#1x26

He had known he would love Wen Xiao until his last breath from the moment he'd cradled the tiny blue wildflowers between his palms.

He had thought he would hate Zhu Yan until the last beat of his heart from the moment his brother's sword dropped from his numb fingers.

What agony to know that he was destined to be right about one and so wrong about the other. What cruelty that he was fated to pierce his family sword through the heart of the demon who was not the monster from his absent nightmares, after all, but instead the man who in the catching of Wen Xiao's heart had snagged Zhuo Yichen's too.

He did not even know which pain would have proved greater.

The sight of Zhao Yuanzhou transformed into golden starlight and blown away by the wind?

Or the scream in Zhuo Yichen's ear as Wen Xiao fell to her knees and wept until all that might maybe make her move were the pleas from Pei Sijing.

Zhuo Yichen would certainly not have dared burden her sight with the blood of her beloved on the hands of her friend for longer than a brief goodbye.

Was it not kinder for Zhuo Yichen to take this unexpected opportunity to cut that destined ending short? If he was the sacrifice that gave a future to the spring sunlight and the storm bringing life back to the frozen earth under their feet... was that not only right?

Was it not better to entomb himself in ice and break only his own heart? His heart would break anyway, why not let it be for something useful?

Ice spun around and around him. White across vision, the cold biting into his skin and numbing Zhuo Yichen to the reality taking shape behind him.

Behind him, Wen Xiao screamed.

Behind him, Zhao Yuanzhou raged with the cold fury of a storm at sea. Relentless and unyielding.

Even Pei Sijing loosed arrow after arrow in the vain hope of saving him - because she cared, yes, but also because to save him was to save Wen Xiao.

Behind him, he was breaking hearts anyway; hearts that refused to be broken; hearts that howled in denial and battered against his choice with the seething frenzy of heated iron.

His head turned with painful slowness until finally Zhuo Yichen's eyes were caught like a rabbit in a snare. For the first time, it felt as if the Great Demon truly did wish to rend the flesh from his bone.

His voice gone, Zhuo Yichen pleaded through his eyes. 'Let it be me.'