Night seemed to descend faster than it should.
The sky above Cloudcrest Peak dimmed in a slow collapse of color, as if light itself hesitated to linger. Lanterns flickered to life across the Lin Clan compound; warm halos broke the dark, but none reached the courtyard where Bai Xueya stood alone.
She had barely spoken since the Bai envoy's messenger left.
A folded set of ceremonial robes lay on the stone bench nearby, untouched. They glimmered faintly with frost-like silver thread—formal attire for greeting sect emissaries. But she couldn't bring herself to look at them again. Her breath clouded faintly in the chill that seeped from her own core.
Lin Tian spotted her from the walkway—the curve of her back, her hair catching what remained of the moonless light, her posture too still.
He approached quietly, but she sensed him anyway.
She didn't turn. She only spoke when he reached the pond's edge beside her.
