25 Debt of Gratitude

She quivered; blinding pain bursting through her skull. Yun Da Xia's mouth was tainted with the taste of her own blood; the crimson beginning to stain her skin sticky. Iron dominated her sense of smell. Although she had opened her eyes, she could see nothing but pulsating black and white spots.

Her throat protested in pain as she struggled to bring breath into her lungs. Her chest felt like it was about to burst–something was definitely wrong in there. She tried to move her arms and legs, only to have them bound together somehow. There was some consolation at the thought that she still had all her limbs.

Growls and howls began to seep into her mind; her ears finally being able to recognize the sounds around her. She couldn't understand any of it, but she was thankful that it wasn't like before, where the wolf's voice violated her mind. Although deafening, she could handle that better over anything else.

Blurry shapes and colors began to overtake her dotted vision. A figure neared; its dark mass coming towards her appeared like the night suddenly consuming day. Her already shuddering body started to spasm, and her heart wracked against her rib cage. She struggled against her hold, rushing qi throughout her body.

Time and time again, it failed her.

She could see the silver eyes glaring into hers. The canines gleaming with an ethereal light. A scream left her pained lungs; a sharpness digging into the flesh of her arm and dragging down. It said nothing; just watching as she thrashed in pain. She felt like an ant; unworthy of even being told of why her life was being taken–merely a tool to be used for someone else.

She hated it.

Tears streamed down her face; everything finally hitting her at once. The dam insid her had been incinerated by the regret and anger she felt in her heart. When her master had died, she withheld her screams and had endured her nightmares in silence.

How many times had she been rendered hopeless? She couldn't save her master when they had been attacked, she wouldn't have been able to save herself if she had not had the identity of Yun Yong's sister, and now she was trapped. It was sickening–and all her fault. She wasn't strong enough because she had held herself back.

Back then, it was her fighting ability that could not hold up. Now, it was both that and her cultivation. Yes, rationally, she understood what she needed to do. She understood that she was vulnerable in this world; that the poor man having a jade was a crime, and that a tall tree took the brunt of harsh winds.

But she wasn't rational right now. She just wanted to burn the world and everything in it. What had her master and her father said? That she must never lower her head?

Her yielding shows that she sometimes forgets.

She made an oath in her heart. There would come a day when the words they spoke would be burned in her heart and bones.

Something throbbed within her chest, and her scalp felt like it was being baptized in flames. The crimson strand that had been cut short blazed and grew to match the length of the rest of her hair; it's color matching the tint on Yun Da Xia's vision. It felt like something had come undone.

The beasts waited with bated breaths as blood gushed into the mouth of their young heir. No one cared about the person whose life was being used in exchange for the life of their own. In any case, it was justified. A life for a life was fair enough.

"Mother! Father!" The silver eyed wolf let out a cry; elation shining through the moonstone orbs. She closed the distance between herself and her brother in a few bounds; scanning his body with desperation. She knew what she had seen. Her heart leaped to her throat as she watched his paw twitch again; the first time was not an illusion in her frenzied mind.

For days, the bundle in the clearing had been unmoving. His heartbeat was practically nonexistent; only an incredibly faint pulse every so often assured them that he was still alive. Those silver eyes turned glassy; the sight incredibly shocking to the beasts that had surrounded the vicinity.

"He moved! He moved!" Her voice choked up. She didn't care if it had been such a minuscule movement–to her all it meant that her brother was getting better. She looked towards the human that was barely conscious and bleeding. More. Her brother needed more of that human's blood and then he would be okay.

"Little Yan! Stay back!" A scream interrupted her thoughts. The wolf turned to see her mother racing towards her; taking her by the scruff and away from the bundle on the ground. Shouts could be heard as the area descended into chaos. Her keen silver eyes could see the faces of alarm on everyone else's face, and she tried to see what they were all staring at.

She didn't have to look.

The roar of thunder shook the ground they stood upon. A dark veil came across the blue sky, plunging them into darkness. Clouds churned and rumbled overhead the bundle in the clearing and the tiny human. Shots of lightning burst forth and scorched the ground around the two. Little Yan blinked her eyes, wondering if she was seeing things right.

She had seen lightning tribulations before; had watched other beings go through them. This was not that. The lightning refused to hit the two figures on the center, and instead of blue, the bolts were alarmingly blood red.

She held her breath.

Without explanation, as quickly as it had come, it had gone. Their surroundings had returned to what it once was. If not for the charred grass in the clearing and the expressions on everyone's faces, perhaps she could have believed that it had merely been a figment of her imagination.

Her heart was unsettled.