The snow does not stop.
It buries the dead before the living can count them.
Ling An stands, but only just. Southern camps burn low across the river. Zhou's framework towers glow faintly along the northern ridge like patient eyes that never close.
Inside the capital, fear has changed shape.
It is no longer loud.
It whispers.
The second assassination attempt does not target Wu An.
It targets Liao Yun.
The blade comes from within the Tiger ranks again—this time during morning drill. The attacker shouts nothing. He does not invoke restoration. He dies without speaking.
But this one carries something the first did not.
A seal.
Burned into the inside of his wrist.
Not Southern.
Not Zhou.
Older.
Shen Yue studies it in silence.
"This is palace ink," she says quietly.
"From the old archive," Liao Yun adds grimly.
Wu An feels the cold realization settle.
The dissent is not foreign.
It was cultivated before the siege.
Before Wu Shuang.
Before Wu Jin's death.
The Lord Protector.
Even dead, his design continues.
"Cells embedded in the officer corps," Shen Yue says. "Sleeper loyalties."
"He prepared for succession," Wu An replies. "Or fracture."
They move quickly.
Commanders are isolated. Units reshuffled. Officers cross-examined in pairs. Seals searched. Interrogations conducted without spectacle.
Three more captains confess before dying.
All linked.
All indoctrinated under quiet oaths to preserve "true continuity."
The Lord Protector never planned to rule forever.
He planned for instability to prove necessity.
Even in death, he destabilizes.
Wu An stands in the dim archive hall, staring at old documents bearing his father's seal.
"He knew this might happen," Shen Yue says.
"Yes."
"And he made sure you would inherit not loyalty—but tension."
Wu An closes the archive door.
"Then we remove the tension."
By dusk, every officer sworn under the Protector's private oath is gone.
Some executed.
Some exiled.
Some simply disappear.
Ling An grows quieter.
But colder.
The next revelation comes from the north.
A Tiger scout intercepts a courier in the snowy hills.
The message is encrypted—but not enough.
Shen Yue deciphers it by lantern light.
Zhou and the Southern Kingdom have exchanged winter terms.
Not alliance.
Synchronization.
The South pressures the capital.
Zhou applies "peacekeeping intervention" once collapse is visible.
A pincer masked as diplomacy.
Wu An reads the document without visible reaction.
"They were never rivals," Liao Yun mutters. "Just opportunists."
"They still distrust each other," Wu An replies calmly. "But they distrust us more."
"And now?" Shen Yue asks.
Wu An studies the map.
Zhou's frameworks extend.
Southern artillery rebuilds.
Internal dissent suppressed—but not erased.
"If they coordinate openly," Shen Yue says, "Ling An cannot withstand both fronts."
"No," Wu An agrees.
Silence falls.
Then—
He moves a marker on the board.
"We don't let them coordinate."
The plan forms in stillness.
"Zhou believes itself civilized," Wu An says quietly. "Measured. Lawful."
"They are," Shen Yue replies cautiously.
"Then we remove their certainty."
Two days later—
A Black Tiger covert division strikes north.
Not at military targets.
At logistics.
Zhou's forward supply depots burn in one synchronized night assault. Powder wagons explode across frozen valleys. Framework anchors collapse under sabotage.
No survivors are left to testify cleanly.
Zhou awakens to disorder.
They cannot prove Ling An struck first.
But they know.
The Southern Kingdom waits for Zhou to advance.
Zhou instead pulls back to secure its lines.
Suspicion grows.
Coordination falters.
Wu An has chosen escalation.
Not defensive.
Preemptive.
Irreversible.
Zhou will never treat Ling An as merely defensive again.
Ling An is now a hostile force.
Shen Yue stands with him at the northern parapet as smoke rises faintly in the distance.
"You crossed the line," she says.
"Yes."
"There's no diplomacy left."
"There never was."
Zhou's banners shift.
Southern scouts withdraw to reconsider.
The pincer collapses—temporarily.
But the cost is clear.
Ling An is no longer negotiating its survival.
It is declaring itself a power.
Shen Yue studies him.
"You've forced them into open war."
"Yes."
"And if both empires unite fully?"
He does not hesitate.
"Then we become something they cannot absorb."
She searches his face.
"And what is that?"
He answers quietly.
"Unmanageable."
The snow continues to fall.
Ling An no longer waits.
Zhou no longer trusts.
The Southern Kingdom no longer delays.
The Lord Protector's shadow lingers—but its design has been broken.
And Wu An has made a decision that cannot be reversed.
He has abandoned balance.
Now—
It is dominance or extinction.