Chapter 54 #2
“Mingxi,” she pressed, kneeling beside him, “you’re shaking.”
He closed his eyes, and she could see the exhaustion pulling at the edges of his composure. “Revenant strikes are poisoned with death-magic. Even four tails cannot counter such corruption immediately.”
“Then you shouldn’t be pushing yourself,” she whispered.
“I must. We are on a timetable.”
“And you bleeding and passing out won’t help either of us.”
He startled faintly, but enough for her to register, and then let his head fall back against the cedar. “I trust you to keep us moving,” he murmured. “For a little while.”
The words slipped out so softly she wasn’t sure he meant to speak them.
Poppy’s chest tightened. “Then let me help you.”
His eyes opened—dark, dazed, unguarded. “Why?” he asked quietly.
Because you nearly died for me. Because you saved me twice. Because you’re alone and you shouldn’t have to be. Because I care.
“Because you helped me,” she said simply. “Now it’s my turn.”
For a moment, he just looked at her—really looked—like he was memorizing the shape of her face in the fading light. And then, slowly, he nodded. A surrender. Not of strength but of fear.
She reached for him, and he didn’t pull away.
Poppy pushed the torn edge of his shirt higher, just enough to expose the swollen skin above the bandage line. Mingxi tensed, and she understood it was not from modesty, but pain. His breath stuttered through clenched teeth.
“It’s spreading,” she whispered.
Dark veins crept outward like ink bleeding beneath the skin—slow, but unmistakable. Not a normal infection. Not blood poisoning. Something colder, crueler, that pulsed in a sick, unnatural rhythm.
“Shadow-born wounds corrupt,” Mingxi managed, voice thin. “They’re meant to.”
“And you didn’t tell me that?”
“I didn’t want to frighten you.”
She gave him a look sharp enough to cut. “Too late.”
Her hand hovered above the darkened skin, unsure where to touch—afraid of hurting him, afraid of doing nothing at all.
“Poppy…” he murmured, eyes closing under the strain. “Don’t—”
But he didn’t finish. Because her fingertips brushed him. Bare skin to bare skin. A tentative touch meant only to steady him. It wasn’t tentative for long. The reaction was instant—a soft, silver pulse like moonlight trapped beneath her skin flaring to life.
Mingxi gasped—from something that stole the breath from both of them.
Poppy froze. “Mingxi? Did I… did I hurt you?”
His hand shot out blindly, gripping her wrist—not to pull her away, but to hold her there. “No,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “Stay.”
She blinked, confused, heart pounding. “What’s happening?”
He swallowed, jaw trembling as the corruption under her touch seemed to… slow. Recoil. The black threading through his skin shivered and then pulled faintly inward, like ink being drawn toward a single point.
“Poppy,” he breathed, eyes opening—bright, fevered, disbelieving. “You’re purifying it.”
Her heartbeat faltered. “I’m what?”
His grip tightened—not painful, but desperate. “Moonborn magic… your kind could channel lunar threads into the body. But no one living has ever—”
He hissed as the silver pulse deepened.
Poppy panicked and tried to pull her hand back.
“Please, stay,” he said sharply.
She froze again.
“You’re helping me,” he gasped. “I can feel it. The corruption is… retreating.”
Her breath trembled. Very carefully, she let her hand settle fully against his skin, palm smoothing over the fever-hot flesh. Exposure minimal. Contact intentional.
The reaction intensified.
Not a flare of light, nothing grand or cinematic. Just a quiet, deep cooling, a subtle glow beneath skin, as if her touch were drawing out the poison thread by thread. Like moonlight soothing a burn from the inside out.
Poppy whispered softly, “Mingxi… it’s working.”
His eyes softened with something raw and vulnerable. “You are doing what even fox magic cannot,” he whispered. “Poppy… you’re saving me.”
Heat stung her eyes. “I didn’t know I could.”
“Neither did I.”
He held supernaturally still, chest rising carefully against the rhythm of her hand. His fever eased noticeably, his breathing steadier. The corruption under the skin fading—still present but no longer spreading.
Poppy lifted her other hand, cupping just beneath his shoulder to steady him.
He shuddered, and she felt the pain ease from relief.
“You should stop,” he murmured, voice a low hum of exhaustion. “You’ve done enough.”
Poppy didn’t move her hand. “Tell me where it hurts.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then tell me when to stop.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
That startled her.
His gaze lifted—heavy, softened, unguarded in a way she had never seen. “You… feel like moonlight.”
Her breath faltered. She didn’t know what to do with that. Finally, after long moments, the last threads of corruption slowed to a harmless crawl.
She let her hand fall away, trembling, her pulse still racing.
Mingxi sagged forward slightly—only an inch—but enough for her to catch him by the shoulder.
“Easy,” she murmured. “I’ve got you.”
His forehead brushed her temple, so lightly she couldn’t be sure if it was intentional.
“I know,” he breathed.
Poppy helped him settle against the fallen log, easing him down with hands gentler than he expected. She arranged her cloak beneath him, with another rolled beneath his arm to keep pressure off the shoulder.
He watched her the whole time, unable to look away.
“You need to rest,” she said softly.
Rest. Not sleep. She didn’t know the difference yet.
He nodded anyway.
Poppy moved to stand guard at the edge of the clearing, her back straight, her form framed in pale moonlight. She kept glancing back at him—every few breaths, as if checking he was still alive.
The habit tugged at something deep inside him.
She shouldn’t care this much. She shouldn’t be this brave. She shouldn’t kneel in the snow to save a fox-spirit Councilor she barely knew.
And yet she had.
Mingxi adjusted slightly, feeling the faint, cool echo of her touch lingering beneath his skin. The wound still hurt—sharply, deeply—but her magic had pushed the corruption back. He had not felt that kind of relief in years.
His body was exhausted, but sleep never came easily. Not for him. Not for fox spirits with too many scars and too many memories of nights gone wrong. But he let himself rest.
He kept his eyes half closed, breaths measured, posture deceptively relaxed: deception he’d mastered long before she was born. Through lowered lashes, he watched her. Always watched.
Poppy turned her head again, checking on him. “Are you in pain?”
“Less than before,” he murmured. “You helped enormously.”
Her expression flickered, something like pride, something like fear she hadn’t realized she carried. She nodded once, sharply, and then returned her gaze to the dark trees.
He allowed his eyes to close fully this time. Not in sleep, but in a rare, fragile moment of peace. His senses stayed sharp—every shift of wind, every groan of branches, every heartbeat within the clearing. He listened the way fox spirits did: deeply, instinctively.
He heard her heartbeat, quick but steady. He heard her breath, soft and determined. He heard the faint shiver she tried to hide.
“You don’t have to stand,” he murmured quietly, eyes still closed. “Sit. Conserve your strength.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re tired.”
“So are you.”
His lips curved faintly, and he opened his eyes a bit more. “I am always tired.”
She didn’t deny that. She lowered herself to sit on a fallen root a few feet from him—still watching the forest, still wrapped in vigilance.
Mingxi saw the line of her profile illuminated in moonlight. She looked… fierce. Not delicate. Not fragile. Fierce. He drank her in silently.
Every few minutes, she looked back to check on him. Every time she did, something in him loosened—some knot pulled so tight inside him he’d forgotten it was there at all.
“Why do you keep looking at me?” he asked finally, voice soft as the winter air.
Poppy startled slightly. “I’m making sure you’re alive.”
“I would tell you if I died.”
A breath of laughter escaped her—surprised, genuine. “I doubt that.”
He tilted his head, studying her. “Why do you care so much?”
She went still.
The question had slipped out before he could stop it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to stop it. Poppy looked away, eyes fixed on the trees.
“Because you helped me. Because you’re hurt. Because it matters.”
He absorbed that slowly, reverently.
“You speak as if it were simple,” he said.
“It is simple.”
“No,” he whispered. “Not for me.”
Her breath caught. He didn’t explain further. He couldn’t.
Not yet.
Instead, he let his head rest back against the bark behind him, breathing carefully, letting the silence settle again, but he did not sleep.
He watched her in the clearing, moonlight gathering in her hair, the cold brushing her cheeks, the steady lift of her chest with each breath.
A strange warmth unfurled in him—a steady, quiet recognition.
She had saved him.
Not with spells she understood, not with rituals or fox-magic, but with instinct. With courage. With a touch she hadn’t known could purify. And she’d done it as though it were a reflex. As though protecting him came naturally.
Mingxi exhaled slowly, eyelids lowering again. He would remember this night. The night he rested—truly rested—for the first time in years.
Not because the danger was gone, but because Poppy Sinclair was standing watch.