The evening after the tea ceremony was quiet, soft, peaceful in a way that should have soothed them both. Poppy and Mingxi walked the lantern-lit paths between the silverleaf trees, enjoying the warm air and the echo of celebration still lingering in the valley.
A foxfire lantern drifted to their right. Then, it flickered. Not a gentle, natural dimming. A hard pulse, like a heartbeat skipping.
Poppy stopped. “Did you see that?”
Mingxi glanced up. “The lantern?”
Before she could answer, the lantern stuttered again—a brief, unnatural tremor of light. Then another answered in the distance. And another. Just one pulse each. Then they steadied.
Poppy’s shoulders tightened. “That wasn’t wind.”
“No,” Mingxi said quietly. “It wasn’t.”
Poppy pressed her hand to her sternum, a sudden warmth blooming beneath her ribs. Not pain. Not fear. A pull. As if something deep beneath Huoyáo Jìng had just… opened an eye.
Mingxi turned instantly toward her. “Yueguang? What is it?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “It feels like something tugged on my magic. Just for a moment.”
He placed his hand over hers, eyes narrowing as he sensed her qi.
“It’s different,” he murmured. “Your magic. It’s warmer.”
“Warmer?”
“Like foxfire,” he said, voice low. “But not mine. Yours. Something awakened.”
A chill slid down her spine. They continued walking—slowly, carefully—when the earth beneath their feet vibrated. Not enough to be a quake. Barely enough to stir dust.
But Poppy felt it. A soft pull downward, inward, deeper. She stopped again.
“That.”
Mingxi’s ears flicked sharply. “I felt it too.”
He crouched, pressing two fingers to the packed earth. Foxfire shimmered faintly at the point of contact—a diagnostic spell, nothing more. But the way his expression shifted told her everything.
“Poppy,” he whispered. “There’s a pulse in the dragon vein.”
Her breath caught. “The dragon vein that runs to the moonwell?”
“Yes.”
“But we’re nowhere near it,” she said, heart tightening.
“We shouldn’t feel anything from here,” he agreed.
Another lantern flickered—only once—and then steadied. Something deep beneath them exhaled.
A long, forgotten breath.
Poppy pressed a hand to her chest again. “The pull is coming from that direction. Downward. Through the earth.”
Mingxi straightened slowly, instincts bristling. “The moonwell isn’t just calling for help,” he murmured. “It’s calling because something is stirring around it.”
He didn’t say the name, he didn’t have to, but Poppy did.
“Mingxi… is it the Devouring One?”
