I've Never Seen Snow

When she was eight, they removed her ventilator in the ICU of a modern hospital. It was winter outside. She had lived eight years and had only ever seen snow on television. When she opened her eyes again, she was a newborn baby girl. High above the nine heavens, an unseen pair of eyes had recorded every beat of her heart from the moment she was born. They called her the “Saint of Destiny.” She lived in a secluded retreat hidden deep in the clouds, raised by a black-robed man with his own hands. Her father was a steward who had fled the Tianyun Sect. Her mother was a Rakshasa woman hunted across the entire continent. She carried half of a phoenix-shaped jade pendant. The other half rested in the arms of a baby boy in a mountain hollow. The Heavenly Dao said, “This is destiny.” The black-robed man said, “The last soul core only lasted three years.” She had no idea she was a sacrifice, a vessel, a soul core being raised until she was old enough to be taken away. All she knew was this: she had never seen snow. This is a story about “how a caged sacrifice discovers her cage.” It is also a story about “how rebellion itself can be part of fate.”