For a long moment, Xiong Dahuo's words hung in the air between the two young men, growing heavier with each breath until Wu Ling felt like the words were turning into a stone upon his back.
"Don't mistake me," Xiong Dahuo said, breaking the tense silence and picking up another stone that he skipped across the lake. "I miss my teacher, but I've never once thought to avenge his death. Hall Master Hong claimed vengeance for all of us when he crippled the Phantom Blade Dancer. He told us that rather than burn our hearts for revenge, we should turn our anger on ourselves for being too weak to fight her off."
"That doesn't sound healthy," Wu Ling said, putting the tusk down to find a skipping stone of his own. "My mother was a Worldy Mystic at the time. First and even second stage cultivators had no place trying to fight her."
"I know that," Xiong Dahuo said, tossing another rock that hit the water with a loud - PLUNK - sound. "But I still hated myself for being weak. I set my sights on becoming a Warden to take my teacher's place. It wasn't until you gave me that letter and I met Master that I realized I'd set my sights far too low."
"Now," the saber wielder continued. "I can hardly curse you for sending me to her. She gave me half a day to settle my affairs in the sect before she started teaching me. Now I know what it means to be a frog at the bottom of the well, thinking the sky he saw was all there was to strive for."
"You mentioned that she's a Champion now?" Wu Ling said, only half asking. "In my sect, if she were in the outer sect, she'd be an Elder with that level of cultivation."
"She can hardly be an Elder when she's confined to her own courtyard," Xiong Dahuo said bitterly, tossing a stone so far that it vanished into the mist over the lake before it touched the water's surface.
"She knows things that aren't known in the Outer Sect though," he added, picking up another stone. "You know, if Brother Zhang hadn't mentioned that you would be on this trip, she'd never have let me leave her side so soon. I learned more from her in five days than I've learned in the past three years muddling my way through life in the Outer Sect."
"The ritual you used when we were fighting the wolves," Wu Ling asked. "Did she teach you that?"
"That and more," the other man acknowledged. "She woke the demon within me and gave me hunger. Now, my challenge isn't so much about finding power to wake the demon, it's about gathering the power to keep it leashed."
"How literal are you being, Brother Xiong?" Wu Ling asked, dropping the stone he'd picked up and staring directly into the other man's crimson eyes. "Is the Sanguine Saber Sect a Demonic Sect? Are you possessed by some kind of demon?"
"Whatever you're thinking, it's not that," Xiong Dahuo said, skipping another stone rather than continuing to meet Wu Ling's eyes. "It's better to say that the cultivation method we practice is more… primal, I guess you would say. It's actually part of why I wanted to talk to you alone this morning."
"Go on," Wu Ling said, taking a seat on a fallen log where he could face Xiong Dahuo directly. "I'm listening."
"I said things between us will never be simple," the other man continued, returning to the rock to sit facing Wu Ling. "Your mother killed my teacher but your second mother is a far better Master to me than he ever was."
"More than that," Xiong Dahuo said. "Master has worked very hard to keep your little sister isolated from the blood and slaughter of the Sanguine Saber Sect. She has a smile and laugh that are as pure as driven snow. I can understand now why your mother would spill so much blood to see her free. I'd probably do the same."
"Are you telling me that you have designs on my sister?" Wu Ling asked, doing his best to keep a sudden storm of emotions from coloring his voice.
"No! Never!" Xiong Dahuo said immediately. "That's not the feeling she inspires in me at all. More… I'd rather drown myself in blood than see a single drop stain her hands. When you meet her, I'm sure you'll feel the same way."
"I hope it won't be too long before I can," Wu Ling said softly. "But what does that have to do with your cultivation?"
"The Sanguine Saber Sect is known for harnessing the power of blood, but most people don't know what that actually means," Xiong Dahuo explained. "Truthfully, blood is just a method of carrying power."
"The reality of our sect," he continued. "What Master opened my eyes to, is that we draw our power from the things we hunt and kill. That's why I called it 'primal.' We're taught early on to temper ourselves by hunting strong beasts but it's only later when we learn how to harvest the power of our defeated foes. That's what Master was teaching me before Brother Zhang showed up."
"When you said you wanted to carve bone, I thought, it could be a chance for us to help each other," Xiong Dahuo finally said, looking directly into Wu Ling's silvery eyes. "The blood, flesh, and hearts of defeated enemies are all things I can draw strength from on my own and with Brother Yu's help. To gain power from the bones of my defeated foes, however, requires skill I don't have."
"So you want me to make something for you?" Wu Ling asked, curious to see where the other man was going.
"Yes, but more than that," the other man agreed. "Wu Ling, my Master is your Second Mother. Properly, I should call you 'Young Master Wu' instead of 'Brother Wu' but while I can accept that with the Young Miss, I can't do that with you. I wanted to spend part of this trip figuring out what you should be to me, but when we fought the wolves, you came to my aid twice."
"The first time, you came to my aid when I asked for help, and you did so despite the fact that another wolf was rapidly breaching the barrier defending you," Xiong Dahuo said. "The second time, when everyone else was incapacitated by the phantom wolves, you came rushing to my side to fight against their leader with me. That's enough to tell me that any resentment I might have once held to you or toward your mother is as small as a stone in the lake next to what we can be fighting together."
"So, what are you saying?" Wu Ling asked. He felt like he knew where the other man was headed, but he wanted to let him make it clear.
"I cannot ask you to become my Blood Brother. I know you and Sister Su are sworn siblings and I cannot ask you to swear such an oath with me until we can regard each other with the same level of trust and concern that I see between you two. Doing so would insult you and her both and I respect both of you too much to do that," Xiong Dahuo explained.
"However, I would like to ask you to consider me a close friend, one who you can entrust your back to and who won't hesitate to spill blood with you," he continued. "Rather than being so distant, call me 'Brother Dahuo' like you call Sister Su by her given name. Do that, and work with me to see your sister free of the cage that binds her, and one day, I'm sure we'll be true Blood Brothers."
"In that case," Wu Ling said, extending a hand to the other man. "I expect Brother Dahuo to call me 'Brother Ling.'"