I didn't drink the blood.
I opened the vial.
And the blood didn't spill.
It rose.
Like a serpent uncoiling from sleep, the crimson liquid lifted into the air — not dripping, not falling, but defying gravity.
It twisted.
Pulsed.
Then split — not into mist, not into smoke —
but into a shape.
A silhouette.
Tall.
Slender.
Familiar.
It stepped forward — not from the vial, but from me.
And when it turned, I saw her face.
Mine.
But not.
Her eyes were not amber-gold.
They were filled with stars — swirling, endless, like galaxies trapped in glass.
Her hair flowed like smoke, not bound by wind or weight.
She wore a robe of black flame, stitched with symbols no living tongue could speak.
And she smiled.
Not at me.
Through me.
"Hello, little me," she said.
Her voice was not one voice.
It was seven — layered, echoing, ancient.
"Did you really think you were the original?"
I couldn't move.
Couldn't breathe.
My body knew her.
My blood sang.
But my mind screamed.
"Who are you?"
She tilted her head — a gesture I'd seen in the mirror a thousand times.
"I am the Eighth.
The one they shattered.
The one they buried beneath seven lives.
And you?"
She reached out, her fingers brushing my cheek — cold, not of this world.
"You are the cage.
The memory.
The distraction."
Murong Yan was at the door.
He didn't enter.
Didn't speak.
But his sword was drawn.
And for the first time, both his eyes were wide with fear.
She laughed — soft, like wind through dead trees.
"You kept her safe," she said to him.
"All seven times.
But you never asked why she kept returning."
She turned back to me.
"They didn't erase me to kill me.
They erased me to contain me.
And you, my sweet, shattered soul…
you were the seal."
I stepped back.
"No. I remember everything. The betrayal. The dagger. The wedding—"
"And you think that was your life?"
She stepped closer.
"That was mine.
I lived it.
I died it.
And when they shattered me, they gave you that memory — so you'd fight, rage, seek revenge…
and never ask:
Why was I so powerful?
Why did the gods fear me?
Why did I devour the Void God and wear his heart as a pendant?"
Silence.
Then — a whisper from the wall.
Mei Lianhua.
"She is not lying.
But she is not truth.
She is what you were.
And what you might become."
The Eighth smiled.
"I don't want to hurt you.
I want to merge.
To be whole again.
To rise."
She extended her hand.
"Take it.
Let us be one."
Her voice softened.
"Isn't that what you've always wanted?
To stop being weak?
To stop being afraid?
To stop dying?"
I looked at my hands.
The hands that had poisoned tea.
That had burned pills.
That had clutched Murong Yan's locket in the dark.
Were they mine?
Or just echoes?
I looked at the Eighth.
And I whispered:
"If I let you in…
will I still be me?"
She didn't answer.
She just said:
"Does the storm ask if it's still wind?"
That night, I didn't dream.
I remembered.
Not my lives.
Hers.
A woman who walked through fire unburned.
Who spoke, and mountains turned to dust.
Who loved a man with starless eyes — and wept when he died.
Who was not killed by the Azure Sect.
She was betrayed by her own soul — the part that feared its power.
And so they shattered her.
Into seven pieces.
Into me.
I stood at the edge of the cliff the next morning.
The vial was empty.
The Eighth was gone.
But I could still feel her — not in my mind, not in my blood —
but in the space between heartbeats.
Murong Yan found me there.
He didn't speak.
Just stood beside me, his presence a quiet anchor.
Finally, I said:
"I didn't merge with her."
He exhaled.
"But I didn't reject her either."
I looked at my palm.
A single star-shaped scar had formed.
"I told her:
'You are not my cage.
And I am not your weapon.'"
I closed my hand.
"And she laughed…
and said,
'Then let's see who devours whom.'"
He didn't flinch.
Just said:
"Then I'll stand here.
Every lifetime.
Until you remember which part of you is yours."
Author Note:
They say power corrupts.
But what if the real danger isn't power?
What if it's forgetting who gave it to you —
and why?
— Gopalakrishna