Chapter 3

Two handmaids held me up as I inched back toward my chambers, and the moment I crossed into the courtyard I ran straight into Patrick, who had doubled back.

His white robes were spotless, not a trace of scheming on his face, and he only soothed me in a low voice:

"I heard just now that you were frightened in the rear mountain. The whole Pruitt family went off traveling these past days, none of them anywhere near the immortal mountain, or I'd have demanded Tyler answer for hurting you."

"No one can come see you for a while, so just rest easy here in the hall. I'll handle everything."

He said it so gently, so full of care, as if he truly feared I might feel lonely and lost.

The light-screen flooded my sight in an instant, every word cutting to the heart:

"Lies! The Pruitts aren't traveling at all. He and Tyler joined hands to lure them out of the ancestral ground, ready to wipe them out in one sweep!"

"Patrick is deliberately cutting off every hope Ruth has, leaving her isolated with no one to turn to, so she can only cling to him."

I lowered my eyes to hide the hatred surging in them and nodded meekly.

"Thank you for telling me, husband."

Brow lowered, obedient, still the crippled Saint who could not see and could only depend on him.

Patrick looked at me for a long moment, his gaze complicated, and seeing me so docile and quiet, he turned and took up a brush at my side.

Candlelight wavered. Two shadows stood shoulder to shoulder.

Certain I was blind, they bent their heads and wrote without a shred of caution, every word a killing intent.

"Tyler thinks he's fit to covet you? He told me himself, wait until the Pruitts are traveling, lay a spirit-binding array to close in, slaughter the whole Pruitt line in one sweep, root out any future threat. Truly foolish."

A few short lines crushed the last sliver of hope I'd kept for my brother.

So that was it. Tyler's so-called letting go of old grudges was only a filthy bargain struck with Patrick.

He was trading the lives of the entire family just to buy Selene's safety.

"So cruel. They don't just want to kill them, they want to wipe out the Pruitt spirit-veins for good!"

"If the heroine doesn't get word out, the Pruitts really are going to die to the last one today!"

I dug my fingertips hard into the old wound in my palm, the sharp pain keeping me clear.

I could endure my own humiliation. I could endure being schemed against.

But I could not stand by and watch my whole family perish, buried in a death trap over these two people's affair.

Even if the road ahead was a trap, even if one move meant ruin beyond return, I had to get word out.

I pressed every feeling down and slipped out of the outer hall as if nothing were wrong.

When the night was deep and still, I stole silently out of my chambers and crushed the message-jade token.

The token had barely lit up when a cold voice sounded behind me, without a shred of warmth:

"Ruth, where do you think you're going?"

My whole body went rigid, and I turned slowly.

Patrick stood beneath the moonlight, his white robes like frost, nothing left in his eyes but pure cold and mockery.

He came toward me step by step, his gaze locked on my clear, seeing eyes:

"Your eyes healed a long time ago, didn't they?"

"As long as you let me cripple your eyes and cut out your tongue, you're still my only wife."

He didn't need my answer. The faint light of the token faded, and the message failed.

In the next breath, spirit-light blazed on every side.

Elders and disciples of every immortal-order house came at the sound, ringing me in layer after layer, trapping me at the center.

Under all those eyes, Selene walked slowly out, her face pale:

"Elders, judge for yourselves. For ten years the Pruitt Saint has nursed her grudge, resenting that the immortal order failed to kill me back then and avenge her. Now she consorts with the demon race and sends secret messages, meaning to draw the demons into our lands and destroy the entire immortal order!"

The whole ground erupted, voices roaring.

Some shook their heads in shock, refusing to believe the ever-gentle Saint would betray the order and side with demons, but the doubting voices were few.

Patrick raised a hand to press down the clamor, his eyes dark, then lifted it again in one sharp motion, sending it into my meridians.

The next second his face went cold, full of grief:

"There truly is demon energy inside you! Selene is locked away by me, so you must have made contact with other demons!"

"The immortal order's law stands above all, and good and evil cannot share the same sky. Even if you are my wife, I cannot bend the rule for you."

His voice choked, as if he had made his decision:

"From this day, you are cast into Penitence Cliff, imprisoned for life, never to step one foot beyond the forbidden ground."

In the dead silence, I suddenly lifted my eyes:

"Cannot bend the rule? Patrick! Before you fix a charge on me, go ask your own flesh and blood whether it agrees!"

The whole ground fell dead still at once. My gaze went straight to Selene, whose face had drained white in an instant:

"Selene is with child, and what she carries in her belly is your own flesh and blood!"

Every face changed, an uproar shaking the sky.

Patrick's pupils shrank, all the calm in his eyes shattering at once, his spirit power raging so wildly it nearly tore the air around him apart.

He wrenched out his sword, the blade pointed straight at my heart:

"Utter nonsense! Today I'll cut down you, this demon-consorting creature!"

Just as the blade was about to run through my throat, a beam of immortal light plunged straight down from the sky and forced the long sword from his hand.

"Such grand authority, Golden Saint Henson. Since when is my Pruitt Saint yours to cut down?"