First, there was pain.
Sharp. Shifting. Alien.
It swallowed everything—her thoughts, her breath—until her world collapsed into a single, unbearable point.
Something snapped.
Awareness jolted back with a rush of adrenaline, but her mind was still thick with haze. Her body. There was a body.
Pressure.
Someone—on top of her.
Hands. Holding her arm.
That’s where the pain was.
No.
Diwu bucked without thinking. Without waiting to understand. Something invasive. Something wrong. And it hurt. She didn’t need to know more.
The man cursed, struggling to keep hold of her, but she twisted, fought—and he lost his grip.
She shoved up a knee, too slow to do damage, but enough to throw him off balance.
Then bolted.
Scrambled to her feet. Something clattered—a vial of black, eerie liquid spilling over scrawled notes. Shadows stretched and twisted under the glow of a lightsphere rolling off to the side.
She staggered.
Where am I?
Dark walls. Cramped. Stale air. A lair. Maybe underground. Maybe—
Her eyes locked on a door. She ran.
Wrenched it open.
A pantry.
Wrong way.
Deep dread curled in her stomach. She caught herself against the doorframe, chest heaving. The pain flared, raw and pulsing.
Then—movement.
She turned her head and froze.
The man was standing now, watching her.
Too calm.
Young. Reddish hair, freckled face—too ordinary for the menace humming in the air around him.
She swallowed.
What happened?
Hadn’t she just been passing through town? She remembered walking… Why was she here?
“What do you want from me?” Her voice came out dry, scraped raw, like sandpaper.
“I’m just testing a few things,” the man said. “No need to get excited. I can help with the pain.”
He tilted his head. “Or make it worse.”
The spot on her arm burned. Seared like molten metal.
She convulsed as a scream tore from her throat, her knees nearly buckling. The pain swallowed everything, eclipsed thought itself.
Then she steadied, against all odds. Forced herself to breathe, her eyes flicking over the room. It wouldn’t focus but she tried.
Where’s the exit, damn it.
She edged along the wall, keeping him in sight.
The man didn’t move. Just watched her.
“You can’t run anyway,” he said. “Even if you get away now, you’ll come back to me. Because I’m the only one who can fix you.”
Her fingers dragged over cool stone, breath short and heavy, her arm throbbing. Her vision swam, but she’d seen it—a hallway. Behind him and to the left. If she could just get past him…
“Who the hell are you?”
He tilted his head, almost amused. “You can call me the Bad Apothecary.”
Then he laughed.
The sound was too sharp, too sudden, splitting the moment in two.
And just as quickly, his face went cold.
“You’re not leaving,” he said.
Diwu’s stomach dropped, but she steeled her resolve.
Yes I am, she thought. She’d understood already that she was dealing with a cultivator. But he didn’t seem physically strong. Just a little stronger than her. So if she was faster, and smarter, maybe she could get away…
“What did you do to me?” she asked as she took another step, her boot crunching against the grimy stone floor. Her vision was sharpening with every second. Her mind clearing, despite the fear.
“I made you mine,” he said. “Now be a good girl and just sit down.”
“I’m not yours,” she countered with the attempt of a sneer clenching the hand above which the wound flared again. “Never.”
She dashed for the hallway but she was too far. He moved to intercept and she knew she wasn’t going to make it past him. So instead she veered off course straight towards him.
She used her momentum to shove him hard. He stumbled backwards then recovered too quickly. Too quickly for her to get away cleanly. He grabbed her robes and tried to pull her back, pull her down, but she kicked herself free with a grunt and ran. He chased after her.
Her arm felt like it was splitting in two. Ignore it. If she gave in she wouldn’t manage a second attempt. It had to be now.
But it hurt.
Diwu made it into the hallway and sprinted without knowing where she was going. There were doors. She ran past them. None looked like an exit to her. Then a dark stairway. Up or down?
She cursed. Chose up without hesitation. He was just behind her.
His hand closed on her ankle and pulled her off her feet. She crashed into the stairs as he pulled her backwards, felt her body slipping downwards over the steps, roughly, bruising. But she kicked and struggled until he lost his grip for a moment. Diwu twisted around onto her back and sideways so her hands pressed against the stone wall just as he reached for her again. She kicked back at him using the wall for leverage and sent him stumbling backwards a few steps, then without delay got up on her feet.
And ran again.
“You’ll regret this,” he called after her.
On the next level she saw natural light. Stars, the aurorum, glimmering through missing windows and gaps in the building. Behind her came his footsteps but he was moving slower now.
“You want to know how bad it can get?” His voice echoed, distant now. “Keep running and you’ll find out.”
It was bad already. The pain. The burn. The bone-deep ache that gnawed at her from the inside out. It responded to him, like something alive, digging in deeper with every step and with every command he gave it…
Staying wasn’t an option. Not at his mercy.
She had no choice but to keep moving.
So she ran.
She crashed through a decrepit doors, then was outside. Her lungs screamed for air. Her legs felt like lead, but she pushed on, stumbling through what could have been a footpath, or maybe just an animal trail—brambles and dry shrubs scraping at her skin, the darkness closing in around her. No direction, no plan. She didn’t recognize where she was. Didn’t know which way the town was but she didn’t want to go back there anyway.
Only instinct drove her forward.
She noticed the silence.
The stillness in the air. She didn’t hear his footsteps anymore.
At least, she didn’t think she did.
She gasped for air, clutching her side as the pain in her arm flared up again. This time, it felt different—deeper. Was it changing? Something was drilling into her bone, burrowing beneath her skin.
Was he still controlling it? Or was this just what it did?
Heavens, what is this?
She hadn’t seen it yet. No time, no light.
Frustration welled up inside her, hot and sharp. A grunt of pain slipped from her throat. Her body was on high alert, still coiled with tension. And there was only the dark, the cold, and the gnawing ache that refused to let her go.
The pine forest. The darkness. The pain.
She wasn’t safe yet. And if she stopped moving… she knew what would happen.
So she forced herself forward. One heavy step after another. Her breath came ragged, her limbs heavy with exhaustion. But at least whatever he’d done to her seemed contained. Her legs, her mind, her body were exhausted, yes, but they were still her own. Not tainted like the spot on her arm.
A small solace.
The trees blurred into an eerie mass of shadows, twisting in odd angles like the gnarled hands of forgotten things. Their branches reached out, brushing against her as she passed.
The narrow path ahead opened up to a cracked, dusty slope, barren except for brittle tumbleweeds that rattled in the faint breeze. The stars hung in the sky like pinpricks—so distant, so cold.
Too open.
Her chest tightened. The vulnerability of the exposed ground sent a chill of dread through her. She cursed under her breath and veered to the side, seeking the relative safety of the forest’s edge. Maybe she was being paranoid but right now she couldn’t expose herself like that.
The shadows offered a momentary relief, as if she could slip through them unnoticed. The land beyond felt unforgiving.
She found the jagged mouth of a canyon, a cleft in the earth that gave her shelter. The air was thick with a smell of dust and decay, the ground hard and uneven. Boulders, some as large as houses, loomed like dark, unmovable giants. Deep ravines cut through the earth. Overhangs formed twisted shapes against the sky, breaking the horizon into jagged pieces, threatening to swallow everything whole.
She wedged herself between two boulders, pulling herself as tight as she could against the stone, clutching a jagged rock like a weapon. Waiting. Her fingers, slick with sweat, ached with tension, but she held on.
The night was quiet. She forced herself still. Forced herself to listen.
No one came.
Slowly, the panic ebbed—only to leave room for something worse.
Her fingers trembled as she flexed her arm, trying to understand the pain, but it wasn’t like anything she’d felt before. It shifted, dug deeper, chewed at her from the inside out—bite by bite, never satisfied. Always changing.
This isn’t normal.
She sucked in a sharp breath and let the rock drop. Carefully, she probed the injury, almost cried out when her fingers brushed it. Just above her wrist—tender, fever-hot. The skin was unbroken except for a small wound, barely more than an insect bite. Too small. It shouldn’t hurt like this.
But of course, she already knew.
The man had been an extraordinary. He had done something to her. The wound, the pain—it wasn’t ordinary.
Now what?
She rubbed sweat and dust from her brow with her uninjured hand, then she squatted down to rest. If rest was even possible like this.
She had nowhere to go. She‘d only gone into the town to trade for supplies, pushing deeper into settlements than she usually dared. The drought had hollowed out villages, leaving her with few options.
It’s what she did. Wander. Keep to herself. Sleep under the stars or in makeshift shelters, unless a storm came…
Because it was a dangerous world—especially for someone like her: young, no family, no power.
She’d always been careful. So how the hell had she ended up in his lair?
The moment she tried to piece it together, her memory blurred, as if she were chasing reflections in water. Had she managed to trade anything before he caught her? Had he ambushed her? Lured her in? Used some kind of technique to cloud her mind?
There were only fragments. The sun, harsh and golden, slanting through the narrow streets. The local sect patrols, their uniforms crisp, their gazes sharp, tracking her like a stray dog they might need to chase off. The market—loud, chaotic, the air thick with spice and smoke. Someone selling herbs, their scent clinging to her fingers when she picked them up.
She’d wanted to sell her own gathered herbs. Had she? Had she even spoken to the merchant?
Her mind gave her nothing. Just empty space. A cut thread.
Her gut twisted with a sudden realization. Shit.
She shifted, as if changing her position could alter the truth. The movement sent fire lancing through her arm momentarily erasing her thoughts. The pain was sharp, deep, and wrong.
She gritted her teeth and took stock. Her bag—gone. Her knife and hunting tools—gone. The gourd for water, also gone. The few belongings she’d had, stripped from her as easily as a husk peeled from fruit.
That alone was a massive setback.
And her arm…
Her breath shuddered. It ached in a way that made her sick. The pain morphed constantly, and with it, her mind felt thin and brittle, her sanity stretched like a thread about to snap. Exhaustion was no shield against it.
She forced herself to breathe.
Focus, she commanded herself. Don’t let the bastard win. Find a way to get out of this.
The attacker’s face returned, half-formed, almost dreamlike. Who was he? Why had he chosen her? What had he been trying to accomplish?
He was a cultivator, but not an adept at fighting. That much was certain. He had been quick, but he’d lacked the sharpness of someone trained to fight. That was the only reason she’d gotten away.
His presence had felt strange too. The way he’d spoken, laughed… he’d felt half mad at least. She had a bad feeling about it. Like she’d almost seen it. The one thing she never wanted to see.
A memory flared—his fingers brushing against her skin, too light to be injurious, too firm to be nothing. Something had settled inside her at that touch. She’d felt something invading her. And now she didn’t know how to get it out again.
But had there even been a purpose to what he did? Or was it just an urge born of madness? And what was she left with now?
She shivered.
Maybe he was just someone.
And maybe she had just been a convenient target. To test something on.
The thought made her nauseous.
Now what?
The question echoed, but no answer came. Just the cold night and the weight of her own ignorance pressing down on her.
She knew too little about the cultivation world. Didn’t know the full scope of the dangers. Didn’t know what had been done to her. Or how to fix it.
This wasn’t just a scrape, a sprained ankle. It was big. It hurt and it felt… wrong.
“I’m the only one who can fix you,” he had said.
She hoped—prayed—it had been a bluff.
It’ll heal, she told herself.
She knew it wouldn’t.
Just give it some time…
But deep down, she felt the cold sickening feeling of certainty.
She needed help.
And she had no one to ask.