The snow was quiet again.
Too quiet.
Mo Lianyin stood in the ruins of the northern gate, the broken battlements still steaming from the last clash. The walls were pitted with deep, black scorch marks that hadn't come from fire—they were the silver-burn scars of the Fifth Forbidden Art.
The battlefield smelled faintly of cold metal and… ash that wasn't from wood.
Lianyin's fingers twitched as he stared at them. His nails were darker now, faintly silver at the tips, and the veins in his hands pulsed with a light that wasn't natural.
He took a step forward, but the snow underfoot didn't crunch. It hissed, melting away from the heat radiating off him.
> You've tasted it now, the Fifth Forbidden Art murmured in the back of his mind. You know what victory feels like.
---
A shape appeared at the far end of the ruined gate—Xue Qingxue, breathless, her robes torn from the climb up the rubble. Her eyes swept over him, then to the empty expanse beyond the wall.
"He's gone?" she asked.
Lianyin nodded once, though the movement made the world tilt. "For now."
Qingxue approached, but hesitated when she got close. Her gaze dropped to his hands. "Your qi… it's changed."
He forced a faint smile. "So has the weather."
It was meant to be a joke, but his voice sounded wrong—deeper, almost echoing, as if two voices had spoken at once.
---
Qingxue's frown deepened. "What did you do?"
"Cut his soul free from his army," Lianyin said, turning away from her eyes. "It was the only way to drive him off."
She stepped around him, refusing to be avoided. "And you paid for it. I can feel it, Lianyin—something is inside you now."
Her words cut deeper than the Envoy's blade had. He wanted to tell her she was wrong, but the truth was whispering too clearly in his own mind.
---
They began the walk back to the inner city, but it wasn't the victory march it should have been. The guards bowed low, but their eyes darted nervously to the silver burn marks that trailed in Lianyin's footsteps.
When they reached the barracks, Elder Huang was waiting. The old man's beard was stiff with frost, but his gaze was sharper than any sword.
"You used it," Huang said, not as a question.
Lianyin didn't answer.
---
Huang stepped closer, close enough that only they could hear. "Do you know how long the Fifth Forbidden Art can hide before it takes you entirely? A month, maybe two. You must restrain it."
"And if I can't?" Lianyin asked quietly.
Huang's expression didn't soften. "Then I will kill you before it does."
---
That night, Lianyin couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt it again—that moment when the Fifth Forbidden Art had wrapped around him like a lover, when it had wanted him to let go of everything.
He remembered the way the Blood Envoy's mask had split, the shock in those void-black eyes.
Part of him wanted to feel that again.
Part of him feared he already did.
---
Somewhere in the darkness of his mind, the Art whispered again.
> You could have killed him. You will, next time.
And in the deep, shameful corner of his heart, Mo Lianyin found himself agreeing.