The first disappeared without a sound.
Minister Zhao of Ceremonies. Known for his sharpened tongue and silk-thread alliances. He declined my quiet offer over tea. Laughed, even.
Three days later, his son vanished en route to the southern library. The guards said they heard nothing—only silence, drawn too tightly.
They found the boy's robes folded beneath the Court Bell, weighted down with a single jade comb and a prayer scroll inked in reverse.
Zhao returned to court the next day.
His eyes were empty. He did not speak. He did not look at me.
But he sat with my allies.
The second died without a mark.
Lady Ru, the Minister of Accounts, refused to attend the meeting I requested. Said she was too busy preparing tax records for the spring.
The following evening, her sister failed to appear for prayer. Her steward hung himself in the servants' hall. Her guards scattered like crows at the sound of a flute no one could place.
Lady Ru was found at dawn, seated upright at her desk, hands folded.
A smile carved into her cheeks.
They buried her without ceremony.
There was no decree. No purge. No accusation in daylight.
Only this:
Those who refused me did not resist twice.
And those who obeyed… were left untouched.
My allies grew bolder.
My enemies grew quiet.
And beneath it all, something within me deepened. Like water settling over bone.
I no longer wrote commands.
I simply thought them.
And they moved.
Wu Taian grew cautious.
He tightened his grip on his ministers. He sent whisperers into my camp, searching for cracks. He visited the temples with fake incense and smiling silence.
It would not save him.
I saw him from the gallery above the Hall of Feasts. He was laughing with two lords—one of whom I had already marked. His laughter was too sharp, his wine untouched. The sound of a man pressing too hard against something he could not see.
That night, I met with Minister Han in the Orchid Court.
He had been Wu Taian's man once. I showed him a letter—his daughter's handwriting, forged by his own mistress, sent to a brothel in Dongling. The girl was thirteen.
I said nothing.
He knelt.
Now he is mine.
Elsewhere in the palace, Shen Yue screamed.
But not from pain.
Pain she had already endured.
No, this was something else.
She was tied upright in a lacquered chair, hands bound in silk cords soaked in vinegar. A needle had been driven through the web of her palm. Blood dripped rhythmically, onto stone carved in concentric circles.
Wu Taian stood in the dark, speaking with no hatred.
"Reputation is more delicate than flesh," he said, wiping ink from a silver stylus. "Once it's stained, nothing scrubs it clean."
Shen Yue's mouth was broken. But her eyes burned.
He circled her.
"The edict is written," he said. "Your name will not be erased, only changed. A whisper, then a scandal, then a fact."
Behind him, a figure shifted—robed in gold, face masked.
The temple scribe.
One of Wu Ling's monks.
He handed Taian a wax-sealed scroll.
"This," Taian said, "will do what blades cannot. When they read it in court, you'll already be dead. But your shadow will remain. A harlot. A traitor. The girl who seduced the Ash Prince and led him into madness."
He leaned close.
"Even if he wins, Shen Yue… you will still be beneath him."
She did not speak.
But her breathing slowed.
And for a moment, her gaze shifted—not to Taian, but beyond him.
To the darkened arch behind the shrine.
Where something stood that was not man.
Taian did not see it.
But she did.
And she smiled.
That night, I did not sleep.
I sat beneath the portrait of my grandfather—the great regent whose hands were said to have penned the kingdom's law.
I lit no incense.
Instead, I bled onto the floor. Quietly. Carefully.
A ritual not taught. Not learned.
Remembered.
The blood formed patterns not mine. Symbols I could not name, but understood all the same.
I whispered her name.
Once.
Only once.
The floor shivered.
Outside, the wind changed.
The northern lanterns went dark.
And I knew.
Where she was.
Liao Yun appeared at dawn.
He looked at the scroll I handed him, then at me.
"You're declaring private war," he said.
"No," I replied.
"I'm declaring balance."
By dusk, three more ministers had joined me.
Not out of loyalty.
Out of fear.
They do not understand what they fear.
But they understand the cost of resistance.
Wu Taian's guards found a package on his bed the following morning.
Inside: his old lover's tongue, preserved in salt. Her name carved into the lid in ancient script.
He did not show up to court.
No one asked why.
In the Hall of Reflections, I stood before the great mirror.
My reflection no longer mimicked me perfectly.
It blinked late.
It stood straighter.
Its mouth twitched.
But I no longer looked away.
I simply raised a hand—
—and it obeyed.
In the southern crypts, Shen Yue awoke on stone.
The cords were gone.
The monk was dead.
Wu Taian had vanished.
She sat up slowly.
Her palms were unmarked.
Only the floor beneath her bore signs of movement—muddy footprints that led nowhere.
And the shattered wax of a scroll that had never been read.
Somewhere deep beneath the city, a bell rang.
But no one had struck it.
And no one would.
Not anymore.