Chapter 2
The dragon vein was rippling with magic.
It shouldn’t have been. It had been sealed for a century, silent, dormant, but that night it throbbed like a heartbeat in the earth.
Mingxi stepped closer, tails flaring with unease, and then he saw her.
A woman stood precisely over the shimmering dragon vein, her skirts stirring as if caught in an unseen tide. One half of her face was ethereal, radiant chestnut curls, luminous skin, bright-blue eyes.
The other half…
Black veins spider-webbed across her cheek, down her throat, and beneath her collarbone, delicate, like cracked porcelain held together by shadow.
She turned toward him, slow and serene. “Fox spirit,” she murmured. “You’re early.”
A chill swept down Mingxi’s spine.
Her gaze drifted through him, toward the distant horizon.
“She’s not here yet,” she said softly. “But she will be.”
“Who?” Mingxi asked.
A small, aching smile curved the uncorrupted side of her lips.
“My Poppet.”
The words were tender. Possessive.
Mingxi stiffened. “Is that a title? A name?”
The woman tilted her head, as though hearing a melody only she could decipher.
“She will shine soon,” she whispered. “Moonlight trapped too long cannot help but break free.”
The ground trembled beneath them.
The corrupted veins across her cheek pulsed once, like something inside her exhaled.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Mingxi said.
Her eyes, one bright, one shadowed, met his. A soft, almost broken laugh escaped her. Beautiful. Painful.
“I know.” She paused, steadying herself. “It doesn’t feel like a choice when fate has already decided.”
A shiver ran along the dragon vein. The air rippled.
“She cries,” the woman whispered suddenly. “And the moon stirs.”
Mingxi’s heart clenched.
Before he could speak, reach out, or restrain her, she stepped backward, into the seam of trembling light.
The dragon vein swallowed her whole.
Silence.
Then… a surge of power roared across a leyline, silver and sharp. Someone had awakened.
That flare had came from House Sinclair.
Mingxi’s head snapped toward the leyline’s pull, and across the storm-tossed channel, the origin point pulsed again. House Sinclair.
Mingxi swallowed hard, letting the leyline’s vibrations wash over him. The pain was powerful, bright as moonlight, sharp in its grief, and something inside him responded to it. But compassion was not permission.
Not yet.
He stood still, every tail slowly settling into place.
His duty to the High Council came first, and as long as the leyline held steady, no distortion, no tremor of corruption, he would not abandon his post for the sake of a stranger’s cry.
Not even a cry that called to the softest part of him.
He forced his gaze back toward the sealed vein, jaw tight.
The broken woman who had slipped into the earth was the priority.
A realm-ending threat took precedence over everything else.
As long as the leyline stayed stable, as long as the pain did not twist into something darker, his path remained clear.
For the moment.
The silver pulse hit the leyline like a struck bell, ringing through the ground beneath Mingxi’s feet. Raw and human pain rode the energy, and Mingxi went still.
Another flare followed, sharp and tasting of moonlight.
Too close.
Too powerful.
Too uncontrolled.
His four tails lifted, bristling with instinct, but he forced them still. Duty first.
Whatever had awakened across the channel would have to wait, no matter how loudly it called on the leyline.
The rest of the council members needed to know about the broken woman immediately.
Mingxi turned toward the old stone shrine tucked beneath the gnarled apple tree.
Moss covered half the carved sigil, but the magic beneath it thrummed steadily. He pressed his hand to the stone.
“Paris.”
“Ossuaire Vérité.”