"...Then don't blame me for taking what you were so eager to give to him!"
Qian Yunxi instantly grew wary, her slender fingers tightened their grip around the hilt of her sword until her knuckles turned a stark, bloodless white.
Her two battered wings flared behind her shoulders, shedding pale flecks of white gold light into the dank shadows of the alcove.
The air had turned foul, choking on an oily, corruptive miasma that seeped from Qing Yan's pores, but even with her meridians parched and her ribs throbbing in agony, she forced her spine straight.
"Student Qing Yan," she spoke, her voice laced with sharp, razor-edged warning, "stand down and take a step away from me. What madness are you planning to do?"
Qing Yan said nothing.
The suffocating silence between them stretched, thick with malice.
The polite, diffident disciple who had trodden the academy grounds with downcast eyes was gone, hollowed out and discarded.
