"Maxwell Sterling..." Her slender frame swayed. Tears shimmered in her eyes, only


    to freeze at once and fall as tiny shards of ice.


    "He''s alive? Is he truly... still alive?"


    "Yes. He lives, but remains confined, unable to break free."


    "Impossible! Maxwell vited the Celestial n''s strictest decree and..."


    cern shot a nce at the woman, throat tightening. "The n leader himself destroyed him. His very soul was meant to be dust. Kid, don''t you dare spin lies to her!"


    Jared lifted his chin and met the woman''s cial stare without flinching. "I have not lied. Mr. Sterling himself told me the Celestial chieftain hurled him into a sliver of the void, condemning him to eternal imprisonment. Were it not for his peerless skill and the protective arts guarding his soul, he would have perished ages ago."


    The woman closed her eyes, letting the silence swell until even the torches seemed to hold their breath.


    When she opened them again, the gale behind her gaze had quieted, returning to its earlier frost, though deep insidey a tangle of emotion impossible to name.


    "All of you, withdraw," the pce leader said, her tone brooking no dissent as she flicked a nce at cern, Montar, and at the Celestial warriors crowding the archway.


    "Your Grace!" Montar cried, rm edging his voice. "This stranger trespassed upon our sacred ground, killed our warriors he must not be spared! And his ims could still be lies. The fate of Mr. Sterling is a Celestial taboo."


    Her reply came soft yet immovable. "I said, withdraw."


    The words carried a weight that pressed upon the bones, brooking no challenge.


    Montar and cern traded looks heavy with frustration, yet neither dared defy hermand. They bowed in unison. Gathering the warriors, they melted into the pce''s darker corridors until only echoes remained.


    In the emptied chamber, only Jared, his two travelingpanions, and the enigmatic pce leader remained. Her gaze returned to Jared, no longer judging, but studying with an emotion he could not yet read.


    "Your name is Jared?" she asked, the question rolling off her tongue like a stone skipped across ice.


    "It is," Jared replied with a steady nod.


    "You im Maxwell still lives—what proof do you carry?" Her eyes pinned him, unblinking.


    Jared considered for a moment, then said, "When Mr. Sterling taught me his sword art, he left a sliver of his lifebound sword intent within me. He instructed that I reveal it only to one I could trust."


    Summoning thest threads of his fading chaotic celestial energy, Jared fed them into the Dragonyer Sword and recalled the cadence of Maxwell''s teaching.


    The de trembled. From its steel rose a hair-thin strand of argent light-so pure, so absolute, it seemed forged to sever everyw and roam unchained across creation. The wisp was fragile as dew and could vanish at a breath, yet its vor was unmistakable.


    At the sight, the pce leader jolted as though struck, staggering half a step; her face drained to snow-white in an instant.


    She lifted a trembling hand toward the silver fment, halting a hair''s breadth away, afraid the vision might shatter if she touched it.


    "It truly is him... his sword intent... Millennia have passed. I thought you were long... long..."


    Tears finally broke free, yet before they could fall, they froze upon her cheeks as wless beads of ice.


    Jared let the argent thread fade back into the steel and lowered the sword, standing quietly.


    He could feel, as surely as a heartbeat, that this woman and Maxwell shared a history carved into the marrow of their souls.


    After a long moment, she smoothed the tears away, the frost returning to her features, though her eyes now carried a gentle warmth.


    "This hall is no ce for such talk. Come with me," she said, turning toward a shadowed passage.


    Her words were scarcely spoken before she pivoted, cloak whispering against the iceced floor, and strode toward the cavernous entrance of the pce.


    vel


    Jared''s eyes drifted from ra to Vermilion, then flicked toward the distant Blood-Soul Frostpool whose crimson mist churned like a wounded dream. "Ma''am, mypanion''s fife depends on the Thousand-Year Frostblood Lotus that grows within that pool. Could you-would you-let us retrieve it?"


    At the threshold, she halted, the hem of her robe settling with a sigh of silk, yet she never bothered to nce back. "The lotus will be discussedter. For now, follow me. I have questions—and there are truths you need to hear."


    Her voice admitted no room for dissent.


    A hush held him for half a heartbeat before he turned to ra and Vermilion, resolve settling behind his eyes. "Let''s go."


    The trio fell in behind her, crossing the threshold into a realm carved entirely from living ice.


    Beyond the soaring archway stretched an avenue of glimmering crystal, nked by statues chiseled from frost andmp-pirs whose pale hearts glowed like captured dawns.


    Bridges of iceced one hall to another, while silent waterfalls hung mid-cascade, frozen ribbons that caught and fractured the dim light into shards of cold color.


    asionally, celestial warriors appeared on patrol, their armor singing faintly against the marble-ice. They bowed to the woman yet sent curious, wary, sometimes hostile nces at Jared''s party, held in check by her unquestioned authority.


    Atst, she stopped before a smaller but exquisitely wrought side hall whose doors opened soundlessly at her presence.


    Within, a single table of pure ice and several translucent chairs waited in pristine stillness. Mirror-smooth walls reflected the four arrivals as though the room itself were a sentinel taking note.


    The pce leader raised one immacte hand in a simple, unmistakablemand. "Sit."


    She imed the central seat, leaving the others little choice but to settle opposite her, the faint creak of frost the only sound in the chamber.


    Once their movements stilled, her gaze found Jared with surgical precision. "Begin.


    Tell me everything you know about Maxwell, every fragment-no omissions, no excuses."


    Jared nodded, drew a measured


    breath, and began: how an ident in the void corridor had hurled him into Maxwell''s prison, the void passage; how the ancient


    swordsman had granted him legacy and guidance He kept one piece


    hidden the matter of the Dragon


    Sect.


    The pce leader listened in perfect stillness, yet her sped hands whitened at


    the knuckles, and the quiver of hershes betrayed a storm her face refused to


    show.


    When Jared spoke of Maxwell enduring millennia of tearing space, nursing only the hope of word reaching his friends and rtives, she closed her eyes, drew several shaky breaths, and wrestled her grief back into its cage.


    "Did he did he speak of me by name?"


    She opened her eyes again; a fragile expectancy shimmered there, daring the world


    to give her hope.


    Jared sifted through the recollection,


    then slowly shook his head. "Mr. Sterling never spoke a name. He only asked that, if chance allowed, I find acertain celestial tell them he stilflives, and beg them not to seek vengeance-only to live welt.


    Jared improvised the tale as he went, having long sensed that something unspoken


    bound the pce leader to Maxwell.


    Perhaps lovers, perhaps allies-whatever they had been, their history was anything


    but simple.