Radeon looked down at Fay and listened past her face. Past the heat that clung to her like a clean flame.

He measured the rhythm in her chest, the cadence of her breath, the quiet weight of her soul brushing the room.

With what he could read, there was only sincerity. No hook. No hidden malice. No rehearsed plea.

This was what he had been waiting for.

He could have treated her as fodder for his physique. A convenient fortune rich body to be stripped and burned into strength.

Many would have. The thought came easy, then he put it away.

Radeon did not want her dead. He did not even want her merely useful in the crude way sects spoke of.

He wanted her living, close, and shaped to fit the space he had made in his plans. Radeon wanted more.

"You'll have to prove your worth. Sincerity won't cut it." He stared at Fay, smiling.

"Then what would you have this disciple do?" Fay asked, still kneeling.

"Strip. Now." Radeon demanded.

Fay froze where she stood, stunned by the way his gaze did not flinch.

She might have lacked experience with men, but she was not ignorant. She knew how the world fit together behind closed doors.

Color rose in her cheeks and climbed to the tips of her ears, and Radeon let a small smile show, one that made it worse.

Her sky blue robe, dirtied from too many days and too much survival, slipped from her shoulders and fell in a soft heap on the floor.

Her hands trembled as if they belonged to someone else. For a moment her eyes lost focus, and Radeon caught the drift of her thoughts in the way her breath turned quick.

Gossip. Half whispered stories. Seniors who vanished into rooms for days and came out looking ruined and pleased, as if exhaustion could be a prayer.

Fay swallowed, and the sound was loud in the stillness.

Radeon knew her mind had wandered somewhere warm. He decided to tug the leash.

He guided her back onto the bed and pressed her down with controlled weight, close enough that she could feel heat through the thin barriers between them.

Chameleon skin. Bamboo ribs. A strange divide, not enough to make it safe, just enough to make it deliberate.

His hand moved slow, almost gentle, from her forearm to her shoulder, the touch light at first, then steadier as her skin responded.

Fay's hair rose along her arms. She shut her eyes, waiting for the kiss that felt inevitable, her lips parting on a breath.

Radeon lowered his face until his cheek brushed hers, a graze that promised and withheld in the same motion.

His mouth was near her ear when he spoke, voice quiet, amused, and sharp enough to hold her still.

"You're too young for my taste." He said it, then stood by the bed.

Fay flushed harder, embarrassment stinging her skin. She turned her face away as if hiding could erase what her body had just admitted.

Yet beneath the shame there was a small bright lift in her chest. Relief. He had stopped. He had not taken.

For all his coldness, he was not that kind of man, not in the simple animal way she had feared.

She knew she was not ready to commit. Not to now, not to anyone, not with her life still shaking from death and rebirth.

It had been there when he was bloodied and stubborn and moving forward anyway.

Fay still blushed, but she gathered herself. She drew breath until it stopped trembling.

Radeon watched it happen and weighed it. She could be taught. She could be shaped.

She could learn the rules he intended to write for her. Student material.

"Alright. I'll show you a technique." Radeon reached with his soul and passed her the one that fit her best.

A vision rose in Fay's mind without warning.

A huge willow took shape in the dark behind her eyes, its branches drooping like curtains over a river that had no sun.

Fay moved closer, she saw the leaves were not leaves at all. They were flames, teal and steady, burning without smoke.

The trunk was a ghostly gray, half wood and half something that did not belong to any forest she knew.

The willow drank. It drew in the River of Forgetfulness as if it were simple water.

It pulled in the ghosts caught in the current, too, swallowing their pale shapes without pause, without mercy.

Fay felt the hunger in it and the certainty. This was not a plant. This was a verdict that had learned to grow.

Then the vision shifted, and she became the tree.

Roots pushed down through her, through stone and soil and whatever lay beneath the plane.

They sank deeper and deeper, past what she could name, past what she could even imagine.

The pressure built in her skull. Her head felt as if it were cracking open from the inside, torn apart so something larger could fit.

Her knees threatened to fold. The world tilted. Faintness rushed up like dark water.

Fay grit her teeth and forced herself not to black out. She held on with stubbornness and pain, nails biting into her palms.

When she finally tore her eyes open, the cave was still there, the bed still there, the air still thick with lingering qi.

Radeon was to the side, fixing their gears with calm hands. Binding. Adjusting. Preparing.

He glanced at her as if he had been watching her all along.

A smile touched his mouth, light and unreadable, and he asked, quiet enough to make her lean in to hear.

"How much did you see?" Radeon asked.

"I saw a tree. Then its leaves turned to flame. I saw a river where spirits drifted beneath the surface... and I even became the tree."

"Think of yourself as a tree. Let its flow run through your body," he said.

Fay did as he guided. She followed the path he set and channeled qi through her meridians.

The flow answered her like it had been waiting. With every breath it grew cleaner. With every cycle it grew stronger.

She could feel it gathering, thickening, turning from scattered warmth into something that carried weight.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.