Major Lu Chenfeng had a headache.
This was not unusual. He had headaches often—migraines that settled behind his eyes like hot coals, accompanied by fragments of images he could never quite grasp. A woman in white, standing on a mountain peak. Snow falling. A voice calling a name that was not his.
The military doctors called it stress. They gave him pills and told him to meditate.
The pills did nothing. Meditation made it worse.
Tonight, the headache had started during his combat tactics class, when his gaze had fallen on a student in the back row. A girl with dark hair and a too-quiet presence. Something about her had triggered a cascade of images—faster, clearer than usual.
A hand reaching for his. Warmth. Safety. Then fire, and blood, and a voice screaming his name.
He had dismissed class early and retreated to his quarters, where he now sat with a cold cloth pressed to his forehead, trying to breathe.
Lu Feng.
The name surfaced unbidden. Not his name—Lu Chenfeng was his name, had always been his name. He had grown up in an orphanage, been recruited into the military academy at fourteen, served with distinction for fifteen years. His life was an open book, reviewed and approved by the highest security clearances.
And yet.
Lu Feng.
He pulled up the student's file on his tablet. Su Nian. Eighteen. Orphan. Scholarship. Unremarkable grades. No family, no connections, no red flags.
So why did his spiritual sense scream every time she walked into a room?
A chime at his door. "Enter."
His adjutant, a young lieutenant with a perpetually worried expression, stepped inside. "Sir. The Director of the Spiritual Energy Research Institute is here. He requests a meeting."
Lu Chenfeng straightened, the headache momentarily forgotten. The Director rarely left his institute. If he was here, in person, something significant was happening.
"Send him in."
Yun Canghai entered like a scholar visiting a library—curious, unhurried, radiating an aura of calm intelligence. He was a handsome man, perhaps fifty, with kind eyes and a smile that put people at ease.
Lu Chenfeng had never liked him.
"Major." Yun Canghai extended a hand. "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice."
"Director." Lu Chenfeng shook the hand briefly. "What brings you to the Academy?"
Yun Canghai settled into a chair, crossing his legs with casual elegance. "I'm conducting a study. Tracking unusual spiritual energy patterns in the city's youth. Your student population provides an excellent sample pool."
"I see." Lu Chenfeng waited. There was more, there was always more with men like this.
"I've identified several candidates for further observation." Yun Canghai pulled a tablet from his briefcase and handed it over. "I was hoping you could provide insight into their behavior, their performance. Unofficially, of course."
Lu Chenfeng scanned the list. Names, photos, brief bios. Most were the Academy's star students—the ones already being groomed for elite positions.
The last name made his heart stutter.
Su Nian. Photo attached. The girl from his class.
"Why her?" Lu Chenfeng asked, keeping his voice neutral. "Her scores are unremarkable."
Yun Canghai's smile did not change, but something in his eyes sharpened. "Exactly. Unremarkable scores, but the energy monitors show something different. Small spikes, perfectly timed to avoid detection. Almost as if she knows exactly when we're watching."
Lu Chenfeng handed the tablet back. "You think she's hiding something."
"I think," Yun Canghai said softly, "that we live in dangerous times. And dangerous times require us to be... thorough."
After the Director left, Lu Chenfeng sat in the darkness of his quarters and stared at the wall.
Su Nian.
The name echoed in his mind, but it was another name that surfaced with it, unbidden.
Frost Fairy.
Where had that come from? He had never heard the term before. And yet it resonated with something deep in his soul, something that ached with a grief he could not explain.
He stood abruptly and pulled on his coat. The regulations required him to report any concerns about students to the Director's office. The regulations required him to follow protocol.
But as he walked through the moonlit corridors of the Academy, his feet carried him not to the administration building, but to the student dormitories.
He found her on the roof.
She was sitting on the edge, legs dangling over a thirty-story drop, staring at the stars. She did not turn when he approached, did not react to his presence at all.
"Students aren't allowed on the roof after curfew," he said quietly.
"I know."
He stood beside her, looking up at the same sky. The stars were dim here, washed out by the city's lights, but a few of the brighter ones still pierced through.
"You were in my class today," he said.
"I was."
"You didn't ask any questions."
"I rarely do."
He should leave. He should file his report and let the Director's people handle this. But something held him there, some force stronger than protocol.
"Have we met before?" he asked. "Outside the Academy, I mean."
She turned then, and for the first time, he saw her eyes fully. Dark, deep, ancient. A girl of eighteen with the eyes of someone who had seen centuries.
"No," she said. "We have not met."
But her voice trembled slightly on the last word, and Lu Chenfeng knew, with a certainty that defied logic, that she was lying.