Chapter 31
She lunged before Mingxi could warn her, steel slicing through the revenant’s wrist. The creature screamed without sound, maw stretching open as the rest of its body peeled out of the wall like a nightmare unsticking from the dark.
Another form rippled through beside it—hollow-eyed, teeth clicking.
Mingxi braced himself, breath ragged.
“They’re phasing through the wards. How—”
He didn’t finish. A third revenant lunged straight for him.
Poppy moved faster. Her blade drove upward, piercing the creature’s jaw. It convulsed, dissolved into cold dust. One down.
Two more surged at them.
Mingxi lifted a palm, foxfire flaring gold across the room.
The nearest revenant faltered, shrieking silently as the magic seared its limbs.
Mingxi staggered immediately, a grimace flashing across his face, and Poppy’s breath caught.
His hand went instinctively to his ribs, as if the strain had pulled at the wound beneath.
Poppy darted between him and the creature.
Her moonlight thrummed behind her ribs, bright, loud, straining like a lantern with too much flame inside.
The second revenant lunged. She ducked beneath its claws, skirts snapping like banners, and drove her blade into its spine.
It collapsed…but didn’t dissolve. It clawed toward Mingxi instead, dragging itself across the stone.
“No—”
Poppy threw herself between them. Her heartbeat thundered, and something inside her broke open. Not pain.
Light.
Silver-white radiance burst from her chest, flaring outward in a wave that struck the revenant full force.
It disintegrated in a single flash of dust, and then the room filled with light.
Soft, pulsing moonlight poured from her skin—from her face, her hands, her hair, as though the moon itself had been trapped inside her and was finally escaping.
Mingxi froze. Not breathing. Not moving. Barely standing.
“Poppy,” he whispered.
Her knees buckled. He caught her instantly, arms solid and warm around her.
“Mingxi… what’s happening to me?” she breathed.
He didn’t answer.
“Your glow… it’s haloing your face, like silver washing over your features.” He swallowed, awe cracking through his voice. “Yuèguāng…”
Her eyes fluttered open, dazed. “What did you call me?”
Mingxi’s jaw tightened, gold flickering in his irises like candlelight through amber. “Yuèguāng,” he whispered again. “It means moonlight.”
Her glow shimmered.
“You shine from your heart outward,” he said, voice low, reverent, unguarded. “You rise where there was darkness. You are…” A breath shuddered out of him. “You are the most beautiful light I have ever seen.”
Her light dimmed, exhaustion dragging her downward.
He tightened his arms around her. “Stay with me,” he murmured. “Just breathe.”
“I’m trying…” she whispered and then collapsed fully against him.
Mingxi held her, as though she were a lantern he refused to let break, while the last traces of moonlight sank quietly beneath her skin.
He held her upright with both arms, chest rising in ragged breaths. His wound throbbed with each heartbeat, but he didn’t loosen his hold. The safe house was too quiet—unnaturally so. Revenant ash glittered like frost across the floor. The lanterns flickered weakly, as if afraid to shine.
Poppy’s breath trembled. “Mingxi…?”
“I’m here.”
She leaned against him, barely conscious, her skin still faintly opalescent. Then—
CRACK
The ward line overhead split like ice underfoot.
A low, monstrous roar—psychic, not physical—ripped through the walls. It vibrated in his bones, in the ward stones, in the very air.
Poppy gasped.
Mingxi stiffened.
The roar did not come from the safe house. It came from everywhere: from the shadows, from the leyline beneath the city, from the places where magic had curdled and died.
“She is mine. She was promised. She—” The voice fractured, splintering, fighting itself, as if something inside the entity clawed for control.
Poppy’s knees buckled. Mingxi caught her before she hit the ground, and then—
BOOM
A shockwave slammed through the safe house. The lantern nearest the door shattered. Plaster drifted from the ceiling. Distant screams echoed from the western district, and then the door burst open.
Three Guardians rushed inside—white-faced, breathless, weapons drawn.
“Councilor Shen!”
“Lady Penelope!”
“Are you harmed?”
One stopped short at the revenant ash.
Another stared at the faint shimmer of moonlight still haunting Poppy’s skin.
The eldest Guardian swallowed. “We felt something tear through the wards—something vast. And… there’s been an attack.”
Mingxi’s grip tightened around Poppy. “Where?”
“At the Outpost,” the Guardian whispered.
“No survivors. The bodies are… wrong. Shadow burned and frozen.”
Poppy’s breath hitched.
“It retaliated,” Mingxi murmured, fury simmering beneath his voice. “For her awakening.”
Another roar—distant, enraged—shook the windowpanes.
The youngest Guardian trembled. “My lord… what do we do now?”
Mingxi straightened, drawing Poppy closer as she swayed. Even injured, even exhausted, he stood between her and the door, wanting to be a wall of calm, controlled violence.
“We leave,” he said. “Before it strikes again.”
A Guardian stammered, “Leave? Where?”
Mingxi didn’t answer immediately. He looked down at Poppy—moonlight still clinging to her lashes, her breath soft, her pulse unsteady. She seemed to trust him completely, even half conscious and terrified.
His expression softened—only for her—and his voice dropped to something intimate and unshakably certain. “I will take her somewhere the entity cannot reach.”
He brushed a stray curl from her cheek.
Poppy’s fingers curled weakly into his coat.
Mingxi leaned in, letting only her hear the truth. “I will take you home.”
Her lips parted, a faint whisper, “Mingxi…”
He held her tighter, protective and resolute. “My clan,” he murmured. “My hearth. My land. My protection.” He knew his eyes burned gold. “I will take you home, Poppy.”
No one moved. The Guardians’ stillness told him enough. They understood. This was not a statement, not a command, but rather a vow sealed in foxfire and moonlight.
The carriage thundered through the streets, spectral horses blazing silver against the darkened passages. Poppy drifted in and out of consciousness in Mingxi’s arms, her forehead pressed weakly to his collarbone.
Another distant roar split the night—ragged, furious, fractured by something fighting inside it.
He knew the entity felt her slipping.
“Mingxi…” she whispered.
“Stay with me,” he murmured, brushing a trembling curl from her cheek. “We’re almost there.”
The carriage swerved, wheels grinding over uneven stone.
A Guardian leaned down from the roof, shouting over the wind, “One turn! The portal is active. Go!”
Mingxi shielded Poppy with his body as the carriage shot toward the two towering iron pillars ahead, runes flaring bright gold against the dark.
Poppy blinked. “Mingxi… what is that light…?”
“My way home,” he whispered. “And yours now, qīn yǒu.”
Her breath hitched—soft, faint, but real.
The carriage plunged through the portal.
Light swallowed them whole.