Her body felt light.
Too light.
As if she were no longer tethered to gravity or pain or the agony of lungs filling with water.
Xia Lin floated—weightless, sensationless, like a leaf drifting on a slow wind. Somewhere distant, her own heartbeat whispered. Thump… thump… then silence again.
Was this what death felt like?
The last thing she remembered was the frigid splash as she plunged into the water. Cold hands had wrapped around her ankles, dragging her deeper and deeper. Her lungs had screamed. Her mind had blurred. Her last thoughts…
Not of herself.
But of her mistress.
Her Hua Jing.
She had kept quiet. Until the end. Even when her throat burned from the water, even when her body was wracked with pain, she hadn't spoken. Not a single word. She hadn't betrayed the woman who had treated her like family, who had laughed with her, cried with her, protected her.
And she would have died with that silence.
That, in itself, brought her a flicker of comfort in the dark.
