Life hardens the heart. Whether you are inside when it hardens, only time will tell. Out of all the lovers I’ve ever had, only one had ever deserved to be inside my heart. Sadly, he died. He argued with me over the merits of love during our last conversation, and he won my heart, but I couldn’t tell him out of spite—I hate losing. Now, I’m empty and fill the void with many lovers and denials over love’s existence.

~Aine, Goddess of Love and Vengeance

Crow was lying on the floor naked, and Song Xue had him pinned with her knife against his throat. He wondered briefly why all the worst moments in his life happened while he was naked. Seeing the pain in her eyes tore his soul apart. It was truly unfair to her, but knowing what he experienced, he’d have made the same choice.

“Raahhhh,” Song Xue screamed directly into Crow’s face, her primal anger shaking him to his core. It brought the others running. Seeing Song Xue sitting on top of Crow’s naked body with a knife to his throat, no one was sure what to say.

She looked up and saw her sister, Song Lin, standing there.

“I didn’t know everything,” she said, and her daggers slipped at a little as it sliced into his throat. “Why didn’t you tell me? I… I could’ve helped. I’d have listened. You told him and then took him from me.”

“Lower the knife. I knew what had to happen if he went down this route. Blame me.”

“Dammit!” She growled, and the knife pulled back before slamming into Crow’s shoulder. He didn’t make a sound. So she slashed him across the chest, and still, he said nothing. Instead, he scooped her up into a hug and pulled her tightly to him. The tip of the dagger pressed against his throat, and he could feel a trickle of blood leaking out from where it penetrated the flesh. “Let me go,” she hissed. “Or I’ll kill you.”

“Then do it,” he whispered into her ear, not caring if she did or didn’t. He hurt her, and if he didn’t make this right, he wasn’t sure if he could continue fighting. She’d always been the girl he daydreamed about, the one that made him smile. A person worth shielding.

“Stop this! Both of you stop,” Song Lin’s voice was strained, and she felt guilt tearing her apart. “It was my fault. Mine. I knew this would happen Xue’er, and—”

“Lin, it’s alright. This is honestly not about you. Knowing what happened, I’d have made the same decision. I’m sorry if I hurt you at all. Take Otto and Mara to the beach, and we’ll join you shortly,” Crow said, his eyes never leaving Xue’er. “And don’t push me away out of guilt. I made several promises, and I intend to keep every last one—even if you both try to forbid me, I’ll be there.”

Song Lin was still crying, but she walked out, trusting Crow to do what he needed to do.

“Let. Go,” Song Xue said between grit teeth.

“Are you going to run?”

“I don’t run from anything.”

“That’s why you are my Faelan—”

“No. You don’t have that right!” She growled, and she really sounded like a wolf.

“And yet, it remains true. It’ll always remain true. Time, distance, and death won’t stop that truth. I hurt you, and I know that. I wouldn’t have done it differently, and I know you don’t want to hear that. I’ll never lie to you.” Crow saw her open her mouth, and his eyes bore into her. “Don’t talk. Just listen. What your sister did—I wasn’t nice, nor was I gentle. Your sister had to be carried back. I bruised and hurt her, and that damage is probably more than physical. I was worse than a beast. I ravaged her and did it again and again. She didn’t stop me, not even once, nor did she retaliate or prevent me. She… cried out of guilt—guilt that was directed at you, me, and herself. Be mad at me, but don’t you dare take it out on your sister. You may not know the sacrifices she paid—still pays—nor the guilt and shame she suffered at the hands of the Xu clan, but I could see it in her eyes, haunting her still. I know you heard what she said, but you have allowed none of it to sink in. Your sister was never weaker than you, nor less noble, and she took on all that responsibility on her shoulders. Gave up her childhood. She did that all for you! What you don’t know is she blames herself for your parents’ death—all because she told that scum Xu Chen about your mother’s Mind Seed. Do you know what that is?”

“It’s the accumulated alchemy knowledge of our clan. My mother possessed a secret method for creating the Mind Seed. It is like a vestige that is implanted into the mind and filled with all her knowledge. When she is ready, she can extract it. It is only possible to make one copy, and it is the method they’ve used for the last ten thousand years. Son Lin absorbed it to awaken her Source at the age of eleven, and it nearly killed her.”

“So you are aware of some things, and I imagine that a Mind Seed like that is priceless—worth destroying a sect over, right? Do you understand the burden she has carried? I’m not trying to justify my actions by saying this, but hoping that you understand why she didn’t tell you some things. She wanted to protect you.”

“I won’t run,” Song Xue said softly. “Let me go.”

He did and then weakly climbed up to sit on his bed. Grabbing his pack, he pulled out a small medical kit and cleaned the stab wound on his shoulder before stitching it closed. He could have let his Source or Qi heal it but chose not to. She actually stabbed him pretty deeply, but he couldn’t blame her. This was why Druid’s claimed that if a man wanted more wives, he had to be stronger than all of them, or fights were inevitable.

Xue’er watched him the entire time.

“Why are you doing that?”

“I keep all the scars you leave on me. It…” Crow absently rubbed the marks on his palms. “Reminds me that every action has a consequence. It is also something you gave me, so I don’t want to lose it,” he sighed, realizing that sounded silly.

“Why her? You could have slept with any whore, hundreds of them even, but why my sister?”

He laughed bitterly and remained silent. The choice he made was not a choice at all. Besides, he was sure Song Lin was listening, and there was no simple answer that wouldn’t hurt her too.

“Answer me! Why her?”

“Faelan…” Crow sighed. “There is no answer that will satisfy you. Do you want me to say you weren’t strong enough? That what I did to your sister would have killed you? It would have killed anyone without a Shield.”

Her fists clenched in anger, and she stamped her foot hard enough that Crow could hear the floorboards cracking.

“Don’t you get it? I’ll give you the world if you let me or burn it down if it tries to harm you. The heavens want me dead, and it’s tried since I was three. It beat me, punished me, made me suffer for all my achievements. Every time it gives something, it takes something.”

She remained quiet and stared at him, and he stared back.

“You said you were a man that did not surrender, did not bow down, and yet you let this control you? Are you that weak?” She finally asked.

The truth of those words stung because he was that weak. The heavens suppressed him at every turn. Crow should’ve surrendered long ago, but it was this woman in front of him that kept him moving forward. Nothing scared him more than being left behind by his Faelan.

“Does it look like I’ve bowed my head? I won’t let the heavens take you from me too. Are you angry because I claimed your sister before I claimed you?” Crow regretted those words the moment he uttered them.

“Shut up, stupid bird!” Song Xue roared, the sparkling tears splashing against the ground. Each drop was like heaven’s fist pounding against his existence. Seeing her cry broke something inside him, and he felt his soul tearing.

Distantly, he sensed Lily’s lightning energy coursing through him, and she helped stabilize his soul. There was a cosmic work at play, but it was above his level of understanding. Thinking too deeply into it could destroy his mind as well. He sensed what was happening. Something was trying to sever his connection to Song Xue. It was trying to rip the bond apart, and both of them suffered for it.

Crow roared in defiance, his head tilted toward the heavens, and his chest burst out with light, causing Song Xue to gasp and back up. Not sure what was happening, the others rushed in and stopped in shock. Not only was there a bright light bursting from Crow’s chest, but his entire body seemed to smolder in black flames.

His Soulscape pulsed, causing his head to spin, and he finally entered the place he’d created a while back. On his knees, his body leaned back so he could look up at the massive oak before him. The tree itself wasn’t much bigger than an ordinary oak, but Night Fire formed the leaves. Wood and Fire elements weren’t at odds but coexisting. Finally, the bark had purple lightning veins, something he was sure had to do with Lily.

Turning his head, he saw her flying next to him, and she tapped her heart and then pointed toward the sky. Her mouth opened, and her body shook as if she was letting out a roar.

“Defy the heavens?” Crow asked, and she nodded her head.

Crow stood up and felt all the energy in his Soulscape, every little piece of power that existed in it was his. So he gathered it all and then looked upward and roared, unleashing all of it. The flame leaves practically exploded with power, and Night Fire billowed upward like a volcano. Lightning wrapped around it like a coil, but none of that was as surprising as the oak tree. It compacted downward, allowing the fire and lightning to achieve tremendous momentum. The powerful grip that the heavens had on his bond with Song Xue broke, but while it still existed, Crow sensed the damage. He feared what that meant but had little time to think about it. Another power erupted, a kind of cosmic backlash that didn’t seem to be directed at him, but his proximity made it impossible for him to dodge.

Lily flew before him, putting both her hands on his eyes to close them. The lightning behind his eyes had turned chaotic, and the strange energy from the backlash coursed through him, awakening his blood. The two events impacted his eyes, and it felt like they were searing them out of his skull. Outside his Soulscape, his eyes bled, the crimson tears rolling down his face while he screamed himself hoarse.

“The Three-Headed Crow can see all paths except the one it’s on,” Crow intoned, but his consciousness didn’t even know he’d spoken, the words came out with a profound sense of awe, and the others in the room knew something serious had just happened.

An indeterminate time later, three sets of eyes appeared before him. The rest of the world remained blurred and inconsequential. Looking through the eyes on the right, he saw his past in precise detail. Even events that occurred around him he hadn’t noticed previously were now visible. Nothing escaped his sight, and with his Sage’s Mind, he would remember every detail. Well, at least those that weren’t blocked from him, and he knew instinctively that powerful cultivators were the cause.

Shifting to the eyes in the center, he saw things happening around him. This allowed him to see the events of today only, and only those people within a few kilometers of him. It was a variation of the vision others used to scry on people. It also gave him insight as to what was happening. The bloodline awakening wasn’t his Druid’s blood because this was a skill his mother had. With that knowledge, he knew that this type of vision was the one he was most attuned with, and he’d be able to use it from now on.

“Karmic balance…” Crow muttered, wondering if that backlash was a greater power than the heavens at work, trying to correct a severe wrong. He’d never heard of anything able to attack the karmic bond between two people, and that thought alone was scary enough.

Taking a deep breath, he looked through the last set of eyes—the future. He knew even before looking that it wouldn’t show his own. Unfated had no visible paths, and not even his new power could defy that.

Song Xue appeared before him in a myriad of scenes, mostly during her days at the Sky Torn Sect. Some of them made him laugh and cry, but he knew that these were possibilities. Still, Crow could sense her personality in all of them and see Otto by her side, protecting her when she needed it. He noted the item she carried with her everywhere she went. It was a gift he’d only started designing in his mind, something he would make for her before leaving, and he called it the Snow Wolf’s Bite.

Time. He understood now why he had to leave her behind for the next two years. Not only would she grow more powerful under the care of the Sky Torn Sect, but he understood what this vision was an apology. Crow was intelligent enough to know why he was shown all those scenes of her at this sect. They were warning him to stay away, that she needed time by herself to understand her feelings. It was the only way for that damaged bond to recover.

Two years was nothing to a cultivator, and if that was what he needed to do to fix this, he could endure her enmity for now. He’d do it for the both of them because he knew in his heart that Song Xue was never angry about the Song Lin affair. Her anger was toward herself for not being strong enough.

Reality snapped back, and he was still standing before the tree that was the only thing inside his Soulscape. There was land, but it was barren, and surrounding all of this was the dark fires that Crow knew were from his Soul Burn curse. Those flames couldn’t enter this space, but it didn’t stop them from surrounding it.

Lily knocked on his forehead and then put her finger to his head.

*You created quite a ripple in fate’s web. Many seers are trying to find out what happened, and those around this place sensed your scrying. You need to be careful.*

“Why? It isn’t like seers are all that uncommon. I do not doubt you, just asking.”

*The surrounding cultivators felt your inexperience and won’t take offense. Do you realize you awakened a Witch’s bloodline, something usually reserved for female descendants only? A Witch will kill any males that dare defile Wycca.*

“I have so many questions. First, how do you know all this? Second, what is Wycca, and last, why would they kill male practitioners of their art?”

*I know because your bloodline opened and allowed me to see things too. Wycca is your version of mana. And they kill male Witches because they hold power over covens. They aren’t subservient to you, but they will feel compelled to do your bidding. Until you can defend yourself, you must never mention that you are a male Witch.*

“Why are the past and future vision… blocked?” Crow asked because while he could sense they existed, he could no longer access them.

*You chose the present. When I helped you with your vision, you just wanted to see the physical world. Subconsciously, you were avoiding the fate-related sight. You felt little connection to your past because of your Sage’s Mind.*

“You are saying I found past and future pointless? Was I wrong? I remember my past clearly. While the vision helped clarify some things, it doesn’t change much from what I remembered. The future of an unfated is even more pointless. It only confuses things.”

Lily flew in front of him and laughed before shrugging her little shoulders.

*Doesn’t matter. Both visions will be helpful to you, and you are just blocked. Eventually, you’ll figure out ways to open them. Now, leave. You are still staring vacantly like an idiot and scaring your friends.*

Leaving his Soulscape was like sliding his consciousness from soul to mind. This was the first time he did it voluntarily, so the experience was a bit odd. Feeling a cooling sensation, he looked down at his chest. He saw Song Lin’s long, slender fingers caressing the three-headed crow that appeared on his heritage. Each head had different colored eyes that contrasted against its dark-flamed body. He recognized those eyes because they were like his mother’s. It complicated things because he feared he’d have to hide this too.

“This is a seer’s power, and I felt you scry—how is this possible?” Song Lin asked in awe. “Does the Druid bloodline have this capability?”

“No,” Crow remembered what Lily said and hesitated. In the end, these were his chosen companions, and they at least needed to know the dangers of traveling with him. “It comes from my mother, who is a Witch’s first daughter. My grandfather refused to let her go with her mother to join a coven.”

“That isn’t possible… A Witch can only pass their sight down to females—no, I suppose it is possible. Male Witches have existed, but their ending is always tragic. You must tell no one about this,” Song Lin commanded, and then her fingers were still caressing the three-headed crow on his chest, feeling the raised texture. It was an intimate gesture that wasn’t lost on anyone in the room, even Otto.

“Brother…?” Otto looked between Crow and Song Xue, see that she was staring daggers.

Crow’s eyes hadn’t left Xue’er, and while she glared, he couldn’t help but frown.

“Unfated. Witch. Soul Burn. Dumb bird invites disaster everywhere he goes,” Song Xue spoke icily. Each word felt like winter, their icy barbs cutting deeper than her knives. Crow could see not one trace of warmth or sympathy in her face or eyes. “Every action you take, you interfere with fate and luck. This—it’s too much. Just go, and… please don’t come back.” Song Xue’s softly spoken words caused Crow’s soul to clench in pain. These words hurt more than she’d ever know, and because he promised himself he’d do whatever she asked, he decided to leave.

Crow knew this vacation was over. In front of everyone, he got dressed and packed his things. No one said a single word. After he was done, Song Lin handed him some pills and instructions on advancing his current meridian paths, based on her observations. Leaving, he paused by Xue’er and said, “Stay safe in the coming years. No matter what, you will always be my Faelan.”

He left, and Otto followed. Crow didn’t see or hear Song Xue grab onto her sister and sob into her shoulder. It was maybe the best thing Crow did for her that day. Still, he left the Subterranean Shores with bittersweet memories.

They’d almost reached Oiche when Otto put his massive hand on Crow’s shoulder.

“Loves you. She’ll wait. Wait eternity.”

Crow looked at the big giant and realized the Shores had changed him too. The lightning in Otto’s body was more substantial, and his eyes weren’t as dim. “Big brother, I’m leaving right after the Trial of Tur Briste, but I can’t take you or her with me. You two will go to the Sky Torn Sect together, so please protect her. Never leave her side.”

“Otto do this.”