"Those three things you mentioned."


    Jared''s body went rigid.


    "You promised me you''d do three things for me," Gwendolyn said. Her voice stayed t, t enough to turn cold. "A man''s word, once spoken, can''t be taken back. That''s what you said."


    Jared turned around and looked at her.


    Gwendolyn didn''t look away. She met his eyes head-on.


    "The first thing, I''ve already done. I took your blood for research. The second thing..."


    She paused. Her voice shook slightly, but she still forced the words out.


    "Dual cultivation with me."


    Jared said nothing.


    He knew she''d pinned him with that.


    Gwendolyn wasn''t wrong. He had agreed to it.


    No matter what the situation had been back then, the words hade out of his


    own mouth, and the promise had been made by his own hand.


    If he went back on it now, then what made him any different from those faithless little men who broke their word?


    "And you''re not worried I''ll go back on it afterward?" Jared''s voice came out rough. Gwendolyn gave him a faint smile.


    There was a trace of bitterness in it, and something else that wouldn''t settle into words.


    "You won''t. You''re not that kind of man."


    She turned and walked toward the door of the stone chamber.


    When she reached it, she stopped without looking back.


    "Tonight. Beneath the Worldtree. I''ll wait for you."


    Her figure disappeared through the doorway.


    Jared was left alone in the stone chamber, standing there in front of the seven ss phials on the table, silent for a long time.


    Night fell.


    Night in the Voidreach wasn''t like night anywhere else.


    The aurora overhead burned brighter, its pale color deepening into a rich blue-violet, like a river flowing across the sky.


    The Worldtree''s golden leaves swayed softly in the night wind, rustling against each other.


    The sound was like an ancient song, and like a low sigh.


    Jared stood at the entrance to the hollow, looking at the aurora reflected on the


    Everything inside him was knotted tight.


    He didn''t want to go.


    But he had to.


    A promise was a promise.


    Of all things in his life, that was what Jared had always held highest.


    A man''s word.


    If he could toss aside his own promise whenever it suited him, then what made him


    any different from the kind of people he looked down on?


    He drew in a long breath, then stepped out of the hollow.


    On the other side of the Worldtree''s trunk, there was a small clearing.


    Gwendolyn was already there, waiting in the middle of it.


    She had changed clothes.


    She was no longer wearing that in white dress from the day. In its ce was a pale blue gauze robe, and under the aurora and the golden leaves, it gave off a dim, cold sheen.


    Her long hair hung loose, spilling down her back like a waterfall. A few stray strands rested by her ear and drifted softly in the night wind.


    She stood with her back to Jared on thergest root of the Worldtree, her face tilted up toward the canopy overhead.


    Golden leaves drifted down around her, settling on her shoulders and in her hair, as if cing a golden crown on her head.


    At the sound of footsteps, she slowly turned around.


    Moonlight, aurora light, and golden radiance fell across her face all at once. It made her features look a little unreal, like someone who had stepped out of a painting.


    "You came." Her voice was very soft, so soft the wind nearly swallowed it.


    Jared walked up to her and stopped.


    The two of them looked at each other.


    "I''ve thought it through," Jared said, his voice rough. "I agree. But I have one condition."


    Gwendolyn''s brow lifted slightly. "What condition?"


    "This is just a deal," Jared said, each wordnding hard. "After the dual cultivation, things between us stay exactly the same. I won''t start having any other ideas because of this. And you shouldn''t start having any other ideas about me either."


    Gwendolyn looked at him and said nothing for a moment.


    Then she smiled.


    It was so faint it was almost impossible to see.


    But there was something in it Jared couldn''t put a name to.


    Relief. Bitterness. Or maybe something else entirely. "Okay."


    Jared nodded.


    He drew in a deep breath and started taking off his outer robe.


    Gwendolyn turned around and gave him her back.


    She slowly slipped the thin blue gauze from her body as well.


    She moved slowly, steady andposed, without a trace of awkwardness and without a trace of haste.


    It was as if what she was doing wasn''t some major act tied to the continuation of her


    bloodline at all, but something as ordinary as anything else in the world.


    Moonlight spilled across her pale shoulder and traced a graceful, distant curve.


    The Worldtree''s leaves started falling faster.


    Golden leaves spun and danced through the air like a rain of gold.


    They fell around the two of them and spread into a carpet of gold.


    Gwendolyn turned back around.


    Her face still carried that same cold, distant look, but a faint flush had crept over the roots of her ears and down her neck.


    That faint flush came and went under the moonlight and the golden radiance.


    It kept her from looking like a sculpture carved from ice anymore. She looked like a


    living woman now, one who could still turn shy when it came to this.


    "Come here." Her voice was soft, but there was no room in it for doubt.


    Jared walked over and stopped in front of her.


    There was barely any space left between them. Only a breath.


    He could smell her now.


    It wasn''t the quiet winter-plum fragrance from earlier in the day. This was richer than that, more intoxicating, a cold scent like the first snowfall of deep winter, clean and sweet at once.


    Gwendolyn raised a hand and rested it lightly against his chest.


    Her hand was cool.


    But something strangely warm pulsed at her fingertips.


    That warmth sank through the skin over his chest and poured into him.


    It spread through his limbs, through every part of him, until the Golden Dragon


    Bloodline inside him started boiling on its own.


    "Close your eyes."


    Her voice drifted out like something spoken in a dream.


    "Rx. Don''t resist."


    Jared did as she said and closed his eyes.


    In the next instant, he felt Gwendolyn''s body press against his.


    Her body was cool, as cool as a piece of cial jade steeped in moonlight.


    But beneath that coolness, something deeply warm moved through her.


    It was like a hidden hot spring running under solid ice.


    Twopletely different forces began to move between their bodies.


    One was Jared''s golden draconic energy, burning hot, overbearing, and packed with


    the power of destruction and rebirth;


    The other was the icy divine radiance flowing out of Gwendolyn, cold and soft at


    once, carrying ancientws of the realm that could freeze time and space.


    The two forces moved through both of them in ceaseless cycles.


    They wrapped around each other. They sank into each other.


    At first, they pushed against each other. Jared''s draconic energy burned hot, and Gwendolyn''s icy divine radiance rant cold inside their bodies, the sh hit like fire and water mming together.


    Jared felt like his body was being torn in half.


    One side was molten fire. The other was bitter frost.


    Gwendolyn''s brows drew tight as well, and a fineyer of sweat slowly surfaced across her forehead.


    But she tightened her grip on Jared''s hand, their fingers locking together, palm


    against palm.


    "Don''t resist," she said by his ear, and there was something in her voice that steadied him. "Let them merge."