They called it a march, but it felt like exile.
Twelve thousand soldiers moved south beneath skies bruised with stormlight. The Golden Dragon Army and the Black Tiger Battalion rode together in uneasy silence, steel glinting beneath layers of dirt and distrust. No drums, no banners. Only breath, boots, and the sound of barely restrained contempt.
The Golden Dragons, proud and polished, eyed their darker-clad comrades like wolves watching hounds. The Black Tigers, scarred and lean from the war in Cao Wen, returned the gaze with unblinking scorn. One carried a broken blade hung around his neck like a talisman. Another still wore a fur cloak stained with the ash of northern fires.
Han Qing rode between them — lieutenant commander now, but still a soldier at heart. He kept the two factions from clashing with a glance, a word, a presence. But tension vibrated like a drawn bow.
"Keep them apart at camp," Shen Yue murmured at my side. "They'll draw blood before they draw swords against the South."
"They'll obey," I said.
"They fear you," she replied. "That's not the same."
She wore traveling armor, not ceremonial robes—her blade at her side, hair tied back in a soldier's knot. Her presence was the only constant that hadn't turned against me.
Behind us, Princess Lianyu rode beneath her lily-emblazoned canopy. Her retinue was silent, but her eyes were not. She watched everything. The men. The discipline. Me.
She would report it all.
Each night, fires were lit early and burned low. Soldiers spoke in hushed tones. Some prayed. Others sharpened their weapons as if sleep were a danger.
By the third day, the tension snapped.
A Golden Dragon sergeant struck a Black Tiger scout during morning rations. A small insult. A muttered slur. But it spread like fire. Two more clashed that afternoon, blades drawn. By dusk, three were dead. Five wounded.
The generals descended like carrion birds.
"This is what happens when you mix poison and pride," snarled General Lian of the Golden Dragons.
"We march under the Fourth Prince's banner, not yours," barked a Black Tiger captain. "And we remember who bled for Cao Wen."
They stood before me, voices rising.
I did not speak.
I simply stepped forward, eyes fixed, hands behind my back.
And pointed.
To both men.
"Bind them," I ordered. "Then take them to the riverbank."
Han Qing's face did not move. But he obeyed.
The men were lashed to poles. Kneeling. Stripped of rank and cloth.
Then I burned them.
No screaming. I had their mouths gagged.
The flames rose. The smell turned the air thick.
Soldiers watched in silence, some averting their eyes. Others stared.
I looked into the fire and said nothing.
Because the thing inside me said enough.
When the flames died, I turned back to the generals.
"There will be no second warning."
No one argued.
But they did not forget.
That night, morale bled like a severed artery. Soldiers whispered. Some sharpened blades too long. Others drank in silence. Even the priests who traveled with us began to look away when I passed.
"I've seen tyrants, boy," muttered General Sun, a man who had once served Wu Jin. "But never a monster so quiet."
Wu Jin's allies murmured similar doubts. Why support this? Why back a beast?
But Wu Jin's hand was distant. And I did not need belief.
Only obedience.
Shen Yue found me that evening beneath a dead pine.
"You've lost more than loyalty," she said.
"I never had loyalty," I replied. "Only direction."
"You can't command corpses."
"No. But corpses don't disobey."
She didn't argue.
She simply sat beside me, hand brushing mine, a touch not of romance, but recognition.
We were both burning.
And only one of us would survive it.
Later that night, I dreamed of fire—not flames from the riverbank, but something deeper. A furnace beneath my ribs. It breathed through me. Each beat of my heart was a hammer striking steel. The thing inside me was not sleeping anymore.
The next morning, scouts returned.
"We've reached the border of Bù Zhèng," Han Qing reported. "The fort commander is riding out to meet us. He brings a delegation."
"From the South?" I asked.
"No. From Nanyan. The Prefect himself."
The announcement ran through the camp like wind over tall grass. Soldiers straightened armor. Generals rehearsed their bows. Princess Lianyu repainted her lips.
We rode forward.
The air smelled of dust and old iron. The sky above Bù Zhèng was veiled in smoke. Far to the west, black banners marked the horizon.
And on the ridgeline ahead, two banners waited.
One bore the crest of Liang — faded but firm.
The other was marked with the Prefect's seal — a lotus wrapped in chain.
The commander was tall, lean, and weary. Armor dented, sword worn smooth. He saluted with proper form.
"Fourth Prince," he said. "We are honored. The men are ready. The walls hold—for now. But we bleed every hour."
Beside him stood the Prefect of Nanyan. Younger, richer, eyes sharp as mirrors.
"We welcome your command," the Prefect said with a bow. "But we also expect clarity. The people fear your name more than the South. Will they still fear you once the battle begins?"
I did not answer.
Because the war had not begun.
Not truly.
But when it did, they would learn:
They had not sent a prince.
They had sent fire.