“Mingxi.”
He looked back at her—just once with a soft smile. An entire world in his eyes.
“I promised,” he said, “I’d burn anything that tried to take you.”
Then he turned toward the shard and ignited.
Foxfire roared across the basin, white-blue and impossibly bright, spiraling upward in a column of pure celestial flame. The heat was intense, and Caelan stumbled back, shielding his face. Lirrane swore and braced herself. Even Yunlian’s glow flickered.
Still, Mingxi burned hotter.
The shard shrieked, twisting violently as cracks split it open. Shadowlight poured free, writhing in tendrils.
Caelan shouted, “It’s resisting!”
“It can try to resist,” Mingxi growled, foxfire sweeping upward in another wave. “But it won’t win.”
The shard lashed out with a final desperate strike—a whip of shadowlight snapping straight toward Poppy.
She gasped, but Yunlian was there in an instant, golden light bursting like a shield between Poppy and the attack.
“Not this child!” Yunlian snapped, her voice ringing like a temple bell.
The shard recoiled, and Mingxi struck. He hurled his foxfire directly into the shard’s core, white-hot flame cutting through the cracks like a blade through frost. The shard’s form fractured—shattered—and collapsed inward in a burst of light so bright the basin went briefly white.
When the glow faded, nothing remained. No shadow. No residue. No corruption. Just the faint shimmer of foxfire dying gently along Mingxi’s arms.
Poppy let out a shaking breath.
The shard was gone, but the moonwell was failing.
The water collapsed inward with a painful, hollow groan. Cracks widened across the basin. The glow dimmed to a faint throb, barely visible.
“No, no, no,” Poppy whispered, struggling to her feet, her heart aching.
The moonwell pulsed weakly, like a dying heartbeat.
Yunlian’s face went pale. “Its core is collapsing.”
Caelan stared in horror. “Without the shard’s false structure, there’s nothing holding it together.”
Lirrane turned sharply. “Someone, stabilize it!”
“I will,” Mingxi said immediately.
“No.” Poppy’s voice cut clean through the chaos. She stepped forward, stumbling but determined. “It chose me,” she whispered. “Let me answer.”
Her hands flared with silver light. The moonwell flickered as if sensing her approach, and Poppy knelt at its edge.
She placed her hand on its trembling surface. “Come back,” she whispered, voice shaking. “You’re not alone.”
The moonwell’s faint glow pulsed under her palm. Weak… but responding.
Behind her, Mingxi knelt as well, placing his hand over hers without a word.
Their magic met—gold and silver, fire and light—and the moonwell’s light steadied. Barely. But enough.
As Mingxi held her, the moonwell glowed again—this time softer, gentler—and a single pulse of silver drifted upward like a sigh of relief.
