The two stood at the bridge listening to the flowing water, enjoying the golden shimmer of sunlight against its calming surface. Sophia leaned against the railing, soaking in Soloman's tales. She gazed at his profile, trying to decipher his expression and searching for words in response. Her gaze was a complex mixture of warmth, worry, and disheartened silence.
Soloman, oblivious to her stare, was lost in a deep reverie. His eyes appeared as if he were gazing into a far-off land, or perhaps into a distant, inescapable time. The sounds of the distant city and the passersby on the red wooden bridge, some either heading home or rejoining their caravans near the eastern gate, was the only clamor that filled the silence between them.
Moments later, as if coming to a conclusion, he spoke. "Not what you were hoping for, was it?"
He turned softly to his right, leaning his weight onto the railing to face her, capturing her reaction in his clinical gaze.
"…"
"No honorable battles, mystical treasures, or profound techniques," he scoffed at the lack of whimsy his world offered. "Just people killing each other over ideologies and resources, if you break it down to its bare bones. And my story… is just petty revenge."
"…"
"I'm not sure what you hope to learn from me, if your reasoning for leaving your sect was to learn how to manipulate light and shadows," he said, his voice shifting into a cold, detached tone. "So... it might be best for you to return to them."
He pushed himself off the railing and proceeded to walk back toward the inn, his retreating back carrying the heavy atmosphere of a silent farewell. The chatter of the passing citizens seemed to swell in volume, filling the void left by his steady pace. Sophia didn't move; she only stared for a long, heavy moment at his back.
"… Soloman, I'm… s-…" Sophia beckoned towards him only stopping herself short, words catching in her throat. Her emotions whirling in a cacophony of chaos, unable to process what can be said and what to hide.
"I am alone as well." her voice barely discernible through the clamor of the crowd.
Soloman stopped at the unexpected response, his body frozen mid-stride. He lowered his gaze to the ground, staring at the wood grain and minute details as he lost himself in thought. The idea of turning around only made him feel more vulnerable.
Seeing him pause, she took the initiative. "I was never accepted by my family… My blood was called unclean by my grandfather." Her words hung in the air, her voice laced with echoes of pain, loneliness, and abandonment.
He slowly turned his head. The visage of the stoic girl, one that was held to be one the strongest disciples of the sect, her name known through most sects was left grabbing on the hem of her uniform clutching so fiercely, it felt like it would leave it permanently wrinkled.
"My family has the blood line ability to weave and shape light and shadows," she looked up briefly towards Soloman, "I… however, am not able to. An occurrence than has not happened since the family's inception."
Flecks of tears glistened in her phoenix-shaped eyes as she stared back at the ground, the bridge under her feet fading as a sharper, colder memory took hold.
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The Hei Clan estate was a place of perpetual twilight, designed to complement those who could bend the dark to their will. But for a seven-year-old Sophia, it was simply a labyrinth of cold stone and judging eyes.
"Worthless wretch, we should just throw you and your mother out!" Feng, her father, had yelled, the stench of rice wine heavy on his breath. He had aimed a kick at a low stool, sending it skittering toward her. "I paid a fortune in dowry for a martial family, and I got a blank slate! You're a drain on our stores, nothing more."
Her mother had rushed to scoop her up, pulling Sophia's face into her bosom, but the protection was hollow. They lived in the servant's wing, a drafty room where the charcoal was always the last to be delivered and the first to run out.
"Hmph. Don't bother gazing at our ancestor hall. You're better off staying invisible until you're of age and married off!" Grandfather Hei had snorted when he found her staring at the incense-filled hall, where the names of great shadow-weavers were carved in obsidian. "You have no place among the ancestors, child. You are a ghost in your own home."
Even the servants had learned to mimic the masters. They would gossip as they scrubbed the floors, their whispers carrying through the thin walls. "The Patriarch says she isn't even a true Hei. Look at her—not a spark of shadow in her. Her mother must have looked elsewhere for a father."
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"My grandfather, believing that blood ability is immutable, believed… that…"
The words could not leave her throat. The very essence of saying them out loud made her feel as though they were finally truth, even knowing the claim her grandfather made was outlandish. Witnessing her struggle, Soloman felt the mention of "blood" lead him to the inevitable conclusion of what had been whispered against her mother.
This archaic world, which barely understood how steel or weather formed, was light-years away from understanding genetics or how recessive genes occurred. As he gathered his thoughts, he walked back toward the slightly shivering girl and gave her a reassuring head pat.
"You don't have to say… no reason to dwell on it. I can't even imagine the struggle you've had to endure." Rubbing her head softly, he allowed a small, rare smile to surface. "But you now have people who care for you, and not for your blood. Even now, you have two people here to support you."
Her eye's widened slightly hearing his words, their implied meaning acted as a medicine to her anxious heart. 'Two' resonated in her thoughts without end as she looked at his face, the sight of a rare smile bringing a tear to her eyes.
She realized that while he appeared to wear his thoughts on his sleeves, his eyes always betrayed a singular, haunting truth. Whenever he gazed at the night sky or the distant horizon, he wasn't looking at the beauty of the stars; he was looking for a home that no longer existed.
He was a stranger in a land of abstract concepts and spiritual "will," a man of hard logic forced to survive in a archaic pugilist world. The sects may have offered him ancient scrolls, food, and peer ship, but compared to what he truly needed, it would always be a deficit. They were offering him the keys to potential immortality he didn't care for, while he was starving for the simple familiarity of a world that had been erased.
Any other man in his situation—knowing now the blood and fire of his history—would have gone mad. They would have turned violent, a wounded beast raging against a world that had taken everything, making everyone feel the same jagged pain he carried. It would have been so easy for him to be cruel, to look at her "unclean" struggles as trivial compared to his own.
Yet, here he was.
He was standing on a bridge in a world he didn't understand, offering a reassuring hand to a girl he barely knew. She saw the sheer effort it took for him to remain kind, to keep his internal storm from swallowing those around him. He wasn't just a powerful warrior; he was a man holding himself together by sheer, clinical force of will. Choosing to be a protector when he had every right to be a calamity.
"Lets go back." Soloman's hand eventually dropped from her head, but the gesture had already done its work. The phantom warmth of the gesture remained, a silent tether between the soldier of the past and the outcast of the present.
The walk back to the inn was draped in a comfortable, albeit heavy, silence. The bustling noise of the city seemed to move around them rather than through them, as if the new understanding between Soloman and Sophia had carved out a private sanctuary in the middle of the crowd.
As they stepped through the threshold of the inn, the atmosphere shifted. The air inside their private quarters felt thick, humming with a subtle vibration that tickled their skin. The sensation persisted for so long it started to irritate the tear ducts in their eyes.
In the center of the room, the process had accelerated.
Priscilla's form was no longer a mere bloodied orb and pale blue light. Ethereal fibers, glowing with a faint, bioluminescent hue, were weaving themselves into a complex network of muscle and sinew. It was a biological ballet that defied every law of nature Sophia knew, yet Soloman watched with a clinical, wary eye, recognizing the "printing" of a body that looked less like a birth and more like a reconstruction. The silhouette was becoming distinct, a physical presence reclaiming its space in a world that had tried to erase it.
"She said she wanted a human body… but the more I look at this and the material that was used," he murmured, his eyes squinting, "it's more of a golem than a living thing."
"Hey, Sophy, ever heard stories about something like this before? You mentioned something about blood sacrifice earlier." He crossed his arms, pointing a thumb toward the forming being.
"…" She stood still her thoughts forming, racing to find the right words.
"… I have only heard it was something that evil sects used to form bodies for their long-passed spirit ancestors. A revival ritual of sorts, but… it's old tales." She shook her head, the strands of her ponytail slowly rising with the constant static building in the air.
"… I see."
He went quiet for a moment.
"There might be more we have to do in the future then to create a full flesh body for her, I suppose," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck as his thoughts formulated plans and technical expectations.
Sophia, on the other hand, stared at him, taken aback by his utterly casual response to the mention of forbidden rituals used by evil sects—especially knowing he had just performed one. Her guard instantly locked down against the person forming in front of her.
Soloman stood at the edge of the glow, his jaw set. He was already calculating the food, clothing, and other essentials the three of them would need for the lengthy journey to the capital.
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Meanwhile, miles away, the shadow of the eastern gate loomed over the road like a jagged tooth against the darkening sky. The setting sun cast three long, distorted silhouettes broke past the forest tree line.