Lady Aurora’s shoulders quivered. A sorrowful smile tugged at her lips, brittle as frost clinging to a dying leaf.
“No revenge…” she whispered, each syllable a shiver of air. “Live… Live well… Maxwell, you are still the same fool…”
After a long, weight-heavy silence, she turned back to Jared, her gaze dark and searching. “Tell me,” she asked, voice scarcely more than a breath, “Do you know what I am to Maxwell?”
Jared answered only with a wordless shake of the head. “We were lovers…” the confession floated from her throat as though cut from her soul with a silver knife.
“Ten millennia ago, I was the Celestials’ Holy Maiden, and he… He was their peerless prodigy of the sword. We might have become the envy of every realm but…” Her stare turned to ice, fury swirling beneath the glaze.
“Our clan binds its Holy Maiden to eternal chastity. She must remain untouched, a vessel for the Frost Deity—no husband, no union, no clandestine heartbeat for any man… Maxwell defied that iron law for me.” Her fingers curled, nails drawing tiny crescents in her palm.
“He planned our escape, swore to steal me into the void. When the Patriarch learned of it, lightning fell. Maxwell shielded me, embracing nearly the full punishment so I might live. In the aftermath, I was stripped of the saint‘s diadem and exiled to this bleak Northern Abyss…”
“I raised Northern Abyss Palace with my own hands, yet in truth, I severed every tie to that heartless Clan. A public decree claimed the Patriarch obliterated Maxwell’s very soul as a warning to the rest. I searched for thousands of years. Not a trace… At last, I had to believe he truly…” Her voice fractured. No more words would come.
Love so fierce it broke commandments, so brave it shattered lives…
A hush fell over the frozen hall. Jared’s chest tightened, struck by the tragic grandeur of what he had just heard. Even Clara and the usually impassive Vermilion bowed their heads, hearts caught in the tale’s cruel beauty.
“Across these long centuries,” Aurora said, embers igniting behind her eyes, “I have breathed only to avenge him, tear down those merciless laws, dethrone the Patriarch who chained him. But my strength is a lone candle. Though I founded this palace, the Celestials still watch every flicker. I have had to wait, gathering power grain by grain…”
She looked at Jared, something like sunrise softening the storm. “You bring word that he yet lives. Nothing in the world means more to me.”
Jared lowered his head. “You once taught me, my lady. Passing the news was only my duty.”
Aurora studied him. “You spoke of claiming a Thousand-Year Frostblood Lotus to save a friend; did I hear correctly?”
“Yes,” Jared said at once. He sketched the plight of Vermilion and Selene, how one lay poisoned, how the other slept in crystal stasis beneath moonlit ice.
Aurora nodded slowly. “A rare bloom, but to me of little consequence. I can grant it, and I can unseal the protection array guarding the Frostpool outside.”
Vermilion’s eyes flared crimson with delight; he nearly rose to prostrate himself before her.
“However…” Aurora continued, voice turning to tempered steel, “There is a price.”
Jared felt a chill slide down his spine. “Name it.”
“First,” she said, unwavering, “I need the precise location of your void passage and the method to open it. When fortune allows, I will step through and stand before Maxwell myself.”
Jared weighed her request, then bowed. “I will share all I know. Yet the passage lurks in lethal turbulence, and even I cannot promise safe entry a second time. Maxwell now lingers as a mere wisp of spirit, if he lingers at all.”
Back then, to save Jared from the boiling maw of the void, Maxwell did the unthinkable. He tore himself clear of the swirling corridor and hurled Jared to safety, and the recoil shattered Maxwell’s soul into drifting embers.
Jared could never speak of that sacrifice. If Lady Aurora learned the whole truth, her fragile calm might snap and turn to sudden fury.
“I know how dangerous it is, yet I still have to go… A century of yearning,” Lady Aurora cut in, her snowy lashes quivering, “And I must see with my own eyes that he still lives. As for danger, believe me, my countermeasures are in place.”
“Second…” she went on, “Because you now bear Maxwell’s legacy, you are, in spirit, his disciple. Promise me that when your strength at last suffices, you will find a way to break the chains that hold him. If fate allows, strike down the Celestials’ rotten laws so that lovers are never again condemned to such torment.”
Jared dipped his head in solemn agreement.
Truth be told, he had longed to cross blades with the Clan Leader of the Celestials. His power was lacking now, but that would not always be so.
Even today, if that arrogant ruler stood before him, Jared would not hesitate to curse him to his face. Should the Clan Leader dare strike, Mr. Sanders would emerge from the shadows, and then the so-called Celestials would be finished.
“I give you my word. When I am strong enough, I will stride into the Celestials’ sacred court and demand Maxwell’s release. If the Clan Leader refuses, I’ll beat him until he agrees. Any decrees that shackle the innocent will be smashed, one by one.”
“Good… Such spirit!” Admiration flickered through Lady Aurora’s pale eyes. “No wonder Maxwell chose you.”
She sobered. “But for now, you remain too weak, and you know far too little of the Clan. Rushing in blindly would be suicide.”
She opened her gloved hands. “Use this moment. Whatever you wish to know about the Celestials, ask, and I will answer.”
