisoned.
"Does she even know what she's choosing?" Xue Ran asked, turning to the Council. "A soul so newly awakened should not be forced to walk paths she cannot comprehend."
Qiao bristled. "I can understand plenty."
Xue Ran tilted her head. "Oh? Then tell us, Lian Qiao—do you know what the Path of Ice demands?"
Before Qiao could speak, the Council did.
"The Path of Ice," they intoned, "requires the sealing of emotion. A vow of clarity above chaos. It is the path of discipline, of restraint — the power of distance, honed to perfection."
Xue Ran stepped forward. "It is the path I walk."
She looked at Yujin then, just for a breath longer than was polite.
Lian Qiao felt it.
Then:
"The Trial of Flame," the Council continued, "is born of memory. It is chaos, heart, defiance. It demands pain be relived — and wielded. Those who walk it may burn… or become the fire."
Qiao's throat tightened.
"And the third?" she whispered.
The disc slowed.
"The Binding Thread," the Council said. "A path of unity. It is not strength alone, nor sacrifice alone, but a tether between fates. A choice of connection — even if the cost is never knowing where you end and another begins."
Now she looked at Yujin.
But he was still, unreadable, his eyes locked on the disc — not on her.
Lian Qiao closed her eyes.
She felt the world fall away.
The cold of judgment.The warmth of memory.The faint tremble of a thread still tied to her soul.
She saw flashes:
The garden of black peonies.
The screaming winds of her dream.
The blade between them, humming with recognition.
And beyond it all… him.
Mo Yujin.
Not as a weapon. Not as a savior.
But as the other half of a story interrupted.
She opened her eyes.
"I choose," she said clearly,"the Binding Thread."
Silence.
The disc stopped spinning.
Gold, red, and silver light folded inward — weaving around her like ribbons drawn by fate.
One settled over her brow. Another around her chest. A final thread twined around her wrist, glowing faintly.
The mark of the third path.
The trial of tethered fate.
The Council spoke as one:
"So it begins.Your path is not yours alone.Walk it well… or be undone together."
Mo Yujin finally looked at her.
And this time, she saw it.
The flicker of fear.
Not for himself.
For her.