The skies above the Nine Courts were a lattice of silver threads, each strand of starlight quivering as if alive, pulling faintly toward the earth. The night seemed woven by unseen hands, and every gust of wind carried the echo of something old, something buried. Ruoxue felt it brush her skin like a memory she couldn't place.
She stood on the high balcony of her new courtyard, the Celestial Orchid Pavilion, a place that was not supposed to belong to someone like her. Its carved balustrades were etched with flowing sigils that shimmered faintly when the moonlight touched them, as if absorbing prayers from forgotten eras. Beneath the pavilion stretched an entire garden that shifted with illusion; flowers bloomed in impossible colors only when looked at from the corner of one's eye. At night, the trees whispered in low voices, reciting fragments of verses long since lost.
But Ruoxue wasn't admiring beauty. She was watching the earth tremble.
From beyond the horizon, where the Providence mountains rose like sleeping dragons, a faint glow pulsed. It was neither dawn nor firelight—it was the flare of a summoned realm breaking through.
"Another one opens…" Ruoxue murmured.
Yinxiu appeared at her side as if the shadows parted for him. His presence was always the same: untamed yet controlled, like a storm frozen mid-rush. He leaned lazily against the railing, his silver-white robe threaded with the faint light of hidden sigils.
"You see it too," he said, eyes narrowing toward the horizon. "The Rift of Ashen Flames."
The name stirred something in Ruoxue. She had read of it once, mentioned in a dusty fragment of a scroll: a world that appears only when the Courts tremble, born from sacrifices too ancient to record. No disciple of the Nine Courts had ever entered it and returned unchanged.
"Why now?" Ruoxue asked, her fingers curling against the railing.
"Because the Courts are not as eternal as they pretend," Yinxiu replied, his tone edged with quiet amusement. "And because they are watching you."
*********
The following day, a call rang through all the Nine Courts. Bells of crystal and bone tolled together, their sound echoing across mountains, rivers, and even into dreams. The disciples of every pavilion streamed toward the Hall of Echoes, a grand chamber built into the sky itself, where the floor was made of tempered glass, showing the swirling void beneath.
Ruoxue, dressed in her pale robes, walked into the hall alone. Heads turned. Murmurs rippled. Once invisible, was now walking to the hall, shoulders straight.
The Nine Lords of the Courts were seated in a crescent arc above, their thrones glowing faintly with elemental power: flame, frost, storm, stone, water, shadow, light, void, and fate. Their presence pressed on every disciple like a mountain.
"Ruoxue of half moon seal," one of the Lords said, his voice deep as thunder. "Step forward."
She walked across the glass floor, her steps steady despite the void spiraling beneath her. The sigil on her wrist—the half-moon mark—flickered once. She bowed.
"You have earned favor in many of us here," another Lord intoned. "You have been granted a new pavilion in the Providence Tribe, no longer with Mt Wuheng's ; Moonlit Jade Pavilion. Now, the Courts demand your courage. The Rift of Ashen Flames has opened, and only one disciple from each faction shall enter. You have been chosen to bear the mark of the Courts."
The hall erupted in whispers.
Ruoxue's breath caught. The Rift—already she had been named.
"Why her?" a voice called from among the disciples. "She is nothing! A stray raised among shadows!"
Another sneered, "It should be me! I bled for the Courts, not her!"
The Nine Lords did not silence them. Instead, they watched Ruoxue, as if her answer was more important than the accusations.
Ruoxue raised her chin, her voice cutting through the hall.
"If I am nothing, then let me prove it within the Rift. If I fall, you will not have to waste your envy. If I rise…" her gaze swept over the hall, steady, unwavering, "…then remember that silence does not mean absence, and invisibility does not mean weakness."
The Lords exchanged quiet looks. One by one, they nodded.
"The mark is given," the Lord of Fate declared. With a gesture, a streak of burning silver shot from the air and carved itself into Ruoxue's half-moon sigil. It pulsed, painfully bright, as if something ancient had just awakened inside her.
*******
That night, the Rift widened. A pillar of blackened flame rose from the mountains, twisting the stars into a spiral. Disciples gathered at its edge, their faces pale with awe and fear. The ground trembled with each pulse, and from within came the faint sound of chains dragging across stone.
Ruoxue stood with the other chosen: nine in total, one from each Court. Yinxiu was there as well, though he had not been chosen—he was Providence itself, and his entry into any trial was unquestioned. He stood a step behind Ruoxue, as though daring anyone to object.
"The Rift of Ashen Flames will close within nine nights," intoned the Lord of Void. "Enter, and bring back the relic that binds it. Fail, and be consumed by its hunger."
Without another word, the air split open.
They stepped inside.
*******
The Rift was not a world. It was a wound.
Flames rose everywhere, but they did not burn with heat—they whispered, each flame flickering with faint voices that begged, wept, or cursed. The ground was an endless plain of shattered stone, carved with sigils that bled light like veins. The sky was not sky at all, but a ceiling of black chains stretching infinitely, each one trembling as if straining to hold back something behind them.
"By the heavens…" one disciple breathed.
Ruoxue said nothing. She felt it at once—the Rift knew her. The whispers of flame bent toward her like moths to light, and her sigil throbbed in response.
Yinxiu's gaze flicked to her. "It calls you."
Before she could answer, the Rift shifted. From the distance, the ground tore open, and a tide of Ashen Wraiths poured forth—creatures made of smoke and ember, their hollow eyes burning with hunger.
The battle began.
********
The disciples scattered, summoning their arts. Blades of lightning clashed with spears of stone; torrents of flame met rivers of frost. The air shook with the clash of powers.
Ruoxue drew her sword—Silent glove—and with one step she vanished into the wraiths. Her movements were not the grand arcs of power the others wielded. They were precise, measured, each cut silencing a wraith before its scream could escape. Her sword seemed to drink the whispers of the flames, leaving silence in her wake.
"Impressive," Yinxiu murmured, striking down a wave of wraiths with a casual sweep of his hand, silver light scattering them like ash. But his eyes never left Ruoxue, as if watching not her strength but the way the Rift responded to her.
When the last wraith fell, the ground pulsed. A deep rumble shook the sky. One of the chains above snapped with a sound like the breaking of a world.
And from beyond the flame, something laughed.
******
The disciples froze. That laugh was not mortal. It was not even beast. It was something older, chained for ages too long to count.
"Children of the Providence Tribe, guarded by the heavenly Nine Court also known as the Nine Gods and Goddesses," the voice thundered, echoing from flame to flame, "you bring me prey again. How many before you have bled in these chains? How many have promised to end me, only to join my whispers?"
The flames surged higher. Faces formed in them—faces of disciples long dead, their eyes hollow, their mouths open in silent screams.
Ruoxue's chest tightened. Her sigil burned like fire. The voice had singled her out; she felt it coil around her mind.
"You," it whispered, softer now, directly into her ear. "Half-moon child. Forgotten flame. You are mine."
Her sword trembled in her hand.
But then—she closed her eyes. She breathed once, steady, and whispered, "No."
The Rift shook. For the first time, silence cut through the whispers of flame.
Yinxiu's lips curved, just faintly. "So," he murmured. "You are not only chosen. You are remembered."
**********
The disciples regrouped, shaken, whispering among themselves. Some already looked at Ruoxue with suspicion, as if she had drawn the wrath of the Rift itself.
But Ruoxue knew this was only the beginning. The Rift of Ashen Flames was no simple trial. It was a prison—and something within wanted her.
As the group pressed deeper, the flames parted for Ruoxue alone, showing glimpses of ruined temples, broken statues, and weapons buried in ash. One relic glowed faintly in the distance, pulsing with the rhythm of a heartbeat.
The relic that could bind the Rift.
Or the key that could unchain it.
And as Ruoxue stepped toward it, she wondered—was she walking toward salvation… or becoming the very calamity the Courts feared?