The brazier hissed when a draft crept under the door.
Mingyu reached for the poker, turned the coals until flame licked high enough to push back the chill, and then lowered himself again onto the cushion. He was not cold. He was restless.
The palace had spent all afternoon whispering about Sun Longzi's appointment.
He could hear the shape of those whispers even here, in the inner hall where servants moved softer than ghosts. A new captain. A general stripped from the frontier and folded into the Emperor's shadow.
Madness, some called it.
Strategy, others.
To Mingyu, it was both.
The door slid back with quiet authority. Xinying entered first, her robes carrying the faintest trace of smoke from the cypress garden. Yaozu followed, as he always did, and Deming's steps were heavy, following a beat behind Xinying.
Yizhen was the last, his sleeves loose, a cup already balanced in one hand as if he'd plucked it from a table he didn't own.
