The sun rose over Jīn Lóng like a blade drawn across a throat — slow, deliberate, and without mercy.
I stood at the edge of the palace balcony, watching the city unfurl beneath pale smoke and ghost-colored mist. Somewhere in the distance, a temple bell rang — not to welcome peace, but to remind the living that silence was sacred.
She hadn't spoken since the dungeon.
Even now, she remained in the chamber I'd arranged, hooded still, seated like a funerary statue. The servants avoided her. The guards kept hands on hilts. She asked for nothing — no water, no food, no justice.
And I hadn't pressed her.
Because the moment I saw her face, something ancient and unfinished twisted inside me. Not recognition — remembrance. A memory too old to name. A scar I didn't know I still carried.
She looked at me once — without hatred, without pleading. Only the steady, terrible stillness of someone who had long since stopped expecting kindness.
So I left her behind.
There was a treaty to sign.
The throne room was thick with quiet when I entered. Southern officials stood in precise rows, their robes heavy with lacquered thread. My men stood opposite them — fewer in number, fewer in favor. The air itself leaned against me.
The Southern King waited on the dais, seated like a god carved from bone. He wore no crown, but no one doubted his power. And beside him—
Lianhua.
My sister.
Hair coiled in golden pins. Eyes lined in blue. Every inch of her a queen. And yet… she did not meet my gaze.
"Fourth Prince," said the King, his smile a blade dipped in honey. "You rise early. Admirable, considering the trouble beneath my palace last night."
I bowed. Just enough. "Storms clear the air. And I value clarity."
He chuckled. "Then let us speak plainly."
We walked to the garden court. Camellias bloomed like old wounds. A stone table waited, cracked with years. Upon it — the treaty.
Only it wasn't the one we had agreed to.
Ten years of peace had become five.
Equal trade replaced by tariffs threefold.
Shared control of the riverlands revoked entirely.
Lianhua said nothing.
The King's voice came soft. "My queen has a good heart. But she is not king. You spoke to her. Now you speak to me."
I looked at her again — my sister, once fierce and free. Now caged in silk and silence.
No one betrayed me — not truly. They only chose what Liang forced them to become.
My homeland.
Liang — a kingdom unified on parchment, but fractured in soul. The Emperor ruled from the north, little more than a figurehead caught between rituals and whispers, his throne held up by the Lord Protector's hand. In the south, the King of Jīn Lóng claimed to act in Liang's name, speaking of restoration and loyalty. But those were words, not truths.
In reality, there were two kingdoms — one clothed in ceremony, the other in ambition. Each claimed to speak for Liang. Neither served it.
And the King knew that.
He knew the capital teetered. He knew my brother bled the court dry. He knew the name of Liang was a shroud over a corpse.
So he offered the treaty — not as an olive branch.
But as a blade.
"If you do not sign, Prince Wu An," he said, "there will be no war. There will only be collapse. From within."
He offered the brush.
I did not tremble.
I signed.
And in doing so, I saw clearly.
This was not peace.
This was delay.
A lull before the true storm.
Let them believe I accepted humiliation.
Let them think I bent.
The treaty would buy time. And with time, I would rebuild what they thought was broken.
As I stood, the Southern King smiled again. "One more thing…"
I waited.
"The prisoner. The one you risked peace for. What is she to you?"
His gaze was too casual.
Lianhua looked at me now, but I could read nothing in her face.
I looked past them — to the red camellias. They reminded me of old wounds that festered quietly.
"She is someone the Empire forgot," I said.
And I left.
I did not go to her immediately.
I walked instead through the oldest corridors of the Southern Palace — where the stone floors dipped and the carvings had worn to shadows. Where every silence smelled like dried wax, old blood, and the dust of prayers unanswered.
I thought of Cao Wen.
Of what I had become to survive it.
And then, finally, I returned to the guest quarters.
She was sitting where I had left her. Hood removed. Eyes open.
Her hands rested in her lap. Her face turned slightly toward the window, though the curtains had long since dulled the light.
She had not eaten.
But she looked up when I entered.
We stared at one another. Not with anger. Not with mourning.
Just the quiet of people who had seen what the palace does to memory.
I sat across from her.
"Why didn't you speak?" I asked.
Her voice came dry, distant.
"Would you have listened?"
The words didn't sting.
They simply rang true.
Her face had changed. Leaner. Older. The scar beneath her eye still visible.
The orchard fall.
The day I pushed her by accident.
She forgave me then, before I even apologized.
I swallowed.
"Wu Shuang," I said, softly.
Her eyes flickered.
But she said nothing more.
It was enough.
She was here.
And I now understood why Wu Jin had wanted her freed — not out of sentiment.
But because she was a secret.
And in a kingdom already rotting, secrets were more valuable than armies.
Tomorrow I would return to Liang.
Tomorrow I would lie to the court. I would smile at my brother's ministers. I would tell the Emperor peace was secured.
But tonight, I would sit here.
And remember that this empire was never meant to survive.
Not like this.
Not as a name.
Only as a warning.