The cell door groaned as it opened — slow, metallic, like something ancient remembering pain.
The prisoner didn't move.
He was already bound. Limbs tied with ceremonial red rope. A black linen hood covered his face, sagging where it pressed against cheekbones and nose. There was no dignity left in his posture — slumped, head bowed, hands slack. But he breathed. Shallow. Controlled. As if he'd been waiting.
My Black Tigers shifted behind me in silence. Five of them — faces veiled, eyes sharp. None spoke. None dared. They had slit guards' throats beneath the bell tower without sound, slipped past half-drunk sentries like ghosts. Now we stood on the fourth floor of the dungeon — the deepest place in this palace. And the wet stone beneath our boots pulsed with something colder than blood.
The torches flickered low. The walls sweat. The air stank of iron, burned herbs, and something older — something wrong.
Then a voice.
Not from the cell.
From behind it.
"I wondered how long it would take."
Princess Lianhua stepped from shadow.
Her robe was court red, but trimmed in dull bronze — the color of dried blood. Hair pinned in lacquered spirals, not a strand out of place. Her footsteps did not echo. She was untouched by the filth, the rot, the stench.
She smiled.
"You always were your father's son," she said. "Charging in with blades and shadows. But you forget—this is my court now."
The Tigers raised their weapons. One stepped between her and me.
"Hold," I said.
They froze.
Lianhua's smile deepened.
"Did you really think you could reach this far without me noticing?" she asked.
"You did nothing to stop me."
"I wanted to see how far you'd crawl."
She circled toward the cell, hand trailing along the wall — fingers grazing rusted symbols carved in faded ink. Not words. Not prayers. Just patterns that didn't belong to this era.
"You're here for him," she said, glancing toward the hooded shape. "Wu Jin sent you. Of course he did."
I said nothing.
"And I suppose," she murmured, "you think he's sending you to free a man. A useful man. A pawn with secrets."
She looked back at me.
"But what you've been sent to fetch… is a mirror."
Then — another sound. A different weight.
Bootsteps. Measured. Slow. Too soft to echo, but too heavy to ignore.
They came from the darkness beyond the final stair. I turned toward it.
And saw him.
A man — tall, mid-thirties, dressed in a blue robe embroidered with thundercloud sigils. No guards. No crown. No crest.
But I knew what he was.
The Southern King.
The figure who never greeted us at the gates. The man who let my sister host the banquet, the council, the feast. The man who had not spoken once — until now.
He did not look at me at first. He stepped forward, as if this place — the wet stone, the runed walls, the shivering air — belonged to him alone.
The torches dimmed further. Shadows curled toward his feet.
And the thing inside me stirred.
The brand on my palm throbbed — the old wound, the one I'd carved into my flesh by the river before Cao Wen fell. I had thought it healed.
It had not.
The King spoke.
"You've opened the vault," he said. "Cao Wen. I can see it in your eyes."
I did not move. "You know of it?"
His gaze rose — calm, precise, without arrogance.
"I was raised in it."
The words rang like stone dropped into deep water.
One of the Tigers flinched. Another shifted his weight unconsciously — inching back, like prey watching a sleeping thing begin to wake.
Lianhua stood perfectly still. But her gaze never left me.
The King stepped past her, approaching the bound prisoner. He knelt beside the hooded figure and pressed a hand to the man's chest. A shudder ran through the prisoner's body — but no sound escaped him.
"You came for this," the King said. "Do you even know what it is?"
"It's a man," I replied. "One Wu Jin wants returned."
The King stood, brushing dust from his sleeves.
"It was a man once," he murmured. "Now it is memory."
His eyes turned to mine.
"And you are not here to retrieve him."
He took a step closer — too close. My hand brushed the hilt beneath my robe, but he didn't react.
"You are here," he said, "because you carry the same brand I once did."
The brand in my palm erupted — fire without flame, blood without wound.
I gritted my teeth. My knees almost buckled.
He didn't smile. Didn't gloat. He only watched me.
"I carved it into myself when I thought I was ready to change the world," he said. "I thought I could wield it."
"And?"
He stepped away, voice darkening.
"I succeeded. The cost was everything else."
Then — a voice from beneath the hood.
"You've already paid," the prisoner whispered.
I froze.
The Black Tigers tensed.
The voice was not loud. It didn't echo.
But I heard it in the bones of my skull.
"You carry it now," the prisoner said. "Same as me. Same as him. You think you choose. You think this is strategy."
I approached him, heart hammering.
The man laughed — softly, horribly — inside his hood.
"There is no strategy," he murmured. "Only hunger. It will write its name in your spine."
And then — I lifted the hood.
Just a little.
Only to see his mouth.
He smiled.
And black fluid bled from the corners of his lips — not blood, but ink.
I recoiled.
The King spoke again.
"You wanted a prisoner," he said.
"You can have him."
His eyes locked on mine — ancient, hollow.
"But know this: once you leave, it will awaken."
The prisoner laughed again, head slumping forward.
And the King stepped into the torchlight one last time.
"You carry the same brand I once did," he said softly.
Then — his voice turned sharp.
"How long before it burns through your soul?"
The torches went out.
One by one.
And in the dark —
the prisoner whispered a name I hadn't told anyone.
Not even myself.