Chapter 3

Della's tears spilled at once as she sank to her knees at my feet.

"Sister, I've let you down, I know. But I was born barren, and I'm only a three-tailed spirit fox with limited talent for cultivation. Why else would that heartless man have thrown me away?"

"Aiden is the only one who never held that against me, the only one willing to take me as his wife. I love him. I'll never find anyone more worth leaning on. You've cared for me for hundreds of years, so care for me this one last time, please?"

So she did still remember that I had cared for her for hundreds of years.

My parents were ordinary folk of the mortal realm, and they resented having a daughter.

Once they had a son, they lured me deep into the mountains and left me there, hoping the beasts would eat me and be done with it.

I fought a wolf for three days. The wolf died, and I nearly bled to death myself.

It was Della, who couldn't even take human form yet and had slipped out to play, who carried me on her back and hauled me home to Verdant Hollow.

The fox healer discovered I had extraordinary talent for cultivation.

So Della begged her parents, saying it would be a waste to let such gifts wither, and that she wanted a human sister of her own. She pleaded with them to raise me.

And so they gave me half of everything they had, and helped me ascend.

I swore I would repay the Bennett family, and be good to Della.

The spirit stones, the immortal elixirs, the treasures I was granted all flowed to them like water.

But it was precisely because I treated her as my own sister that the betrayal cut this deep, this bitter.

I closed my eyes for a moment.

"Della, you've been failed by someone yourself. You of all people should know a faithless man can't be relied on."

"If you still care for me as your sister, cut off all ties with Aiden, and I'll go on looking after you, caring for you as I always have."

Della wavered for a few seconds, then shook her head through her tears.

"No. Aiden only used to be unsure whether what he felt for you was the kinship of comrades-in-arms or love. Now he's certain it's me he loves. He'd never fail me."

"Sister, a woman has to marry in the end. I know you've done so much for me. I'll give the immortal manor back to you, and I can give up being the master craftsman's disciple. But Aiden is the one thing I can't return."

It was the answer I'd expected.

And still the grief in me wouldn't stop.

I tugged at the corner of my mouth and spoke softly.

"Della, what you're doing is every bit as shameless as the woman who seduced your fiancé."

She froze. When it sank in, she reached into her cosmos pouch and pulled out its magical relics.

Then she flung them at me one by one, like something gone mad, nothing left of the pitiful creature from a moment ago.

"Janice, if it weren't for me all those years ago, you'd still be a lowly mortal, torn apart by beasts long ago. What right do you have to call me shameless?"

"I'm sick of feeling like something a stray got tossed out of charity. I'm going to marry Aiden. I'm going to be the God of War's wife, and I'll keep you crushed under my foot forever and ever!"

I stood there, too stunned even to fight back.

So in her eyes, my hundreds of years of kindness had been nothing but the charity of a stray.

Even a kind of disgrace.

Della lost control of herself and nicked her fingertip on one of the relics.

The habit was carved into my bones. Before I could think, my hand went out to check her wound.

The next second, a blast of power came at me head-on.

With no guard up, the whole of me was thrown backward, the small of my back slamming into the doorpost, a low groan wrung out of me by the pain.

Aiden shielded Della against his chest and glared at me, furious.

"Janice, you know full well Della has a weak heart, and you deliberately came while I was away to provoke her. And now you want to strike her too? You're the shameless one here!"

He unfastened the cosmos pouch at his waist.

"I've already withdrawn Della from the master craftsman's tutelage on her behalf. The spirit stones and treasures in this pouch are more than enough to settle for this manor and those raw materials of yours. Don't go dredging up this nonsense again!"

Della hurled the pouch into my face, weeping.

"Janice, whatever sisterhood there was between us ends here. Don't ever appear in front of me again."

"I will never let anyone take my husband-to-be from me again!"

The mouth of the pouch hadn't been tied tight, and the heavy spirit stones flew out with the throw.

They split my forehead open then and there, drawing blood.

But neither of them so much as looked at me. Aiden called for the servants to carry the chests to their new home, then gathered the still-sobbing Della into his arms and left.

Even far down the path, I could still hear him soothing her in that gentle voice.

I lowered my eyes to the blood on the ground, and a bitter smile came, and the tears fell with it.

That year, when Della was cast aside by that scum, the man ran off on their wedding day with a woman of higher spiritual power, one better able to bear children.

She became the laughingstock of all Verdant Hollow.

And all she knew to do was weep and try to sever her own tails to end it, and the sight of it was terrible, all that blood.

Even Aiden was shaken watching it. He pulled me into his arms, still frightened after the fact.

"Jan, so this is how much it hurts, to be betrayed by the one you love. I would never do that to you. If I ever did, let everyone spit on my name, and let me come to a wretched end."

Later, after Della saw how I'd nearly drained my own spiritual power to grow her tails back and save her life, and how I'd angered the clan chief for wounding one of Verdant Hollow's own in the process,

I was sentenced by the Heavenly Sovereign to a hundred strokes of the military rod, and couldn't rise from bed for three whole months.

She held my hand, aching for me.

"Sister, I'm the one who dragged you into this. I won't be so weak ever again. I'll be a great tree that shelters you too."

But now, they had gone back on every word of it.