Love and Hate Fade Like a Dying Lamp

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After that faithless man abandoned her at the altar, my sister spent her days in gloom.

To coax a smile out of her, I gave her spirit stones, gave her an immortal manor, and even arranged for her to study under a master of relic-crafting as his disciple.

She was timid and withdrawn, so I threw away my own pride running around on her behalf, asking every immortal friend I had to look out for her.

My husband, the God of War, was far from pleased.

"A useless thing who can't even stand on her own two feet will only cause you trouble. She isn't even your blood. Do you really have to worship her like some ancestor?"

For the first time, I turned on him.

"Della Bennett matters a thousand times more to me than any so-called blood tie. When you're cruel to her, you're looking down on me!"

Later, when I spent a year in the untamed wilds putting down a rebellion, Aiden Crawford sent someone to deliver 199 relics to me.

When he reached me through the water mirror, his mouth curved with that proud little tilt.

"There. All ordered from that foolish sister of yours. I've been so supportive of her. Aren't I obedient?"

I was so moved I thought it was a concession born of his love for me.

I fought to win early and come home, desperate to be reunited with him sooner.

Only to walk in on Aiden and my sister, tangled together in our own bedchamber.

"Aiden, I made another relic for my sister. When we're finished, remember to have someone send it over, or my conscience won't rest."

"You've already given her 199 for free. You've spent so much of your spiritual energy on this. It breaks my heart. I was the one who chose to love you. You don't need to wrong yourself like this."

My whole body went rigid.

So those 199 relics were the tally of every time they had done this behind my back.

...

I sat alone in the courtyard the whole night through.

The servants watched my face and, trembling, crept in to change the water round after round.

Seven times in all.

The sounds of the two of them never stopped, not for a moment.

Not until dawn, when Aiden's sated voice finally drifted out of the bedchamber.

"Someone come. My wife wore herself out last night. Come in and help her dress."

Hearing that word, I let out a soft laugh.

The maid carrying the water was so frightened she dropped the basin on the spot and knelt on the ground, shaking uncontrollably.

The two inside heard the noise, and after a moment, the door finally opened.

At the sight of me, both Aiden and Della froze.

They saw the 199 relics laid out neatly in the courtyard, and the servants kneeling all across the ground.

Della's face shifted, and she pulled up a smile and came toward me.

"Sister, when did you come in? Didn't you say putting down the rebellion would take two years? How is it over already?"

"I, I twisted my ankle last night, and Aiden said you kept fine immortal elixir in your room. I didn't mean to, I just got drowsy and fell asleep. He only came to see if my injury was any better..."

A pretext that clumsy and probing didn't even earn my attention.

"If I hadn't won early and come home, I might never have known the mistress of this War-God manor had already become you."

I tipped my chin toward the relics.

"Aiden seems well served, or you wouldn't be giving me so many gifts."

"Is this the tribute a concubine pays her rightful wife in advance? How very thoughtful of you."

Della went white in an instant.

"Sister, you've misunderstood, I never meant to..."

Before she could finish, her tears were already falling.

Aiden pulled her behind him, shielding her, and frowned.

"Janice Griffin, I was the one who went after her first. There's no need to blame her. This is your sister, not your enemy."

As he spoke, a faint killing edge rose off him.

It was the same air Aiden carried on the battlefield, facing an enemy.

Now, it seemed, it was my turn.

Yet when he turned to wipe Della's tears, nothing was left in him but tenderness.

"There now. Go home and wait for me. I'll come to you once I've dealt with this."

The words scraped my throat raw.

He called Della's dwelling home. Then what was this place, where we had lived together for almost a hundred years?

Della glanced at me warily, nodded, and in the end left without a single word of explanation.

I looked at the lovebirds sachet hanging at Aiden's waist.

One glance and I knew Della's needlework.

"As I recall, you never liked wearing these. Too womanish, you said. No dignity in it."

Aiden lowered his eyes, brushing the sachet, and his whole face warmed.

"Jan, you always used to say I was single-minded, that I couldn't bend. Now I've finally learned to change, and it feels surprisingly good."

"And of all those changes, the one that pleases me most is falling for Della. You'll understand, won't you?"

The irony of it hit me at once.

Once, the Heavenly Sovereign had teased Aiden on purpose.

"You're the God of War of the Ninth Heaven now, and still you keep only to General Griffin. How dull. Shall I take a few beautiful fairies into your household for you?"

Aiden's answer had been respectful and unshakable.

"I'm a stubborn man. Having set my heart on Jan, I would never so much as glance at another woman. If Your Majesty forced someone on me, I would sooner blow myself apart than disappoint Jan by a hair."

And now, without changing his expression, he was asking me to understand his betrayal.

Aiden seemed lost in some sweet memory.

"When you first left for the untamed wilds, the lovers' festival happened to come around. I remembered what you'd asked of me, so I went to visit Della."

"Everyone outside was paired off, and only she sat alone in her courtyard, holding that pair of sachets and weeping. Strangely, I wasn't annoyed. I ached for her instead. I even lost myself enough to share a meal with her and float a lantern, and I couldn't bear to leave her alone. That was when I knew my heart had turned."

My breath stopped short.

It was that day?!

Before I left for the untamed wilds, Aiden kissed me like he couldn't bear to let go.

He begged me to reach him through the water mirror on the night of the lovers' festival, so we could mark it together even from apart.

As luck would have it, a demon beast ambushed us that day. So I wouldn't break my promise, I threw everything into cutting it down fast, took a grave wound, and nearly lost my right arm.

But the water mirror on his end stayed silent, hour after hour.

Only the next day did Aiden tell me he'd waited until I fell asleep. I even felt guilty over it and apologized to him.

Now, thinking back, it's almost funny.

I looked him in the eyes.

"But you said you'd never take a concubine."

Aiden looked away.

"That's right. I have no respect for men who keep three wives and four mistresses, and I won't wrong Della."

"So, Jan, let's divorce."

He set a divorce document down on the stone table.

"Jan, you're the brave lady general of the Ninth Heaven. You can always stand on your own. But Della is too fragile. She's already mine, so I have to marry her, and I have a duty to care for her for the rest of her life."

"This manor, and all the rewards from quelling the rebellion, I'm leaving to you as compensation. From now on we're still comrades in the army, still friends. You can hate me, but don't make things hard for Della. I can't stand to see her guilty or unhappy."

My heart clenched all at once, so tight I could barely breathe.

And at the same time, it struck me as ridiculous.

He used to despise Della for being weak and useless, a vine that could only cling to someone else.

I'd fought with him over it more than once.

Now it was the other way around.

I couldn't hold back the fury. I slapped him hard across the face.

"Aiden, you make me sick!"

Not a flicker crossed his face, but a warning edged into his voice.

"Janice, I know you've got a fire in your chest, that you won't feel right until you let it out. If you want, you can even take a blade to me. But you'd best not go looking for trouble with Della."

"Otherwise, the same hand that can raise you to deputy general can turn you into an ordinary immortal who isn't even fit to set foot in the military camp."

"Becoming the first lady general of the Ninth Heaven was your dream, and the Griffin army is your life's work. You suffered so much, gave everything for hundreds of years. Surely that wasn't to end up with nothing. Am I wrong?"

I stared at him, unable to believe it, my fingertips crushing the divorce document into creases.

Aiden was the God of War, my direct superior, and the man who'd shared my pillow and knew me best.

He was threatening me.

Before he left, Aiden left me a jar of salve to bring down the swelling in my palm, and then had someone carry off the plaque of the War-God manor.

Looking at this manor, so full of memories, that could no longer be called a home.

The tears I'd held back for so long finally fell.

The next day was Della's monthly day of rest.

When I reached her manor, she was directing the servants to pack her things.

Last night the servants at home had told me Aiden had set up another manor. It seemed he meant to move there.

Seeing me, Della lowered her head, ill at ease.

"Sister, you've only just come back from the front. You should be resting a few more days. Why have you come all the way here..."

I tossed the cosmos pouch into her arms.

"I came to return these relics to their rightful owner. What, am I not welcome?"

Della's face flushed faintly. She said in a small voice, "Then what tea would you like, Sister? I'll go prepare it."

I said nothing. My eyes went to the trunk on the floor, not yet closed.

No wonder Aiden had left so lightly yesterday. I'd meant to have someone pack up his things and send them over.

Only to find his study already emptied, his clothes and every private belonging gone.

They'd already been moved here.

While I stood there stunned, a parrot I knew came flapping out from the back courtyard.

It was the pet Aiden had brought back from the mortal realm two years ago.

He'd raised it like a son, teaching it to talk whenever he had a free moment.

It swept past me and landed on Della's shoulder, calling out.

"Mother Della, Mother Della."

I remembered how, before I left for the untamed wilds, Aiden had just taught it to say "Papa."

He'd told me that by the time I came back, he was sure he'd have it calling me "Mother Jan."

It had learned, all right. It just wasn't calling me.

I looked at Della and laughed, the sound bitter with contempt.

"Why bother packing at all? Isn't it nice right here?"

"After all, the whole year I was out there risking my life, the two of you were building your love nest here."

Guilty, Della held the cosmos pouch back out to me, uncomfortable.

"Sister, these relics are my compensation to you. Please keep them..."

I let out a scoff.

"Compensation? Della, when that fox-clan fianc of yours changed his heart and fled the wedding, when he drove you to the brink of taking your own life, it was me who rushed to Verdant Hollow and hacked off his tail to avenge you. For wounding an outsider without leave, I was punished with a hundred strokes of the military rod."

"When you said you had no face left to stay in Verdant Hollow, it was me who brought you to the Ninth Heaven, gave you a manor, arranged for you to study under a master relic-crafter so you'd have a skill to live by, and pulled strings among my immortal friends so you could take commissions before you'd even finished your training."

"Even the fine raw materials you used to make your relics came from my private stores. Seven hundred years, you and I as sisters. As long as it made you happy, there was nothing I wouldn't do for you."

"But you live in the manor I gave you, carry on with my husband, and then use my own things to compensate me. Don't you find that funny?"

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 fianc."

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.