Seraphina stared at me.
A disciple's voice came shouting from beyond the door.
"Sovereign! Gabriel has suffered Demonic Deviation. He keeps coughing blood. The healers say he won't last!"
Seraphina seized my wrist, her grip so fierce it nearly ground the bones together.
"Come with me."
The great hall of Sovereign Peak.
Gabriel lay on a jade divan, blood smeared across his lips.
A cluster of healers knelt on the floor before him.
"Reporting to the Immortal Sovereign: Gabriel's heart meridian has ruptured. He requires heart blood from a fellow cultivator of the same lineage as a catalyst."
In all the Verdant Blade Sect, only two of us walked the Path of the Unfeeling. Seraphina and me.
Seraphina flipped her hand and produced a dagger.
It was the one I'd given her three years ago for her birthday. The Ward of Safekeeping was still etched into the blade.
She held it out to me.
"Save him."
I looked at the edge of the blade.
I was leaving soon anyway. It didn't matter if this body was ruined.
"Fine."
I loosened my collar and bared my chest.
Old scars crisscrossed the skin there, layered one on top of another. Every last one from shielding her during Tribulation Crossings.
Seraphina's gaze fell on those scars. The hand holding the dagger went still.
Gabriel let out a groan from the divan.
Her hand drove forward.
The dagger punched through skin and muscle, sinking into my chest above the heart.
The pain was blinding.
I clenched my teeth and made no sound.
Seraphina twisted her wrist, drawing out three drops of blood the color of molten gold and crimson.
The moment the heart blood left my body, my legs gave out. I collapsed to the floor.
My vision went black.
Through the haze, I felt Seraphina's hand reach over and press against my chest.
She didn't stanch the bleeding. Instead, she pinched her fingers together, plucked a scrap of blood-soaked fabric from my robe, and slipped it into her sleeve.
That voice surfaced again:
So much blood...
Still warm.
This is his heart blood. Hide it away. For my eyes only.
The hall's entrance was packed with disciples.
They watched me lying on the ground. Not one stepped forward.
"Everyone could see the senior disciple resented Gabriel. I just never thought he'd push him this far."
"Having a little blood drawn is getting off easy."
"Exactly. He deserved it."
I lay on the cold stone, staring at the translucent panel hovering before my eyes.
Countdown: 1 day.
I closed my eyes.
Almost there.
Countdown: three hours remaining.
The Verdant Blade Sect was alive with noise today.
Red silk draped every gate, and drums and horns rang through the peaks.
It was Gabriel's Core Formation Ceremony.
Never mind that my heart blood was the only reason his cultivation had stabilized. Nothing could stop him from being the star everyone orbited.
They dragged me out of the dungeon.
Plain white prisoner's robes, still stiff with dried blood.
Shackles on my wrists and ankles.
The iron scraped against the long white jade staircase as they hauled me upward, the sound shrill enough to set teeth on edge.
Seraphina sat enthroned at the very top, upon a seat of white jade.
Beside her stood Gabriel, resplendent in ceremonial robes, color blooming in his cheeks.
What a perfect pair they made.
I was dragged onto the high platform.
Two enforcement disciples pressed down on my shoulders, forcing me to kneel.
I didn't kneel.
Even though the frost damage had eaten into my kneecaps until every nerve screamed, I kept my spine straight.
Seraphina looked down at me from above.
Her voice, amplified by spiritual energy, carried to every corner of the sect.
"You harbored jealousy toward a fellow disciple. Your heart was corrupt."
"Gabriel has now achieved Core Formation, yet he still lacks a supreme Sword Bone to anchor his foundation."
"As his senior, this shall be your final act of atonement."
Carving out the bone.
So this was the grand finale all along.
My Sword Bone was innate, the kind every cultivator in the world coveted. A supreme-grade treasure, one in ten thousand years.
It was also what Seraphina had once been proudest of. Her greatest asset.
Now she was going to cut it out of me with her own hands and put it inside another man.
Below the platform, ten thousand disciples chanted in unison.
"We beseech the senior disciple to offer his bone in atonement!"
The roar crashed over me like a tide, deafening.
I looked at Seraphina.
