The ruins of Mount Qilun had not spoken in decades.

  Not since the Spirit Wars had carved its temples into rubble and left its sacred stones choked in ash. Zhao Wei stood now at the broken threshold, where half a gate still bore the etching of a phoenix twisted in agony. Moss clung to bloodied script, runes meant to bind, not to bless.

  The sky above flickered with an unnatural hue like the heavens were holding their breath.

  “Why here?” Bai asked softly beside her, cradling his satchel like it might protect him from whatever truths they were about to awaken.

  “Because it’s where they tried to erase me,” Zhao Wei replied.

  Feng Ren stepped up behind them, lips curved into that knowing smirk, but his eyes watchful. “You mean where you died?”

  She didn’t answer. She stepped forward, boots sinking into a path of scorched earth veined with silver cracks, cracks that pulsed faintly in response to her presence.

  “They used a forbidden seal here,” she murmured. “One meant for spirits that shouldn’t exist.”

  Feng Ren raised a brow. “Like Chaos?”

  “Like me.”

  Bai looked between them, clearly unsettled. “You’re not saying your spirit bond was with Chaos, are you?”

  Zhao Wei closed her eyes, and for a moment, her breathing stilled.

  “No. I’m saying... it never belonged to any of the Six.”

  A silence descended, heavy and suffocating.

  That was impossible. In this world, all bonds came from the Six Elemental Pillars: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light, and Shadow. Those who had no bond were considered cursed. Deadweight. Broken. But Zhao Wei had never needed a spirit beast to kill. That truth had haunted her execution.

  And now, it haunted her return.

  She stepped into the inner circle of the ruin. The stones shifted beneath her feet, as though recognizing her blood. With each step, whispers stirred in the wind not voices, but remnants of memory. Faint melodies trapped between time and spirit.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Do you hear that?” she asked.

  Bai clutched his scrolls tighter. “No, and I’d very much like to keep it that way.”

  “It’s her,” Zhao Wei whispered. “The one I was bonded to. Not a beast, not an elemental... Something older.”

  The runes ignited.

  One by one, the jade markers surrounding the altar flared with silver flame, cold and consuming. Bai stumbled back, heart pounding.

  Feng Ren’s hand went to the hilt of his blade. “I thought you said this place was dead.”

  “It was,” Zhao Wei said. “Until I returned.”

  Suddenly, the flames twisted, rising into a coiling form, an echo of something immense and terrible. It circled the altar like a serpent made of moonlight and void, humming with a resonance that made the bones in their chests rattle.

  Zhao Wei stepped forward, unflinching. She reached into her cloak and pulled out a vial, the last drop of her blood from the night she was executed. Preserved, hidden. The moment her spirit fractured.

  She unstoppered it and let it fall.

  As it struck the center stone, the world lurched.

  A scream pierced the mountain not hers, not human. A memory of something torn from time.

  The altar split open.

  From within rose a hollow shell of obsidian, shaped like a heart, wrapped in thorned chains of ancient design. The heartbeat it pulsed with was not hers but it knew her name.

  "Wei Ning," it whispered. "Come home."

  She staggered. The use of her former name hit harder than any blade. That voice raw, echoing, impossible.

  Bai stared in terror. “What is that?”

  Feng Ren moved to pull Zhao Wei back, but she raised her hand. “Don’t.”

  The obsidian heart cracked.

  Light not warm, not golden, but cold like memory spilled out. Images flooded her mind. A battlefield. The shattering of stars. A great beast, too large for names, weeping as it was bound beneath this very mountain.

  And her kneeling, blade raised, carving her name into its prison as a binding rite.

  She hadn’t just been bonded to something forbidden.

  She had been its jailor.

  Or worse its chosen.

  Zhao Wei collapsed to her knees as the memory struck. Her vision flickered. Not backward, forward.

  She saw the cities burning. The gods awakening. A shadowed future where her broken bond was the key to unlocking everything the world had tried to bury.

  The serpent of light circled her one last time before dissolving into ash.

  Silence fell again.

  Only the wind remained.

  Bai rushed forward. “Zhao Wei?!”

  She blinked. Sweat clung to her brow. Her hands trembled.

  “I remember now,” she said hoarsely.

  Feng Ren crouched beside her, voice low. “What did they do to you?”

  “They didn’t seal my spirit beast,” she said, voice quiet but sharp. “They sealed me.”

  The implications struck hard. Bai’s face went pale.

  “You were the weapon.”

  “No,” Zhao Wei said, standing slowly, resolve hardening. “I was the prison.”

  And now... the seal was breaking.

  A pulse rippled through the mountain. From below, something stirred.

  And somewhere far off across mountains and borders and realms, the Creed felt it.