The river had never been warm, but that night it was colder than death.
Snow fell silently onto the banks of Cold Ash River, clinging to black rocks and withered reeds. The water swirled red, diluted with blood.
Lin Xiyam gasped as he stumbled forward, hand pressed tightly to his side. His robes, once pale blue, were soaked through—part blood, part water, all pain. Behind him, the sound of swords clashing had long since faded.
He was alone.
They had been ambushed at dusk — a group of masked assassins emerging from the fog like phantoms. Lin had fought beside Shen Liufeng, their backs to each other, the way they always had.
Until Shen turned away.
"Go!" Shen had shouted, voice fierce, eyes unreadable. "This isn't a battle we can win."
But Lin didn't move. Not until Shen pushed him — hard — sending him crashing into the icy shallows of the river.
By the time Lin surfaced, coughing and trembling, Shen was gone.
Not captured.
Not calling his name.
Gone.
The pain in his chest wasn't from the blade wound.
He crawled onto the rocks, his breathing shallow, vision swimming. His fingers clutched at the edge of his sword—only to realize it was no longer with him.
His sword. His pride. Left behind.
Like him.
He didn't cry. Not when he dragged himself into the forest alone. Not when he buried his sword calluses into the dirt to stop the bleeding. Not even when he collapsed beneath a dead tree and whispered Shen's name until the world went dark.
But in the days after—fevered, hunted, broken—he stopped speaking that name entirely.
The Jianghu said he died that night.
In a way, he had.
The boy named Lin Xiyan, who trusted so easily, who looked at Shen Liufeng with starlit eyes—that boy had drowned in Cold Ash River.
And the man who rose again bore only the memory of winter, and a scar where love used to live.