The halls of Bù Zhèng's old keep still smelled of scorched canvas and boiled blood. Even after fresh rushes were laid, the stones seemed to breathe memory — every echo a whisper of slaughter. It suited me well enough.
We'd barely finished stitching up the last of the wounded when the envoy arrived. A tall man with oiled hair, cloaked in deep crimson, flanked by retainers in southern silks. He carried himself with that peculiar arrogance born from surviving humiliation — the assurance that what didn't kill you might yet buy you decades to wait.
He bowed just deeply enough to mark courtesy, then rose. "My prince, the Lord of the Southern Kingdom, Ruǎn Fú Lán — by right of his blood and sovereign seal — proposes terms."
I sat back in the old war chair, fingers drumming on the carved dragon's jaw. "Terms."
"A guaranteed peace. Ten years. Trade roads reopened, tribute normalized, border patrols shared. The cause of this war was — as you know — weakening security, mutual banditry, frontier squabbles neither court managed to police."
I laughed. Softly. The envoy flinched.
"Thirty thousand dead," I murmured. "Crops burned, cities emptied, blood soaking down to wake even the old bones of this land. And now you say it was a misunderstanding at the border."
"The South is patient, Your Highness," he replied stiffly. "My lord is young. Time belongs to him — and by extension, to us all. He does not need to press for total war when your own provinces are raw from this campaign."
He was right in his way. The North had lost even more. Bù Zhèng's fields still coughed up corpses from battles weeks past. Villages farther north lay half-abandoned, their harvests left to rot.
But as he spoke, I felt the cold under my ribs spread. It trickled into my lungs like ice, filling my veins until each heartbeat sounded like an iron bell struck far below the earth.
Lianhua met me later in the high courtyard.
She came under a small awning of white silk, flanked by only two handmaids, her posture flawless as ever. When she looked at me, it was without malice — which somehow made it worse.
"You've won this season," she said, voice low. "Broken Zheng, burned our forward lines, bled both our kingdoms until the crows grew fat."
I studied her. Her lips curved faintly, as though we discussed little court scandals and not tens of thousands dead.
"And yet you do not protest the peace your husband now begs," I said. "A decade of quiet."
"Because a decade is nothing," she replied simply. Her dark eyes brightened with something almost feverish. "Do you think time stands still? The South will mend. Fields will refill with rice, our armies with sons. And one day — not tomorrow, perhaps not while your dragon still breathes frost — but one day, our banner will fly over Ling An's golden roofs."
She tilted her head then, birdlike, curious. "Does that thought chill you, Wu An? That all you build might be plucked down like old silk?"
I leaned close enough to smell the faint sweetness on her breath. "What chills me," I whispered, "is how little I would mind breaking you again. And again. And again. However many decades it takes."
For a moment, something flickered in her gaze — a crack, a thin strain of nerves that even her poise could not quite smooth. Then it was gone, replaced by that same haunted calm.
We signed the accords by torchlight. Wax seals impressed on blood-red parchment. Ten years of peace. Trade concessions. Tribute routes restored. It was a victory so clean on paper it almost seemed a lie.
Shen Yue stood by my side through it all, eyes narrowed. Her hand never strayed far from her sword, though Lianhua's men smiled politely and bowed at each clause.
When it was done, Lianhua dipped her head in the smallest of bows. "Congratulations, Fourth Prince. You've assured your capital's markets will burst with southern silver next spring."
"And you've assured yours time to breed more soldiers," I said.
She smiled again. "Yes. Isn't it elegant? The balance of predators. We rest, we grow — until one of us cannot help but taste the other's throat again."
Then she left, silks whispering over the stones. I watched her until she was swallowed by shadows, wondering if under different stars I might have admired her. Might have feared her.
That night I did not sleep. I lay on a couch in the war room, the old maps sprawled beneath my hands. Bù Zhèng was quiet, but I heard whispers still — in the floorboards, in the low moan of wind through broken shutters.
The cold under my ribs was stronger than ever. It seemed to pulse without any heart at all, like the tide coming in to drown me. Sometimes it spoke. Not in words, but in thick, liquid images: black crowns, rivers that ran backward full of gnawed bones, streets in Ling An piled with the faceless dead.
I shuddered. Then laughed. Because part of me was glad.
At dawn a rider came. His horse collapsed in the courtyard, froth at its mouth, ribs showing where starvation had already taken bites.
The courier fell to one knee, offering a scroll tied with bright vermilion cord.
By decree of His Imperial Majesty and the ministers of Ling An:
The Fourth Prince, having secured triumph against the South, is summoned home under banners of celebration. A procession will be prepared. Rewards and honors to be granted.
Failure to comply will be considered direct contempt of the throne.
Shen Yue read it with me. Her mouth twisted. "A triumph. How neat. How public. The perfect stage to cut your throat if you grow too tall."
"Or to strangle me with silk and smile," I agreed.
She didn't smile back. "Will you go?"
I looked back at the fortress courtyard, where soldiers were beginning to pull down old banners, replacing them with my tattered black. Where peasants shuffled in line to offer grain taxes with shaking hands. Where the crows still gathered in dozens, fat and sleek, unafraid of the living.
"Yes," I said finally. "Because no matter what trap they lay, I'd rather face it in Ling An's shadow than let them build it while I wait blind."
And under my ribs, the cold thing stretched and hummed — pleased, eager.
Because it knew.
One way or another, this was the road that would let it feast.