The safehold at the river bend was quiet by day. Too quiet.
Stone walls sweated dampness, the rafters sagged under old smoke, and the only sound was the creak of grain sacks being dragged into the cellar. Outside, the river whispered against its banks, a voice too soft to drown out the tension rising between my wolves.
Wei Lan sat cross-legged atop a grain sack, twirling her poison gourd between her palms. She had already counted the silver delivered for our "success," and her eyes gleamed with the sharp hunger of someone who found the weight unsatisfying.
Qiao Han leaned against a pillar, arms folded, his scar twisting as he scowled at the coins. His saber rested across his knees, edge oiled, gleaming faintly in the candlelight. He had not spoken a word since we returned, but his silence was louder than Wei Lan's greed.
Shen Yu crouched in the corner, scrolls spread like a shrine before him. His brush whispered constantly, dipping, scratching, recording. His parchment smelled of ink and dust and faint incense — the scent of loyalty not to me, but to the archivists who would pore over his words.
Three wolves. Still untamed.
I watched them a long moment, then broke the silence.
"You are displeased."
Wei Lan's laugh was sharp, brittle as glass. "Displeased? No, Leader. Merely disappointed. Reed praised us, yet the reward is barely enough to buy a night's pleasure in the brothel. My gas bled half the convoy, yet I am paid like a rat-catcher."
Qiao Han grunted, a low thunder. "Your gas choked men already dying. It was my blade that broke their line."
She sneered. "Your blade swings heavy. Without my smoke, you'd be meat on the ground."
Qiao Han's hand twitched toward his saber.
I let the tension coil, let their teeth bare, until the leash trembled. Then I stepped between them, voice soft but slicing.
"Do you squabble like beggars over crumbs? Do you think Reed tested us for silver? Silver is ash. What matters is whose leash we pull tomorrow. Grain buys soldiers. Fear buys silence. That is worth more than a chest of coins."
Wei Lan's eyes narrowed, but greed flickered still. I let her see the scroll tucked beneath my sleeve, thick with inked numbers.
"Do you think I would leave you empty?" I whispered. "There are ledgers the Lotus never sees. Merchants who pay for whispers. Each sack of grain feeds more than a mouth — it feeds a purse. Walk with me long enough, and you will drown in silver."
Her breath caught, eyes hungry. She believed because she wanted to. The leash tightened.
I turned to Qiao Han, meeting his scowl with calm.
"You speak of your blade. Very well. Show me."
Before he could scoff, I stepped back, drawing the dagger at my belt. Not to strike — but to offer.
"Strike me," I said.
Wei Lan gasped, then laughed in disbelief. Shen Yu's brush froze mid-stroke.
Qiao Han's nostrils flared. "You mock me."
"I command you," I said, voice like cold iron. "Strike. If your blade is strength, prove it. Kill me here, and take the leash for yourself."
For a moment, the chamber was stone and silence. Then Qiao Han surged forward, saber flashing.
I did not block. I did not parry. Instead, as his blade carved down, I shifted a half-step, twisting my wrist — and the flat of my dagger slammed into his scarred jaw.
His knees buckled. His saber clanged against the pillar.
Before he could recover, my foot pressed his chest, forcing him to kneel. Not by brute strength — but by balance stolen, timing seized.
I leaned close, whispering in his ear.
"Steel is heavy. But the leash is heavier. Bow, Qiao Han, and remember who holds it."
His chest heaved. His hands trembled. But he stayed kneeling, saber on the ground, eyes burning with rage and shame.
The leash tightened.
* * * * * * * * *
Shen Yu had not moved. His brush resumed its scratching, slower now, deliberate.
"You record faithfully?" I asked him.
He bowed slightly. "Always."
"Then record this: strength bows to cunning. Poison obeys command. The leash binds wolves."
His brush trembled, but the words etched into parchment.
I crouched beside him, lowering my voice. "And from now on, you will use these codes." I slid him a slip of paper, filled with meaningless symbols. "Each report must bear them. To the archivists, it will read as truth. To me, only I will know the meaning. Fail, and your records will hang you. Obey, and your masters will never know how much I shape your ink."
His lips parted in protest — then closed again. His brush moved, writing the code beside my words.
The leash tightened.
* * * * * * * * *
By nightfall, silence lay thick in the safehold. Wei Lan whispered promises of silver to herself as she polished her gourd. Qiao Han sat hunched, gripping his saber but staring at me with a new, reluctant fire. Shen Yu's brush scratched endlessly, codes now hidden between strokes.
I reclined against the wall, eyes half-lidded, listening to the wolves breathe.
That was when the sound came — a faint thunk against stone.
My eyes snapped open. A dagger quivered in the wall beside me, its hilt bound in black silk. From the blade's tip fluttered a lotus petal, crimson with dried blood.
Wei Lan gasped. Qiao Han surged to his feet. Shen Yu froze, brush dripping ink onto the floor.
I rose slowly, plucking the dagger free. The petal's veins glistened dark.
On its surface, written in delicate, deliberate strokes, were four words:
Prove yourself, or bleed.
* * * * * * * * *
The dagger in the wall still quivered when the candle guttered out.
The chamber plunged into shadows. Only the faint glow of the river beyond the cracks in the stone lit the outlines of my wolves — Wei Lan clutching her gourd, Qiao Han's saber already unsheathed, Shen Yu frozen mid-stroke with his brush dripping black.
I rolled the bloodied petal between my fingers. Prove yourself, or bleed.
A test. Or a purge.
Either way, the leash around my neck had tightened.
* * * * * * * * *
The first sound came like a sigh — cloth whispering against stone. A shadow detached itself from the rafters above, landing without a sound. Another shifted near the grain sacks. A third shape lingered at the door.
Three assassins. Lotus masks, the same as ours, but painted with a crimson slash across the mouth. Executioners.
Wei Lan's breath hissed through her teeth. Qiao Han growled low in his throat. Shen Yu's brush slipped from his fingers, clattering faintly.
The tallest assassin spoke, voice muffled by the mask.
"Leader Lin Xuan. The Lotus tests its branches. Some bend. Some snap."
He raised a dagger curved like a snake's fang. The others mirrored him, silent and patient.
Wei Lan leaned close, whispering fiercely. "We can't fight them! They are Lotus!"
Qiao Han spat. "Lotus or not, their blood spills the same!" He roared and charged, saber flashing silver in the dim light.
The assassins moved as one. One slipped aside, catching Qiao Han's charge with a sweep that sent him crashing into a pillar. Another blurred toward Wei Lan, dagger glinting.
I did not move. Not yet.
* * * * * * * * *
Wei Lan shrieked, fumbling with her gourd. Violet gas hissed into the chamber, thickening the air, stinging the eyes. Too reckless, too wild — it would choke us as surely as them.
But I had expected her panic. My soaked rag mask was already tied, damp against my mouth.
"Rags!" I barked, snapping cloths I had hidden earlier from my sleeve. I flung one at Shen Yu, one at Qiao Han where he struggled to rise. "Breathe or die!"
Shen Yu fumbled, tying the rag with shaking fingers. Qiao Han snarled, slapping it across his face, eyes wild.
Wei Lan laughed madly, spinning her gourd, oblivious to her own poison curling around her ankles.
The assassins moved through the gas with chilling calm, daggers slicing air, never coughing, never faltering. Their masks were sealed with wax around the edges.
So. Reed's leash was cleverer than mine tonight.
But even wax cracks when pressed.
* * * * * * * * *
"Qiao Han!" I shouted, my voice muffled by cloth. "Be bait. Bleed for them. Make them hunger for your throat!"
His eyes flashed with fury — but he obeyed. Rage was a leash too. He hurled himself forward again, saber wide, roaring.
The assassins lunged toward him, drawn by the noise, the promise of brute strength.
"Wei Lan!" I hissed. "The wax! The wax at their masks! Aim for the seams!"
Her wild laughter cut short. Realization dawned in her greedy eyes. She darted close, flinging droplets from her gourd, each sizzling as it struck mask edges. The first assassin recoiled, hissing as smoke curled where poison ate wax. A cough slipped out — ragged, human.
Good.
"Shen Yu!" I barked. The scribe flinched, pressed against the wall. "Your brush! Ink their eyes!"
He shook his head wildly. "I—I only record—"
I was on him in a breath, seizing his wrist, dragging his hand toward the gas. "Ink blinds as well as it writes! Throw, or I carve your loyalty into your flesh!"
His eyes widened, terror drowning his cowardice. He flung the inkstone with trembling hands. Black liquid splashed across the third assassin's mask, blinding slits of vision.
The chamber erupted in chaos.
* * * * * * * * *
Qiao Han roared, saber cleaving through the blinded assassin's arm. The limb fell, spraying blood. The man staggered, choking as gas seeped past loosened wax.
Wei Lan shrieked with delight, hurling more poison, her greed now harnessed into precision. One assassin dropped to his knees, convulsing, froth spilling from his mouth.
The last remained, the leader — moving with lethal calm even as wax peeled from his mask. He struck Qiao Han across the chest, drawing blood. He twisted toward me, dagger gleaming.
At last, I moved.
Not with blade raised, but with words sharp as steel.
"You are Lotus," I said, my voice slicing through the gas. "Kill me, and my wolves die with me. Fail, and Reed calls you coward. Do you want to explain to him why you returned empty-handed?"
The assassin hesitated — a heartbeat, no more. But hesitation was enough.
Qiao Han's saber crashed down, driving him to the ground. I knelt swiftly, tearing his mask free.
A young man's face gasped beneath, eyes wide, lips purple from poison seeping past cracked wax. Not a stranger. A brother. A pawn sent to test me.
He tried to speak. I pressed his own dagger against his throat.
"Say it," I hissed. "Say you failed. Say I am the leash."
Blood bubbled at his lips. He croaked, barely audible. "Failed…"
Then his eyes rolled back, and he slumped, still.
* * * * * * * * *
Silence smothered the chamber. Gas thinned. Wei Lan panted, clutching her gourd like a child. Qiao Han leaned on his saber, blood dripping from his wound but grin feral, triumphant. Shen Yu slumped against the wall, face pale, brush trembling in his hand.
I stood slowly, holding the fallen mask. Its crimson slash gleamed wet with blood.
"The Lotus tests its branches," I murmured. "Tonight, one snapped. We did not."
No one argued.
* * * * * * * * *
Dawn bled pale light through the cracks in the wall when Silent Reed came.
He stood in the doorway, watching us with unreadable eyes. His gaze swept the corpses, the scattered silver, the broken wax masks. He lingered longest on me, standing with the fallen mask in hand.
At last, he chuckled. Low. Dark.
"You learn quickly," he said. "Too quickly."
He stepped closer, voice dropping until only I heard. "The Lotus devours its own to test their fangs. You should have died tonight. Instead, you pulled your leash tighter. Perhaps too tight."
His hand brushed my shoulder again, the same gesture as before, light but heavy with meaning.
"Be careful, Lin Xuan. Even spiders choke if they weave their web too eagerly."
I met his gaze, smiling thinly. "Then perhaps you should learn to keep up."
His eyes narrowed. Then, to my wolves, he said: "Follow him. Or be buried with him. Those are your only choices."
And he was gone, cloak whispering into the dawn.
* * * * * * * * *
When silence returned, I looked at Wei Lan's greedy eyes, Qiao Han's bloodied grin, Shen Yu's trembling brush.
They thought themselves free wolves. They did not yet see the leash around their throats.
But I did. And I pulled it tighter.