"Give me the sword." Wei Yan's tone brooked no argument. "Starting today, you'll move to the Quiet Contemplation Garden. Without my orders, you're not to set foot outside. Take some time to reflect on your failure. The Demon Suppressing Division doesn't need a worthless fool blinded by failure."
The Quiet Contemplation Garden was ostensibly a place where officers whose minds had been wounded could recuperate. In reality, it was the highest-security confinement ward.
Ling Zhao's body gave an involuntary shudder. Slowly, he offered the demonic sword to Wei Yan with both hands.
The instant Wei Yan took the sword, Ling Zhao's keen peripheral vision caught the little finger beneath the Division Head's wide sleeve twitching unnaturally, curling in the slightest degree.
It was an unconscious gesture, one that betrayed some powerful emotion being suppressed.
Excitement? Nervousness? Or... something else?
Ling Zhao's heart felt as if an invisible hand had clenched around it.
"Yes, sir. I'll obey." He lowered his eyes, hiding the storm within in their shadow.
As two guards "escorted" Ling Zhao out of the command tent, Wei Yan remained where he was, rubbing the cold, twisted hilt of the sword in silence.
Only after he was alone in the tent did he walk to the sand table and take a palm-sized box from a hidden compartment. It was made of some unknown bone.
He opened it. Inside lay the dried specimen of a black raven.
"Letter Raven..." he murmured, his expression unreadable. "Was the information you gave me true... or a trap?"
He looked at the demonic sword in his hand, then at the raven.
"An Abyssal Lord capable of corrupting the Start of Spring sword... This is far beyond our estimates. Ling Zhao survived. Was it a miracle, or... does someone have another purpose?"
He had never