By the time we reached my quarters, dawn was still a rumor. Liao Yun barred the inner door. Shen Yue set a blade and a bowl on the table.
Guo Sen swayed, blinked, tried to kneel, failed. "I kept the counts," he said to no one, or to a room that existed in the southern capital and not here. "Corn, copper, candles. I kept the counts until the circles ate the numbers."
"Who paid you?" Shen Yue asked gently.
"No one paid me," he said. "Everyone did."
I set water before him. He did not see it. "The letter you read in court," I said. "Who dictated it?"
"Not a voice," he whispered. "A hand. A hand that wrote before I lifted the brush. When the brush moved, I followed."
Shen Yue and Liao exchanged a look that had no place for hope.
"Can you name the hand?" I asked.
Guo Sen's eyes at last found mine. For a heartbeat they were very clear, like a window wiped clean of frost. "Yours," he said.
The bowl on the table rang when Shen Yue's finger twitched.
"Explain," I said, and the word came out colder than the sword across my knees.
"The hand wore your shape," he answered. "But it was not attached to you. It reached through the paper as if the page were water. It did not want anything. It simply… made room."
A pulse, deep inside my chest. Not mine—and mine.
Liao Yun's voice was iron. "We take him to the Emperor. Now."
"Yes," I said.
"Wu An," Shen Yue said quietly, "the hall will be set. Wu Kang will be there. Wu Ling too."
"My sister," I said.
Shen Yue nodded. "Your sister."
I looked to the window lattice. A band of light had begun to show, thin as a monk's smile.
"Prepare him," I said. "Bind his hands, not his mouth. If the Emperor wants fire, I will bring him the spark."
We did not make it to the palace by the front road. Halfway to the Jade Bridge, bells began to toll—not the court bells, not the city watch. The temple bells. All of them, from river-bend to north gate, each off by a heartbeat, so the sound folded over itself and made a net.
Men in the street stopped and looked up as if the sound were visible. A woman dropped a basket of reeds and did not stoop to gather them. Children watched the sky the way dogs listen to earthquakes.
At the third toll, a column of smoke rose from the direction of the Hall of Still Waters.
At the fifth, a second column.
At the seventh, the sky to the east colored itself the bruised red of an old wound.
"Back," Liao said.
"No," I said, and kept walking.
We cut through the peach market and up the magistrate's lane. The bells hammered the city into segments: before, after, never again. The smoke from the river quarter took on a twist, not straight, not natural—as if following a shape traced by a patient hand.
At the palace gate, the guards stood two deep. Their faces were like masks, their spears steady. But their eyes did not leave the smoke.
"The Prince presents a witness," Shen Yue said.
"You are not expected," the captain answered.
"That is the nature of witnesses," I said, and lifted Guo Sen's bound hands so the cords showed red as fresh meat. "Tell His Majesty that the man who accused me is ready to speak to his face."
The captain hesitated, glanced at the smoke, at the bells, at me. He stepped aside.
Inside the outer court, the marble caught a film of ash so fine you could write in it with a fingertip. I did not.
The Hall of Judgement's doors stood open, as if the building had forgotten how to close.
The Emperor was already seated. Wu Kang stood to his left. Wu Ling, my sister, to the right, veil lowered. The monk was not with her. For the first time since I'd returned to Ling An, he was absent.
We walked the length of the hall. The scrape of our boots sounded like writing on stone.
Guo Sen swayed; I held him upright. We stopped below the steps.
The Emperor's gaze weighed me. Weighed the steward. Weighed the smoke knifing up beyond the roofline.
"Well?" he said.
Guo Sen opened his mouth. For a heartbeat, nothing came out.
Then—like a man forcing a dream into words before it evaporates—he began to speak.
"The letter was written before I wrote it," he said. "It bore the prince's seal, but the hand was not his. It wore his shape. And when I looked too long, the page turned to water."
Murmurs in the court. Wu Kang's jaw tightened. Wu Ling did not move at all.
The Emperor's voice was soft. "Who gave you the brush?"
Guo Sen swallowed. "A monk. With beads of bone. He told me I had always already written it. I only needed to remember."
"Where is he now?" the Emperor asked.
Guo Sen blinked. "Counting."
My sister's veil did not flutter. But in the stillness around her, I heard the shape of a smile.
The Emperor looked from Guo Sen to me. The dragon in his eyes lit, briefly, like a coal bent to wind.
"Then we will find him," he said. "And if we cannot—" He did not finish the sentence. He did not have to.
The bells tolled again. The smoke thickened. Somewhere in the city a structure gave a long, low groan, like a beast lying down at last.
And beneath my ribs, the thing inside me moved—not eager, not afraid. A tide turning under an unmoving moon.
"Your Majesty," I said, and my voice carried without effort. "Give me leave to hunt."
The Emperor held my gaze. Then he nodded once.
"Go," he said. "Bring me the man who counts."
I bowed.
As I turned, Wu Ling lifted her head. I could not see her eyes through the veil. I did not need to.
My sister's voice was almost tender. "Be quick, Brother. The circles have already been drawn."
I walked out beneath the weight of the bells, the ash, the waiting city.
The Hall of Still Waters had burned—but the spirals in the streets remained.
Somewhere along the river, a rosary clicked, bead to bead, patient as winter.
And the silence inside me answered.