Rustwater Lake Monastery smelled of wet stone and cold incense.
Li stood in the corridor, fingers white around a cinnabar cup replica. The Devourer had swallowed the damp moss. The trap had sprung. And Rhine was still breathing.
Her rage had nowhere to go. So she fed it into blood.
She nicked her fingertip and let a drop fall into the cup.
The surface of the liquid rippled. A voice rose from it—soft, amused, and unpleasantly intimate.
“Why are you calling me?”
Li swallowed the heat in her throat. “I want Rhine dead.”
A pause. Then the Blood Nun chuckled, like someone tapping a knife against porcelain.
“You want him dead… and you’re calling me now?”
“I searched his room,” Li forced the words out. “I searched everything. I can’t find anything that belongs to him.”
“Nothing?”
“Not a strand of hair. Not a flake of skin. Not a smear of mud. Not even a scrap of cloth.” Li’s voice tightened. “He left like he was never there.”
The Blood Nun went quiet for a heartbeat, as if she were listening to something far away. Then she sighed.
“Bring me his trace,” she said calmly. “Hair. Blood. Dirt. Fabric. Even the air he breathed. With that, I can find him.”
Li’s jaw clenched. “That’s the problem. He didn’t leave any.”
A low laugh. “Clever boy.”
Li felt the cup turn colder in her hands. “So what now?”
“Now?” The Blood Nun sounded almost bored. “Now you stop obsessing over a single fish while the sea is turning.”
“What does that mean?”
It took a second for the Blood Nun to answer. When she did, the warmth was gone.
“The Devourer is doomed,” she said. “Caught between the Seven Gods and Rhine, it will be crushed like driftwood between rocks.”
Li’s eyes widened. “You’re not taking the damp moss?”
“Why would I?” the Blood Nun asked, as if the answer were obvious. “I’m tired. I’ve already gotten what I needed.”
Li’s breath hitched. “You promised—”
“I promised you a chance,” the Blood Nun cut in. “And I’m giving it to you.”
Li stared into the cup. In the rippling surface, she could almost see the silhouette of a woman in crimson.
“If you won’t kill him, then who will?” Li asked.
“Nightmare.”
The name landed like a hook.
Li hesitated. “He’s… already moving?”
“Of course he is.” The Blood Nun’s voice softened again, the way a priestess might soothe a child. “You’re not the only one who wants Rhine. You never were.”
Li’s grip tightened. “Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Lie low. Watch. Wait for the tide to pull the right bodies under.”
Li bit back her frustration. “You said you could kill him yourself.”
“I can.” A smile colored the Blood Nun’s tone. “But not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because I haven’t recovered. Because the Dream God is annoying. Because if I step onto the board, I’ll have to pay for it.”
Li went still. “Pay how?”
“With flesh.” The Blood Nun’s voice turned languid, almost indulgent. “Not scraps. Not weak little offerings. I need stronger bodies. Better vessels.”
Li’s mind snapped to a familiar name. “Greedwolf—”
A sharp laugh cut her off.
“That mutt?” the Blood Nun said. “If he walks into my hands, I’ll eat him. But don’t count on him saving you.”
The ripples in the cup slowed. The voice grew distant.
“Enough. I’m going to rest. Don’t call again unless you have something real.”
“Wait—” Li started.
The cup went still. The connection died.
Li stood alone in the monastery corridor, the air suddenly too quiet. She could hear her own breathing, harsh in her ears.
Mantis hunting cicada. Oriole waiting behind.
The proverb flashed through her mind like a warning—one she’d ignored until now.
Endless Sea—July 20.
Ethan Vale moved through the market streets with the calm of someone who’d already burned his tracks.
A crate wobbled on a vendor’s cart. Without breaking stride, Ethan reached out with the last scraps of his lingering telekinesis and steadied it.
“Thanks,” the vendor muttered, barely looking up.
Ethan dropped a few coins on the counter and took a small bag of lemons. The smell was sharp enough to bite through blood and sweat—useful, if you wanted to cover a trail.
He’d turned his room into a blank slate before he left Rustwater Lake Monastery. No hair on the pillow. No mud in the seams. No discarded cloth. Not even the kind of lingering presence that felt like a human had slept there.
If he hadn’t known what the Blood Nun could do with a trace, he would have laughed at the paranoia.
Now he didn’t laugh.
All it took was a single strand. A single smear. A single breath trapped in fabric. And a demigod could reach across the Endless Sea like a hand through fog.
Ethan’s gaze stayed steady as he walked.
Let them search.
By the time he reached the Black & White Institute’s castle, dusk had already swallowed the road. He slipped inside, climbed the familiar stairs, and pushed open the door to his room.
Morningstar was there.
She rose so fast her chair scraped the floor. Her eyes swept him from head to toe, like she expected to find bite marks—or missing pieces.
Ethan met her stare, expression flat.
Morningstar swallowed, throat working. For a long moment, she couldn’t force a single word out.