Chapter 75
Mingxi’s tails tightened around Poppy in instinctive protection, but Lysandra didn’t look at Poppy anymore, looking only at him instead.
“You,” she whispered.
Mingxi didn’t respond. He angled Poppy slightly closer, shielding her.
Lysandra’s voice trembled, not with anger but exhaustion and fear sharpened to a blade, “You hold her like she’s fragile,” she breathed. “But you stay so quiet she’ll think she’s the reason.”
Poppy’s breath hitched.
Lysandra continued, still whispering, her chin sinking slightly against Caelan’s arm, “She’ll break in the silence, quietly.” A small exhale. “So quietly no one notices until it’s done.”
Mingxi’s fingers tightened subtly on Poppy’s hip.
“And you—” Lysandra’s voice barely carried. “You don’t mean to hurt her. I know that. I can feel it. But you will. Not with cruelty. With restraint.”
She swallowed, the sound weak. “Withholding… is how she learned she wasn’t wanted.”
Poppy inhaled sharply, and Mingxi went utterly still.
Lysandra pressed on, her voice worsening, fraying, “She will take every tiny silence from you and make it her fault. Every hesitation… every held breath… every unspoken word.”
Her eyes fluttered half shut and then reopened with heartbreaking determination.
“She deserves someone who steps forward. Not someone who stands still.” Her head dipped, heavier against Caelan. Finally, her last whisper cracked, “Don’t let your quiet break her.”
Suddenly, her body jolted. Her eyes snapped open again, pupils dilating, focus narrowing on Poppy so intensely it seemed to cut the air.
“Poppy,” she whispered sharply. “Listen to me. Just this part. Before it slips.”
Mingxi stiffened, and Caelan leaned in.
Lysandra reached forward, fingers trembling violently, as if to brush Poppy’s cheek with the back of her hand.
Her voice steadied—just for a moment—with the strange, terrible calm of a true oracle, “Something is following you.”
Poppy’s breath caught, and Mingxi’s hand tightened around her waist.
Lysandra continued, breath shuddering, “Not a person. Not the Devouring One. Something else. Something made of what scattered.”
The words landed like a blade in the clearing. Caelan went rigid behind her, fingers tightening involuntarily around her arms.
Mingxi’s breath didn’t catch—it halted, cut clean, as if the very act of hearing that name struck him motionless. Even the fire dimmed, flames bowing low as though the air recoiled.
Poppy felt the shift before she understood it. A cold prickle climbed her spine. Mingxi’s heart hammered once—hard—beneath her cheek.
Her voice was a thin whisper. “What… what does that mean?”
No one answered. Because the Devouring One was only ever spoken of in stories—the kind whispered to frighten children away from cursed paths. A myth. A warning. A catastrophe with a name. A being too horrible to exist.
Yet Lysandra kept going.
“A reflection that isn’t you,” she whispered, “but wants to be. It will grow stronger the more you do.”
Her hand slipped away from Poppy’s cheek, and her eyes unfocused. She collapsed sideways. Caelan caught her just before she hit the dirt, lowering her gently.
Poppy, heart thundering in her ribs, stared at her sister, Mingxi’s arms the only thing keeping her upright.
Mingxi’s answer came at last—immediate, steady, and low enough that it felt like a vow whispered directly into her spine. “It means,” he murmured, drawing her gently against his chest, “we don’t let you out of our sight.”
His tails tightened around her—warm, soft, fierce, and Poppy closed her eyes. Overwhelmed. Exhausted. Yet somehow she felt completely safe.