Chapter 27 - The Path Beneath the Sect
We evacuated the sect.
Jace wanted to stay.
I punched him once.
"Sect Master," I said, "delegate."
He hated the title enough to listen.
Fen led Mira and me into the lower tunnels.
Sable followed.
Pebble rode on my shoulder and tried to eat warning signs.
The red gate pulsed ahead.
Fen explained while we walked.
Ten thousand years ago, cultivators learned Heaven was not a natural law.
It was a system.
A vast cultivation engine built to regulate ascension.
"By who?" I asked.
"People who already ascended."
That was worse.
Heavenbreaker rebels tried to open routes outside the system.
They lost.
Most were erased.
"My mother?"
"One of the last."
"And you?"
Fen looked away.
"I betrayed them."
Mira drew her blade.
I stopped her.
"Why?"
Fen laughed bitterly.
"Because Heaven showed me exactly how everyone I loved would die if I refused."
I understood more than I wanted to.
He gave the rebels' lock fragment to Mara afterward and helped her run.
"Did you kill her?"
"No."
"Who did?"
Fen pointed ahead.
The tunnel opened into a tomb.
A woman sat against the far wall.
Same eyes as mine.
Same black scale mark on her wrist.
My mother.
Dead for fourteen years.
May you like
Her corpse opened its eyes.
