The border reeked of damp earth and smoke.
Prince Li Jin crouched in the ditch, dagger in hand, counting the smuggler's footsteps. Five men. Two carts. Enough grain to feed his city for a week, if he could take it.
If he failed, fifty more people would starve before winter.
He was about to move when the sky tore open.
No thunder. No warning. Just a sound like silk ripping, and a streak of white light slamming into the hillside a hundred paces away. The earth shook. The smugglers dropped everything and ran.
Li Jin didn't.
Stupid, maybe. But a prince who ran from falling stars wasn't a prince for long.
He found the crater steaming, grass burnt to ash in a perfect circle. And in the center, a girl.
She wore white robes that should have been filthy but weren't. Her hair spread around her like spilled ink, and blood—gold, not red—dribbled from her lips. Her eyes were open, but unfocused, staring at nothing.
A cultivator. A real one. Not one of the charlatans who sold fake talismans in the market.
She saw him and tried to sit up. Failed. Her hand scrabbled at the dirt, and a single word escaped her lips in a language that made his teeth ache.
"Seal."
Li Jin lowered his dagger. "You're not in a position to give orders."
Her gaze snapped to his. For a second, something ancient and furious flared in her eyes. Then it vanished, replaced by exhaustion.
"If you're going to kill me," she said, voice hoarse, "do it fast. I don't have time to die slowly."
Li Jin blinked. That wasn't how this was supposed to go. Usually people begged.
He sheathed the dagger. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to get you out of this crater before the enforcers come."
"Enforcers?" Her brow furrowed. "From the…?"
"From wherever you fell from," he said bluntly. "And if they're looking for you, I don't want my kingdom caught in the middle."
She stared at him like he'd grown a second head.
"You're not afraid."
"Should I be?"
Another pause. Then, impossibly, the corner of her mouth twitched.
"You're either very brave or very stupid, Prince."
Li Jin went still. "How do you know—"
The air split with a sound like a bell tolling underwater.
Both of them looked up.
Three figures descended from the clouds, robes of silver and blue, faces hidden behind masks. Their presence made the air heavy, hard to breathe. Heavenly cultivators.
The girl—_the princess_, his instincts said—cursed again in that strange language. She tried to push herself up, and this time golden light flared around her hand.
"Stay down," Li Jin said, grabbing her arm. "You'll kill yourself."
"I'd rather die than be dragged back."
"Selfish," he muttered, but he was already hauling her up, throwing her arm over his shoulder. She was lighter than she looked, but burning hot, like she'd swallowed a furnace.
"Run," he told her.
She looked at him, really looked, for the first time.
"Why are you helping me?"
Li Jin started dragging them both toward the tree line as the enforcers dropped lower.
"Because if I don't, nobody will. And because you said 'please' so badly it hurt."
He didn't wait for her reply.
Behind them, one of the enforcers spoke, voice cold and carrying:
"Celestial Princess Lian Yue. You are under arrest for treason against Heaven. Surrender, or your mortal accomplices die."
Li Jin's grip tightened.
So that was her name. He didn't let go.
The trees swallowed them whole. Li Jin didn't stop running until Lian Yue's weight went limp against him. He lowered her against an old oak, hands shaking from more than exertion. Above, the sky still hummed with that wrong, bell-like resonance. Heaven wasn't done looking.
"You're heavy for someone who lives on moonlight," he said, trying to keep his voice even. It came out dry. Safer that way.
She didn't laugh. Her gold-blood stained the white silk at her lips, and her eyes were fixed on the clouds.
"They'll track my qi," she whispered. "I can't hide it for long."
"Then we make you look like you don't have any." Li Jin crouched, pulling a strip of oil-stained cloth from his belt. "Turn around."
Lian Yue blinked. The first real confusion he'd seen from her. "Excuse me?"
"I'm going to bind your meridians. It'll hurt. It'll also make you look like a crippled mortal to anyone scanning from above." He held the cloth up, jaw tight. "Unless you'd rather they drag you back in chains."
Pride warred with survival on her face. Survival won. She turned, spine stiff, like letting him touch her was the worse humiliation.
Li Jin worked fast. His fingers were steady, practiced. He'd bound his own meridians at twelve, when he'd been stupid enough to try forcing a cultivation manual with no root. He'd spent a month bedridden for it.
"You've done this before," she said quietly.
"To myself." The knot cinched tight. She didn't make a sound, but he felt her flinch. "You're not the only one who hates being useless."
She turned back, eyes searching his. The gold in them was fading, but not gone. "You have no spiritual root."
"Nope." He stood, brushing dirt off his hands. "Just stubbornness and bad luck."
For a second, pity flickered across her face. He hated it before it fully formed.
"Don't," he said. "I don't need your sympathy."
"I wasn't offering it." Her voice smoothed back into that formal, distant tone she wore like armor. "I was assessing a variable."
"Charming." He offered his hand. "Can you walk?"
She stared at it like it might bite. Then, slowly, she took it.
The moment skin met skin, the world jolted.
It wasn't heat. It was a snap of lightning under the skin, a pull deep in the chest, like two things that had been split for centuries finally recognizing each other. Lian Yue gasped. The jade pendant at her throat flared once, dim, then went cold and dark.
Li Jin dropped her hand like it burned. "What was that?"
She didn't answer. She couldn't. For half a second, she'd felt his heartbeat—ragged, angry, alive—like it was threaded into her own. And her sealed dantian had shuddered in response.
Above them, one of the enforcers pointed. A blade of celestial light screamed down, splitting the oak where she'd been sitting.
"There!"
Li Jin grabbed her arm again. No hesitation this time.
"Move. Now. We can argue about weird qi reactions while not being captured."
They ran.
The forest behind them splintered and burned, but the Mortal Realm's earth was stubborn. Roots tripped pursuing light. Vines clawed at silver robes. It wasn't much, but it was something Heaven hadn't accounted for. Something mortal.