Lin Xue stumbled out of the light and nearly fell on her knees. The air here was colder, but not the coffin-cold from the tunnel. This cold felt like real stone and real wind. A narrow cave opened around her, lit by faint blue runes that crawled over the walls like sleeping ice.
She turned at once.
The "door" was gone.
Not hidden. Not sealed. Gone like the world had swallowed it. The wall was smooth, unbroken rock. Lin Xue pressed both palms to it anyway, like stubborn hands could force reality to admit the truth.
"Chen Wei," she whispered.
Nothing answered.
Her wrist mark burned—warm, then weak, then warm again—like a candle trying not to die. The gold-and-silver bond rope inside her mind wasn't gone, but it was thin. Flickering. Like it was being chewed from the other side.
Lin Xue's chest tightened. "No," she said, voice sharp with fear. "You do not disappear."
Her curse chose that moment to remind her it existed. Cold rushed through her ribs, biting deep. Without Wei Chen's heat, it felt like a knife turning slowly inside her.
Lin Xue sucked in a shaky breath and hugged herself, arms tight around her shoulders. Her fingers trembled. Her pride hated the tremble, but she didn't let go. She pressed her forehead to the cold wall where the door had been, eyes squeezing shut.
Then she remembered the last kiss.
The way his mouth had been warm and steady, even on the edge of death. The way he had said, "I choose you," like it was a rule stronger than the tunnel.
Her cheeks warmed, and it made her angry because warmth had no business showing up without him.
"Idiot," she whispered, but her voice broke at the end.
Her wrist mark pulsed again, and a thin heat slid up her arm like a message. Not words. Feeling. A flicker of his presence—far away, but real enough to make her curse hesitate.
Lin Xue grabbed her wrist mark with her other hand, holding it like she could keep it alive by force. "Chen Wei," she whispered again, softer. "Say my name. Stay real."
Her throat tightened. She hated begging. But she hated losing more.
"Chen Wei," she said again, and this time it came out like a vow. "Anchor to me."
The mark warmed, and for one heartbeat she felt him—his heat, his stubborn life, the taste of him still on her lips. Her breath hitched so hard it almost turned into a sound.
A blush rose on her cheeks, and she pressed her fingers to her mouth like she could hide it from the cave. "This is not the time," she scolded herself.
But her body didn't care about timing. Her skin remembered his hands. Her pulse remembered the way he pulled her close and made her feel safe and embarrassed at the same time.
Lin Xue's nails dug into her palm. "Focus," she whispered.
She forced her mind to work like an elder again. She stepped back and studied the cave. The runes were not random. They formed a circle around the place where the door should have been. An ice lotus shape… broken in the middle, like someone snapped the flower and threw away the heart.
"This is a gate array," she murmured.
Her eyes sharpened. If it was an array, it could be reopened. But it would demand a price, because everything in that place demanded a price.
Lin Xue knelt and traced the lotus lines with two fingers. Frost gathered on her fingertips. The lines responded faintly, like the stone recognized her Yin.
Her wrist mark flared warm again, and she felt a second pulse—stronger, rougher—like Wei Chen hit the other side of the wall with his fist.
Lin Xue's breath caught. "He's alive," she whispered.
A tiny sound escaped her, half laugh, half sob. Then she slapped her own cheek lightly. "Stop," she hissed. "Do not break now."
She pressed her palm to the center of the lotus and pushed her frost into it, careful. The array glowed a little brighter.
Her curse bit back, angry without his heat. Pain stabbed her chest, and her vision blurred for a second.
Lin Xue forced herself to breathe slowly. "I choose," she whispered, using the same words he always made her say out loud. "I choose to save him."
The lotus runes brightened.
A faint seam appeared in the wall—so thin it looked like a scratch of light.
Lin Xue froze.
The seam trembled like it was afraid to exist.
She leaned closer, breath shallow, and whispered toward it, "Chen Wei… I'm here."
The seam flickered.
Her wrist mark warmed again, and this time the warmth felt too intense—almost like a kiss pressed to her skin from the other side. Lin Xue's cheeks burned hard. She bit her lip, angry at herself, and whispered, "Don't you dare flirt through a wall."
The warmth pulsed like a laugh.
Lin Xue swallowed. Her voice went low, fierce. "Stop means stop," she said, as if the bond itself could hear. "And I choose… to open this."
She pushed more frost into the lotus.
The seam widened a finger's width.
Cold air breathed out—coffin-cold.
Lin Xue's stomach dropped, but she didn't pull back. "Chen Wei," she whispered. "Say my name. Stay real."
From inside the crack, a whisper answered.
Not his voice.
It sounded like him, but wrong—too smooth, too hungry.
"Lin Xue," it purred.
Lin Xue's blood went ice.
She tried to shut the seam, but the lotus flared, and the crack fought her hand like it wanted to stay open.
Then something moved inside the crack.
A shadowed eye appeared—gold rimmed with black—watching her through the narrow light like a predator peeking through a keyhole.
The Frost-Eater.
It was on the other side of the wall.
And it had followed the bond.
Lin Xue's breath stopped. Her curse surged in panic, frost spilling from her sleeves.
The eye blinked once, slow and pleased.
And the voice came again, wearing Wei Chen's sound like a mask.
"Open wider," it whispered. "He's waiting for you."
Lin Xue's hands shook, but her eyes turned hard as glass. "No," she whispered.
Then, from deeper inside the crack, she felt a second presence—hot, angry, real.
A pulse slammed the seam from the other side, like someone tried to shove the monster back.
Lin Xue's wrist mark flared bright gold.
And for one single heartbeat, she heard Wei Chen's real voice—ragged, furious, human.
"Lin Xue… close it!"
The crack widened anyway.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.