After the Council adjourned, the Hall of Judgment emptied like the parting of a tide.
Whispers rippled across the chambers and floated toward the heavens — gossip wrapped in divine silk.
"The girl chose the Binding Thread.""The God of War did not object.""Xue Ran's frost nearly cracked the floor tiles."
But the ones in question said nothing.
Lian Qiao exited quietly.
Mo Yujin followed at a distance.
And Xue Ran stood unmoving at the center of the great hall long after the Council had faded, her fists trembling beneath the layers of her robes.
🌕 That Night — Celestial Realm, Mirror Moon Lake
The sky above was full — silver, round, silent.
Mirror Moon Lake lay still beneath it, a body of water said to reflect not just appearances, but intentions. It was where soul-bonds were once sealed during the Old Eras — long before such things were forbidden.
It was also where Mo Yujin waited.
He stood on the pale stone bridge that stretched over the lake, cloak trailing behind him, hands clasped loosely at his back.
Lian Qiao arrived minutes later, her steps slow but sure, her aura still glowing faintly with the threads of her chosen path.
"You knew they would summon us," she said, joining him on the bridge.
"I suspected," he replied.
"And you didn't say anything."
"I never intended to interfere with your choice."
She turned to him fully now. "But you did."
He looked at her — finally, truly — and there it was again:
That storm in his eyes.That pull in her chest.That thread still tying them together like fate's unfinished sentence.
"I didn't choose you, Yujin," she said softly. "I chose the thread."
"And yet," he murmured, "I am still bound to it."
They stood in silence.
The wind stirred.
Then she asked the question she had carried since the moment she remembered the well:
"Do you still carry our pact?"
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Instead, he reached into his sleeve.
And drew out a thin chain — delicate, unassuming, but pulsing faintly with old divine magic.
At the end of it: a petal, encased in crystal.
Not a peach blossom.
A southern flame-lotus — extinct since the fall of the Southern Sky.
Her breath caught. "You kept it."
"You burned it into my hand before you died," he said, voice low. "A final seal. Your soul swore to return if mine did not forget."
"And you… didn't forget."
He met her eyes.
"No," he said. "But I tried to."
The moonlight shimmered between them.
And then — without thinking, without planning — she reached out and placed her hand over his.
The moment she touched him, the threads between them pulsed.
Light bloomed between their palms — red, gold, silver.
The pact rekindled.
Not new.Not broken.Simply waiting.
"It has chosen," said a voice in the wind.
The lake's surface stirred — just once.
And from its depths, a shape rose.
Sleek. Silent.
A second sword.
Not Frostbane.
But her own — the Flamebinder, long thought lost with the Southern Sky.
It hovered between them, silent and glowing.
And Lian Qiao whispered, "So it begins again."
Far above, in the highest tower of the Frozen Court, Xue Ran stared into her frost mirror — the image of the pact playing out like prophecy before her.
She didn't scream.
She didn't cry.
She simply whispered:
"Then I will make sure this time… she doesn't survive it."