Chapter 23: The Flame’s Embrace

The apothecary's brow furrowed as he studied the young woman before him. "A third-grade Ice Spirit Pill?" He shook his head, the brass scales on his counter trembling. "Such remedies are beyond this humble shop. You'd need the Alchemist Guild for that."

Maeve's shoulders slumped, her porcelain features tightening. Without a word, she turned toward the door, her emerald robes whispering against the floorboards. But two steps into the sunlight, the world tilted. Her knees buckled, and the cobblestones rushed up to meet her.

"Madam Lu!"

Dustin Li moved like a gust of wind, catching her before she struck the ground. Her body was furnace-hot against his chest, the scent of jasmine and burnt sugar clinging to her skin. As he adjusted his grip, his gaze inadvertently dipped to the flushed hollow of her throat—and lower, where sweat-damp silk clung to curves that would haunt a lesser man's dreams. He jerked his head away, heat prickling his ears.

"By the Nine Peaks!" The shopkeeper gaped. Patrons craned their necks, murmurs swelling like tidewater.

Maeve stirred, lashes fluttering open to reveal eyes like smoke-stained quartz. Recognition dawned. Then horror. "Release me," she rasped, pushing weakly against his tunic. But her limbs were saplings in a typhoon, and the fever radiating from her core turned her protests to vapor.

"Dustin…" Her fingers clawed at his sleeve, knuckles white. "Take me from this place."

He needed no second bidding. Scooping her into his arms, he strode into the thoroughfare. "Where?"

"My quarters." The words came as a breath, laced with shame. "Northspire Lane."

Whispers dogged their steps—crude jests from passing mercenaries, speculative hums from silk-clad matrons. Dustin's jaw tightened. Were Maeve not trembling like a snared songbird, he'd have taught those leering fools the taste of cobblestones.

***

The cottage stood sequestered behind a screen of weeping willows, its cedar beams steeped in the resinous scent of scholar's ink. Dustin laid Maeve upon a bed of indigo-dyed linen, his calloused hands lingering a heartbeat too long. Beneath the pallor, her skin burned like forge-coals.

Three moons past, he'd sensed the wrongness in her—a flicker of discord during her lectures on celestial meridians. Now, as he pressed fingers to her wrist, his qi slithered through her veins like a questing serpent.

*There.*

Her heart pulsed like a smith's hammer, each beat spewing tendrils of crimson fire through branching meridians. Yet coiled around the inferno lay tendrils of frost—the Ice Spirit Pills' dwindling work. A death sentence deferred, not denied.

Maeve's eyes snapped open as he withdrew. "What game do you play, Dustin Li?" Frost rimed her tone, though her chest heaved. "Men greater than you have failed to mend what's broken here."

He met her glare unflinching. "And did those greater men taste your fire, Madam? Or merely fear its bite?"

A log cracked in the hearth. Somewhere beyond the latticed window, a nightjar wailed.

Slowly, trembling, she extended her wrist.

***

The moment his qi breached her defenses, Dustin understood his folly.

Maeve's life force was a wildfire contained by rice paper—ancient, ravenous. It roared up the connection between them, searing his channels black. The Deathseed Orb in his dantian quivered, then *awoke*.

"No—" The plea died as raw yang force flooded his meridians. His vision bleached white. Skin blistered. Bones sang like overstrung lutes.

Through the agony, shards of clarity: Maeve gasping as decades of torment bled away. The sodden silk of her robe, translucent now, mapping peaks and valleys that mocked his fraying control. Worst of all—the Orb's dark hunger, gnawing at his resolve.

When the last ember passed into him, Dustin's world dissolved into cinders.

***

Maeve stared at the crumpled figure on her floor. The boy's—no, the man's—skin still glowed like sunset on snowmelt. Her hand rose, trembling, to press against a breastbone gone quiet.

No pain. No smoldering weight beneath the ribs. Just… silence.

"Fool," she whispered, gathering his scorched form to her chest. "What madness made you think you could swallow the sun?"

What have you done? she asked the stillness, cradling ruin made flesh. What have you become?

Outside, the first monsoon rains began to fall.