The gift arrived on a morning when the mist hung low over the garden and the light was the color of old bone.
Qinghe brought it to her, the box held in both hands. She set it on the table, adjusted it twice—once to align with the edge, once to center it—and stepped back with her hands folded.
"For the Eleventh Prince," Qinghe said. "It was left at the eastern gate. No name. No seal."
Liu Lanzhi looked at the box. It was small, wrapped in silk the color of dried blood, tied with a cord knotted once and not undone. It sat on her table like a thing that did not belong.
Yulan stood by the door, her weight shifting from one foot to the other. She was watching the box, too, her eyes narrow.
Liu Lanzhi had learned to read them in the weeks since they had been assigned to her. Qinghe spoke too much, would fill silence with words if she was not watched. Yulan listened too closely, heard what was not said and remembered it.
They were not loyal to her. Not yet. But they were hers, for now.
"Who brought it?"
"A servant from the outer court. He said it was found at the gate this morning. No one claimed it."
"No one claims a gift for a forgotten prince," Yulan said, then pressed her lips shut.
Liu Lanzhi looked at the box. Something in her chest had tightened—a cold awareness, the same awareness that had kept her alive through betrayals she still carried in her bones.
"Open it."
Qinghe hesitated. "Your Highness—"
"Open it."
Qinghe stepped forward. Her hands were steady. She untied the cord. She lifted the lid. She looked inside.
Her face went pale.
Liu Lanzhi crossed the room. She looked into the box.
The toy lay on a bed of silk—a small wooden bird, carved with care, its wings spread, its beak open as if it were singing. It was beautiful. It was innocent. It was the kind of gift a child would treasure.
And it was poisoned.
She knew it before she touched it. The smell was wrong—too sweet, too sharp. The wood was too dark, the grain too even, as if treated with something that was not oil or wax.
She reached into the box.
"Your Highness," Yulan said, her hand half-extended. "If it is dangerous—"
Liu Lanzhi picked up the bird.
The wood was warm against her fingers. The poison did not burn. It did not sting. It sat in the grain like a sleeping thing, waiting for small hands to hold it, for small lips to press against it.
She held it for a long moment. The cold pressure stirred beneath her awareness—the power she was only beginning to learn. It recognized the poison. It recognized the shape of the death waiting in the wood.
She set the bird back in the box.
"Where is the Eleventh Prince?"
Qinghe's voice was unsteady. "In his quarters. He has not yet been told of the gift."
Liu Lanzhi turned to look at her. Qinghe met her eyes for a moment, then looked away. She was afraid. Fear made people do things they would not otherwise do.
"The gift is not for him. It is for whoever opens it. A child, a servant, anyone who touches it long enough."
She looked at the box again. The bird lay in its nest of silk, its wings spread, its beak open.
I know about the boy. I know where to find him. I know how to hurt you.
She closed the lid.
"Qinghe. You will take this to the palace administration. You will tell them it was found at the gate. You will not tell them whose name was on it."
Qinghe nodded.
"Yulan. You will go to the Eleventh Prince's quarters. You will tell his servants that he is not to accept any gifts. Any at all. If they ask why, you will say it is the Crown Prince's order."
Yulan hesitated. "The Crown Prince—"
"Will not contradict me. Go."
They went.
—
She found him in the courtyard, sitting on the bench, his hands folded, his feet dangling.
He looked up when she came through the hedge, his face brightening. "Jiejie. You came."
She sat beside him. Her hands were steady. Her voice was steady. But something in her chest was very cold.
"I said I would come."
He nodded, satisfied. He had not noticed that she was later than usual, that her sleeves were damp with mist, that she had left her residence without tea. He was four years old. He only noticed whether she was there.
She was there.
They sat in silence. The mist burned away, the shadows shortening. The palace was waking.
He spoke when the sun was at its highest.
"Someone sent me a gift."
Her hands tightened in her lap. "Did they?"
"A servant came. He said it was from the outer court. He said someone left it at the gate."
She kept her voice even. "What kind of gift?"
He shrugged. "I do not know. The servant took it away. He said there was a mistake. He said it was not for me."
She remembered Yulan's face when she had given the order. The hesitation, the fear, the quick obedience. She had done well.
"Did you see it?"
He shook his head. "The servant took it before I could see." He looked at her, puzzled. "Why would someone send a gift that was not for me?"
She looked at him. He did not know that gifts could be knives, that kindness could be a trap, that there were people who would hurt a child to hurt someone else.
She did not know how to tell him.
"Sometimes people send gifts to the wrong person. It was a mistake."
He considered this. "Will the right person get it?"
She thought of the bird, lying in its box, waiting to be disposed of. The poison, sleeping in the wood.
"Yes. The right person will get it."
He nodded, satisfied. He leaned against her, his head against her arm, and watched the garden.
She sat very still. She let him lean against her, let the weight of him settle against her side, let the morning pass as it always passed.
But her mind was elsewhere.
—
That night, when the palace was quiet, Liu Lanzhi sat by her window and thought about the box.
She had not told Qinghe to trace it. She had not told Yulan to ask questions. She had sent the box to the palace administration, where it would be recorded and forgotten. She had sat with the boy in the garden. She had let him lean against her. She had smiled when he looked at her.
But she knew.
Someone had sent a poisoned toy to a four-year-old prince. Someone had wanted him to die.
Or someone had wanted her to know that he could die. That he was vulnerable. That the people who protected him were not strong enough to keep him safe.
She thought of Su Yue's face at the banquet. The way her smile had tightened when Liu Lanzhi walked into the hall. The way her eyes had followed her, cold and calculating.
She thought of Consort Li, laughing too loudly, looking at the northern hairpin with eyes too bright. She thought of the ministers who had looked away when she passed, the generals who had pretended not to see her.
Any of them could have sent the box.
She closed her eyes. She remembered Yun Qingyu's words in his study. The boy has no faction. No allies. No mother to protect him. When the succession is decided, he will be a loose thread. And loose threads are cut.
The succession was not decided. The emperor lay in his sealed chambers, neither dead nor alive. And in the middle of it all, a four-year-old prince no one remembered had received a gift that would have killed him.
She opened her eyes. The moon was high, the garden silver and black.
She would not scream. She would not weep. She would not beg for protection or demand justice. She would not show them how much they had frightened her.
She would wait. She would watch. She would learn who had sent the box, and why, and what they wanted.
She thought of the bird again. The poison in the grain. The message it carried.
The Eleventh Prince is not the target. You are.
She had known, even before she could name it. The gift was not for the boy. It was for her. It was meant to show her that she was not safe, that the people she protected were not safe, that there was nowhere in this palace she could hide.
She thought of the boy who would come tomorrow, who would sit beside her and lean against her and trust her to keep him safe.
She thought of the cold pressure in her chest, the power she was only beginning to learn, the years of training that lay ahead before she would be strong enough to protect anyone.
She was not strong enough yet.
She rose from the bench and walked back through the garden, through the corridors, through the quiet halls of the palace that was not her home. She would sleep tonight. She would rise tomorrow. She would sit on the bench in the crumbling courtyard, and she would let the boy lean against her, and she would smile when he looked at her.
And when the people who had sent the box saw that she was not afraid, they would try again. And again.
She would be ready when they did.