"I am you—without the guilt."
Woman's voice, curling around Lian Yue like smoke,, soft, mocking, terrifying. Her smile was familiar and alien, like an upside-down song. Her silver eyes sparkled with the secrets of centuries.
"You're lying," Lian Yue said retreating. "You can't be me."
"You're not hearing," the woman purred. "I'm not you now. I am what you locked away. The part you buried, to put on this weak, quaking skin."
Raihan didn't move. His muscles were tight, like a beast sensing another predator.
"You ought not to be here," he growled. "Your soul is shattered—floating in the Void."
"You should know, my love," the woman said, straightening out nonexistent dust from her robes, "souls like mine never stay buried."
Lian Yue's knees seemed about to give. "You mean I've split my soul?"
Celestine—the other her—smiled. Jabe," after you shut Raihan, you couldn't live with what you fucking did. So you dig me out and threw me out."
"I don't remember—"
"Of course you don't." Celestine took a step closer. "'Cause that was the job of the person that burned villages. Who kissed enemies and then stabbed them in the back. Who had loved a man marked to ruin Heaven and who had loved him still."
Raihan flinched. Just slightly. But Lian Yue saw it.
Celestine's eyes glittered. "I was the goddess who would have burned the whole immortal court to the ground had it meant his salvation. You? You're the weedy dilute."
"Enough," Lian Yue snapped. "If you're me, why attack?"
Celestine tilted her head. "Because you're a liability. You don't remember those haters. You don't remember our power. And, worst of all…you don't remember him.
There was an exchange of something unspoken, and her eyes darted to Raihan. Too tender to relate a memory.
"I remember plenty," Lian Yue hissed, her voice shaking.
"Do you?" Celestine raised her hand. "Then remember this."
A light wave burst out from her palm and struck Lian Yue's chest! Raihan yelled, lurching forward — but it was already too late.
The world ripped apart.
---
A palace of fire. Bleeding stars silver the heaven.
Her hand, her body were drenched in the divine blood, her chest heaving. Celestial bodies hovered around her — heralds, high priests, even children. And in the middle of them all was Raihan, blood on his blade, an inscrutable expression on his face.
"I told you they would never forgive us," he muttered.
She got up slowly, shaking in her body. "We had no choice."
"You picked me over everything. You always did."
"And I paid for it," she hissed.
He stepped closer. "Do you regret it?"
Her eyes filled with tears. "Every breath."
But when he brushed his hand against her cheek, she leaned into him.
And kissed him like the wrath of a dying star.
---
Lian Yue snapped back to the present, panting, her mouth still aching from the taste of the memory.
Raihan grabbed her arm as he stumbled. "You saw it?"
She nodded. "We… killed them. All of them."
His eyes didn't soften. "We were hunted. Betrayed. The court labeled us monsters. We didn't start the war."
"But we finished it," she said in a whisper.
Celestine paced them, tranquil as the moon. "And now, I'm here to continue what you began. The court won't stop. The enforcers won't stop. But I can reunite us."
"Reunite?" Lian Yue's fists clenched into balls. "You mean to possess me."
"I mean restore our power." Celestine's voice turned to something pitched-up in its sultriness, seductive. "With me unbroken, you'd never shake again. Never question. You'd be divine, not broken."
Raihan shifted between them. "She's lying. She always lies."
Celestine raised a brow. "Says the guy who professed love and then stuck a knife through my ribs."
"You betrayed me first," he snapped. "You sold my soul to the Elders."
"And you made slaves of my people under a mountain!"
"Because you lost yourself!"
"I became what you needed!" she screamed.
The air split with power. Wind howled. Thunder cracked overhead.
Raw magic was humming through Lian Yue's skin.
She didn't know who to trust. Herself? Raihan? This bloody-mouthed mirror-self with the hurt in her words?
"You told me I closed Raihan," Lian Yue murmured. "But you did love him. Why would you do that?"
For a moment Celestine's smile faltered.
"Because I was endeavouring to shield him," she said softly. "The court wanted him taken down. I closed him off to preserve him in safety."
Raihan stepped back. "That's not true."
"I saved your life, Raihan." There was something akin to heartbreak in Celestine's eyes. "Even if it cost me my own."
A long silence fell.
The heart of Lian Yue was pounding. Her soulstone pounded between her breasts hot and uneven.
Lastly, Celestine reached her hand out.
"Come with me. Let me make you whole. We can reclaim what was lost. Together."
Raihan grabbed Lian Yue's other hand. "Don't. You're stronger than you ever were as her now."
In two minds about her destiny, Lian Yue shut her eyes.
And chose.
"I'm not her," she whispered. "I'm not you, Celestine. I'm not who I was before.
Celestine's face darkened. "Then you will die a half-soul, afraid."
"No," Lian Yue said, putting herself between them. "I'll rewrite who I am."
Celestine's power surged. "Then you are my enemy."
"Then fight me."
Celestine screamed, releasing a wave of holy light. It struck Lian Yue's chest.
She flew back—
— but Raihan was already there, arms catching her, shadows around them.
He gasped as the blow connected, blood flying out of his mouth.
"Raihan!"
"I've got you," he breathed, so his lips feathered her ear.
Behind them fluttered Celestine, wings of gold extending like a flame. "You can't outrun me. You are me."
And then—she vanished.
Disappearing like mist in the moonlight.
Lian Yue held onto Raihan's head. "You're hurt—"
"You're radiant," he said, hoarsely.
She looked down.
Her soulstone wasn't shattered now.
It was burning.
Whole.
And now there was a new symbol emblazoned across her collarbone — one she had never seen before.
Raihan traced it gently. "A divine crest. You just unlocked your true potential."
"What does that mean?"
"It means..." He hesitated. "You're becoming dangerous."
She swallowed. "And Celestine?"
"She won't stop now. You refused her."
"So what do we do?"
He gazed down at her—through her, past her—and something as old as the earth lurked in his eyes.
"We stop running."
"And then what?"
Raihan smirked. "Then we begin pushing back."
Before Lian Yue could reply, a searing sensation filled her chest. She gasped, collapsing.
There was a voice reverberating inside her head. Deep. Male. Cold.
"The seal has broken. The Death Court knows. The Reaping begins."
---
He caught her as she screamed and the night sky split open overhead.
And from the darkness a gateway bled red.
And something monstrous emerged from it.