Ru spat out the last shard of frost from his lips, the metallic tang of blood blooming on his tongue. "How generous of you," he rasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "First my memories, now my grief. What's next? My breath?"
He straightened slowly, the movement deliberate despite the tremor in his limbs. His knees wobbled slightly, but he forced them into stillness. When his gaze locked with Heise's, the air between them crackled like thin ice about to give way.
"Whatever sickness binds you to me," Ru said, each word a scalpel's precise cut, "I'm done being your cure."
Heise's smile didn't reach his eyes. "What will you do instead, Li Rui? Weep? Scream? We've seen how well that works."
With deliberate slowness, Ru extended Claude's feather between them. The vanes caught the dying light, glowing faintly like a heartbeat on the verge of flatlining.