Sleep had become a battlefield.
Every time I closed my eyes, something clawed its way through — visions not born of memory, but of something deeper, older. Screams bubbled through pitch-dark water. My hands, soaked in blood, reached toward crumbling altars. And always in the distance: laughter. Crooked and childlike. A sound that didn't belong in this world.
Tonight, the dreams showed me the banquet hall, but warped — the nobles faceless, their mouths stretched open in silent screams as blood trickled from their eyes. Princess Lianhua stood above them all, wearing my mother's face. When she turned, her smile split to the ears.
I woke in the dark, breath sharp and shallow. Moonlight cut across the room like a blade. My robe clung to my skin, soaked with sweat.
Something inside me stirred.
Not with rage.
Not with speech.
Only hunger.
A knock. Too sharp.
The guards entered, panic in their eyes. "Your Highness! Screaming—"
"I'm fine," I said coldly.
Moments later, Liao Yun stepped in, scrolls still in hand. He paused, taking in the overturned table, the damp sheets, the bloody half-moon gouged into my palm.
"Your nightmares are worsening," he said.
I didn't reply.
"We can delay. Plan it with more care. The dungeons—"
"No," I said. "We move tonight."
"Your Highness, I must urge caution—"
I turned, the words bursting out: "Can you not simply do what I ask? I am surrounded by knives in every court, in every shadow. I do not need hesitation—I need results."
He bowed, lips thin. "As you command."
I dismissed him and summoned the Black Tigers.
Five men. No names spoken. Faces wrapped. Each one handpicked during the northern campaign. I had seen them cleave through cavalry with rusted blades, bury brothers without tears. Now, they waited for my nod, already dressed as palace scribes and workers.
Liao Yun had fulfilled his role. The scrolls marked the four dungeon floors, the scribe who had been bribed, and the guards who would be replaced this hour. A map. A path. A razor-thin margin.
Still, it would be dangerous.
This was no ordinary prison. And the prisoner — a Southern noble accused of treason, sentenced to rot in silence — was no ordinary man.
Wu Jin wanted him freed.
And Wu Jin never wanted anything without reason.
The King of the South had yet to appear. Not during our entry. Not at court. Not even a formal greeting. Instead, they sent my sister.
Princess Lianhua.
She who wore silk like armor, who spoke of peace with a serpent's calm. She who had once stepped into my war tent and offered ten years of peace while men bled in the mud beyond the canvas.
Now she hosted our welcome feast. She played the hostess. The diplomat.
But I knew Lianhua.
Every smile she gave had a dagger folded inside.
We moved at the hour of the boar. The moon high, the halls quiet.
Through side corridors, past whispering drapes and scentless prayer scrolls. The entrance to the dungeon was beneath the old bell tower — now sealed, guarded by two of the Southern King's hand-picked elites.
They did not cry out.
Their bodies were dragged behind altar stones, throats slit without sound.
We entered.
The air changed immediately — colder, heavier.
The first floor was for petty criminals. Half-asleep guards, drunk on rice wine. They were dealt with quickly, left unconscious or worse. The real danger waited below.
Second floor — silence.
Third floor — torches dimmed.
By the fourth, even the stone seemed wet. The walls bled condensation, and the smell was… wrong. Old iron, yes, but also something like burned feathers and rotted herbs. Rituals had happened here once. Ancient ones.
We reached the final gate.
The cell Liao Yun had marked. The Southern traitor lay within.
And that's when the lock behind us snapped.
One of the Tigers hissed — "Trap."
Too late.
Torches flared. A shimmer of golden silk stepped from the shadows beyond the bars.
Princess Lianhua.
She wore court robes trimmed in bronze, her hair pinned high, not a strand out of place. She looked untouched by dust, by time, by doubt.
"Did you think I would not notice?" she asked, voice soft. "Brother."
The Tigers raised their blades, but I held up a hand. They stilled.
"You sent no guards," I said. "No search. No resistance."
Lianhua smiled. "Why waste effort when I knew you'd come to me?"
Her eyes flicked to the prisoner's cell. "You're here for him. That much I already knew."
I said nothing.
She stepped forward, slowly, like the dungeon belonged to her. "You'll find this dungeon was built for more than prisoners. It was built to store things too dangerous for the light."
The torches above us flickered again.
And then—
Footsteps.
Not hers.
Boots, heavy, measured. Each one echoed as if time itself paused to listen.
A man stepped from the shadowed corridor behind Lianhua. Mid-thirties, dressed in a blue robe embroidered with thundercloud sigils. No crown. No crest. But something about him—something deeper than blood or posture—screamed sovereign.
The guards behind him said nothing.
Because there were none.
He needed none.
I stared, but he didn't look at me. Not yet.
Only stepped forward, as if this moment had always belonged to him.
The air constricted. The thing within me stirred — not violently, but with quiet, gnawing hunger.
Behind me, one of the Tigers tensed.
Lianhua didn't move. Her smile deepened, touched with something almost cruel.
I didn't know this man.
But I knew what kind of creature he was.
The being behind the throne.
The one who never needed to show his face — because the world bent anyway.
The southern king?
Or something worse?
I took a step forward, and the hunger inside me surged, not in defiance — but recognition.
And the torches dimmed again.