Elemental

Ice

When the world ended, would it be bathed in fire or cystallised in ice?

Jinmi could only wonder. In her heart of hearts, she had a sinking feeling that for her, it would be the blaze of heaven and for him, the petals of her frost would be his untimely end. Their courses had been ordained for them long before they were born and they were both just helpless children, buffeted by the tide. Fate... it seemed like such an unnecessary cruelty to the Water Immortal. Their so called fates were so intertwined that utter desolation and ruin for each of them seemed inevitable – it stalked their every step. It was written in the stars that the daughter of the Floral Realm and the second son of Heaven were destined to be one another's poison. Divine providence was a faceless monster that had caught the two of them in merciless claws and Jimni had long since lost the ability to fight against it. The sad truth was that her life had never really even been her own to begin with.

For so long, Jinmi's existence had been a confusing clash of both her own natural ice and his unavoidable fire, a maelstrom that ate her alive from the inside out. She had loved him before she had even fully understood what love was. Xufeng. Crow. Yaya. King Yi. Her Phoenix. The love of her life and her greatest sin all at once. The only man she had ever loved and the only man that she had ever killed. The memory left her sick to the stomach and tore at her now unfrozen heart, leaving her selfishly grief-stricken. She could still feel the ghost of his blood coating her hands and it stung her like acid. Jinmi wasn't sure how she had managed to avoid being completely razed to ash by the sheer agony – Phoenix had always been the spark in her soul and she had never been able to forget him. Not even for a moment. Sadly... it was more than evident that Xufeng didn't feel the same way about her.

He wanted her dead and it was no less than she deserved.

The second son of Heaven was a beautiful inferno, one that had threatened to consume her alive on more than one occasion. Lately, Jinmi was sorely tempted to just close her eyes to let him obliterate her. His revenge wouldn't be a dish served cold, for which she was violently glad. No, it would be white hot and savage and she was willing to embrace it willingly with open arms. His wrath would be infinitely preferable to the spirit shattering knowledge of his hatred. He wielded his loathing like a weapon, slicing painful pieces from her heart every time she laid eyes on him. Perhaps death and oblivion would be better. Anything would be better than the soul deep wound his searing, coal black eyes left on her psyche.

The Water Immortal was beyond exhausted. She had been driven by the unforgettable need to resurrect her fallen lover for so long and now that her dream had been realised, she had lost her sense of purpose. Jinmi didn't know who she was without Phoenix and she was tired of struggling on without him. She had fought tooth and nail to claw him back into the land of the living, but the bigger picture had evaded her until she caught sight of his hardened, malevolent eyes. Could she truly blame him for his ire? After all, her blind foolishness had ripped away everything that he had ever held dear; his father, his brother, even his heavenly title. Her impulsiveness had cost them both everything and had banished him to the depths of the Demon Realms, a far cry from his role as Heaven's second prince.

Ten thousand lifetimes wouldn't be enough atone for her mistake.

Jinmi knew that Xufeng had every right to despise her. The newly appointed Demon Lord's malice and his unslakeable blood lust were entirely justified in her eyes. She understood it more than he would ever know, but it still hurt unimaginably. Her Phoenix had risen from the ashes of his own annihilation, but he was no longer the same man. His heart had been crushed like coal into something even harder and colder than diamond in the process. The new Xufeng seemed completely unreachable, with impenetrable steel walls erected around his heart. Jinmi was left cowering alone in the dark, crushed under the weight of her past and pining endlessly for him. It was almost unendurable. Almost. As much as she longed to, Jinmi could not shy away from the misery – it was her eternal punishment to bear. The price of her mutiny was to be tortured forever by the splintered shards of her own lost love.