The east corridor was warmer, but warmth meant nothing to me until I had Lin Wei in my own hands.
Brazier smoke coiled low, servants running faster than they had in their lives, the soft slippered feet slapping stone in their hurry to make themselves useful.
Yaozu cleared the path with the set of his shoulders, Shadow pacing ahead of him like death on four legs. Mingyu didn't speak, didn't need to. He walked a step behind me, his silence harder than iron, and no one in the palace mistook it for weakness.
Sun Yizhen—no, Yan Luo tonight—still carried my son pressed to his chest.
Lin Wei hadn't let go of the man since they pulled him out of a coffin meant to move grain or corpses, as if the child had decided this man was the only thing standing between him and the road that had tried to eat him alive.
