A City Without Shadows
In the imperial capital that all called the City of Eternal Day, no one could remember what color shadows once bore.
Some said it was because, in the ninth year of the Emperor's reign, he built a continuous ring of mirror walls from white stone quarried from seventeen mountain ridges, and installed three thousand and twenty-four bronze mirrors throughout the city, all facing due south. At noon, the sunlight would bounce endlessly between them, draping the entire city in a layer of daylight as dreamlike as a reverie. The light was so bright that even the birds wheeling in the sky risked burning their feathers, while every tree's shadow in the palace had long been delicately traced in silver ink upon the stone tiles by the artisans. Thus, people had no choice but to bow their heads and tell the passing of time by the patterns etched beneath their feet.
The Emperor once declared that shadows were betrayal. He had torn down a painting with his own hands—one that depicted his own back. The Emperor had stared at that silent silhouette, still as an abyss. That silence was a mute rebellion, growing quietly in his heart. Suddenly rising, he ripped the scroll to shreds, murmuring, "I will not allow silence." So the story went. Others said he said nothing at all. Only his gaze darkened a shade, and the painting was thrown into the fire.
From that day forth, everyone in the palace was compelled to make noise. The eunuchs jingled bells at their waists, palace maids wore jade rings on their feet, their footsteps a perpetual cascade of soft clinks that could never be stilled. Silence was codified as "concealed rebellion."
This emperor was called Alaric IX, but most remembered him by his nicknames—the "Monarch Who Wrote Poems in Gold Dust," or the "Emperor Who Pacified the Borders with Brush and Ink."
In his fifth year on the throne, he invented a silver ink that revealed words only in darkness, and decreed that all memorials be written in verse. Any script that failed to resemble the steles his father had hidden away was burned without question. No one dared to intervene. He seldom appeared by day, yet at night he would soak scrolls in water, staring half the night at the softened words. Legend said he renamed places in the ripples of the ink floating on the water—he said altering characters was steadier than sending armies.
They also said he could understand the wind, and identify paintings by their scent. Once during a palace performance, he declared a dancer's brocade a counterfeit because it "lacked the chill of spring night pollen." Days later, the dancer's body was found in a pool of agarwood; her skin exuded an excessive fragrance of sandalwood and musk.
He was Kaelen's father.
But at that time, Kaelen was not yet born. His name did not even exist on paper. Yet some things were already quietly unfolding.
That summer, a mirror on the northwest corner of the palace wall suddenly gave a faint sound. At first, no one paid it mind, thinking it the night wind skimming the water's surface. But a month later, a crack slithered like a serpent inching toward the mirror's heart. The Emperor inspected it himself, gazing long at the "innate mark of betrayal," then ordered the entire mirror shattered. The shards were placed in a crystal box, sealed, and buried in the northern borderlands.
Yet the matter was not over.
Days later, rumors spread. Children dreamed of a "boy without a shadow" playing with stones by a well; an old palace maid saw strange footprints before dawn stretching deep into the imperial gardens; a lone hawk circled above the palace wall, refusing to land, its feathers seeped with spots of blood.
The chroniclers called it an omen of "an elephant yet to appear." The more loyal said nothing.
The Emperor remained silent. Those days, he was carving cinnabar characters into sandalwood screens—the _Record of Ancient Fragrance_. It was said he muttered as he worked, "Of all things, only beauty cannot be concealed."
The cracked mirror was never mentioned again.
Three months later, in the old gardens at the city's northern edge, a woman gave birth quietly to a boy. No bells rang, no officials recorded. His birth was not merely a beginning of life, but a testament to the city's silence. The midwife said the child came "outside of time."
Only later did they learn his name was Kaelen.
The Flower in the Corridor
She never truly belonged to the palace. Though the palace walls had enclosed her the year she was born, her name was never entered into the genealogies, nor mentioned in any imperial decree. On her third day of life, she was quietly sent to the Old Gardens—a forsaken corner in the southwest of the imperial city, separated by seven gates and a long-dried moat, far from the emperor's pavilion of paintings and memories.
The Old Gardens had once been the residence of the late Emperor's favored consort, but now wild grass smothered the stone steps, and the wind whispered more like a master than the few lingering voices of servants. She grew there, silent as moss. No one ever called her name aloud; she herself could not recall if the first syllables even truly belonged to her. The palace folk called her the Weaver Woman, for she was skilled at weaving silk. The emperor neither granted her title nor banished her—he simply forgot her, as if she were a jade cup lost down a well.
She never complained. Each morning, she washed her hands and knelt on the barren yellow earth at the west corner of the Old Gardens, tending to a plant that no one had ever seen bloom. Its leaves were thin as silver foil, its stem as fine as an old needle; each year new shoots appeared, yet it refused to flower. She named it the Flower of Silence, though the palace whispered behind her back that it was the Weaver Woman's dumb flower—seventeen years passed and not a single bud was ever seen.
"It will not bloom," she once told young Kaelen, "It is waiting for the spring that has not yet come."
Kaelen was too small to understand. He only remembered her eyes when she spoke—light and drifting—not really about the flower, but as if speaking about herself.
There was no music in the Old Gardens. Birds seldom came. Only the dawn wind occasionally carried the faint sound of northern musicians practicing—threading through bricks and tiles like water stains that quickly dried. Every day, she wove a length of silk, never sending it out, folding it carefully and hiding it in a locked wooden box. No one ever saw the key; no one ever asked what was inside.
Some whispered that she had gone mad. But her voice was always so soft and slow, her head bowed, as if the one she truly spoke to was never in that room, but hidden somewhere deep inside her heart.
The only one she waited for was Kaelen. On every fifteenth evening, before the palace lanterns were lit, he would quietly slip from the northern gardens along a path long forgotten. He never called her "mother" aloud, only whispered "Ma," as if afraid to wake someone still dreaming.
Once he asked, "If that flower ever blooms one day, what color will it be?"
She looked at him, said nothing at once, then after a pause whispered, "If it chooses to bloom… it will be a light you have never seen."
Kaelen did not ask again. He began to believe the flower bloomed only in unseen nights, when the wind slept and the moon closed its eyes. The Weaver Woman—his mother—lived in that flower's time: blossomed, faded, and blossomed once more.
Years in the palace blurred like ink on rice paper, never quite dry before smudging. But days in the Old Gardens spun slowly like an ancient spool of thread, tight, deliberate, and soundless. No one knew if the emperor still remembered her, or ever truly had.
But on the eve of every first spring thunder, she would wake early and place a yellow candle beneath the Flower of Silence. She lit it, said nothing, just sat and listened, watching if the flower would finally speak.
One year, Kaelen secretly waited in the corridor. He heard the flower's leaves rustle softly, like pages turning in old letters. No one spoke. But he saw a light spill from his mother's eyes—not tears, not fire, but a color he could not name, as if leaked from some spring yet to come.
That night, the emperor woke from his dream and shouted, "Who weaves the sky's curtain in my dreams?"
No one answered. The Weaver Woman sat back by her bed, calm as ever, spinning the silk that would never be cut.
Masks of Music and Smoke
They say the emperor's ears were not made to hear the affairs of state, but to listen to silk and bamboo.
That night, a banquet was held in the palace. Why, no one remembers exactly. Some say it was the first clear day after snow; others, the seventh day of the New Year; some whisper it was simply because the emperor had newly acquired a steed from the Western lands, and his mood was light, so he declared, "Tonight we celebrate," and so a festival was born.
The musicians wore masks—smooth and cold, almost fused to their skin. The masks bore no expression, yet held a silent crack—a fine, hidden fracture faintly visible under the lantern light, as if breathing itself spread delicate fissures, ready to shatter at any moment, yet never quite breaking.
The great hall blazed bright as reborn daylight. Golden threads hung beneath the eaves like waterfalls inverted; incense smoke curled lazily around pillars and beams, a languid dragon unwilling to return to its mountain. The sounds of the pipa and konghou threaded through the wine-scented, sandalwood-laden air, so soft it seemed to draw the wind itself into their melody.
The masked musicians danced barefoot, ankle bells chiming; they moved like sprites summoned by secret orders, spinning on carpets steeped in honeyed scent—the air thick as churned butter, even their breath tasting sweet.
The emperor sat at the center, a high jade chair sculpting him into a statue. His smile arrived slowly, each curve of lips like an old ornament found deep in memory, dusted off until it gleamed faintly.
"Play again 'Broken Sunset over Water,'" he said, his voice warm and deep, laced with a hint of intoxication.
"Your Majesty, shall we try something new?"Interrupted his most trusted eunuch, a smile always half a question, half a jest playing on his lips. With a small wave, a newcomer pipa girl knelt at the hall's corner, lowering her head to pluck strings.
The emperor closed his eyes, the first note falling like mist on water. After a moment's quiet, he opened them.
"That's the southwestern style," he murmured. "Where do you hail from?"
The pipa girl's voice was low: "From the borderlands—southwest Arenthia."
"Borderlands…" he savored the word like tasting an unfamiliar fruit, "Wasn't that place once troubled?"
Suddenly the hall grew silent. Then soft laughter—"Your Majesty means the rebellion from two years past? It's settled now. Horses outnumber people there, fields fat with grain, rice harvested twice a year, and soldiers learning poetry."
The emperor nodded, still as if recalling which year he spoke of. Raising his cup, the scent of osmanthus filled his nose, and his gaze grew distant.
"Speaking of soldiers," another minister spoke, "The Ministry of Revenue reported yesterday a shortfall in the armory accounts—probably a clerical error."
"Or perhaps an ink error," another chuckled, "Now even accounts must be artful; poorly written, the reader cannot swallow them."
"Well said," the emperor smiled, "Tell them to put the accounts in a poetry collection."
Amid laughter, a new painting of spring mountains was presented, boxes of incense from northern merchants, and a revised manual of cuju. The emperor flipped through each without really seeing, eyes lingering on the birds painted in flight, suddenly recalling a dream where he had turned into one.
"Your Majesty," a voice whispered, "Rumor has it some northern forces have not yet returned…"
But the words were so faint, lost beneath a drawn note on the pipa. The emperor did not hear—or pretended not to. His eyes stayed fixed on the floating osmanthus in his cup—it rose and sank like a distant name circling in his mind.
"Arenthia…" he murmured to himself, "Why does that name sound so familiar?"
"It is our kingdom's name, Your Majesty," the eunuch whispered close, his voice soft as a feather brushing an old page.
"Is it?" The emperor nodded, a sudden smile touching his lips, "A truly lovely word."
Later into the night, the lanterns remained lit. The musicians, worn, collapsed on crimson carpets like petals scattered by the wind. The incense was nearly spent, smoke thinning and reluctantly leaving this gilded cage. The cracks in the masks grew clearer, yet no one dared to touch them. The pipa fell silent, strings mute; only beyond the hall came a faint sound—like a tear in silk cloth breaking the silence.
The emperor closed his eyes and murmured a line of poetry learned long ago:"One cup of wine between heaven and earth, no telling which old dream it belongs to."
Sleep slowly claimed him, his hand still clutching the empty cup where the flower had yet to sink.
The incense cooled, the masks removed, only the lingering warmth remained—and a trace of faint decay in the air, like a secret letter quietly unsealed a hundred years later.
The Boy with No Birth Hour
The day Kaelen was born, the sky was unnaturally blue, not a cloud in sight, the wind stilled, and even the birds had vanished. Above the imperial gardens, an invisible curtain seemed to hang, so dense that not even a feather could drift through.
Whether it was dawn or midnight, no one could say. The palace bells never rang. The night before, after the banquet ended, the sundial had been accidentally knocked over—its bronze plate shattered, and the gnomon broken in two. The bell keeper had drunk too much; by the time he woke, it was afternoon. He insisted the bell should be struck, but the guards heard only the wind clinking metal.
No one recorded the moment with certainty. The ritual officers thought the hour had not yet come and did not appear. The record book left that page forever blank, save for finger smudges of those who turned the pages later.
Kaelen's mother gave birth in the most remote old quarters of the imperial gardens—the former dwelling of palace courtesans, long fallen to ruin, walls tangled with vines called the Silent Creeper. Every time a child was born, tiny black flowers blossomed on those vines. But that day, none appeared.
The midwife, cutting the cord, felt the light suddenly dim outside, as if some unseen presence had left the room.
"This child was not born in time," she murmured, half to herself.
She was near sixty, having delivered noble and beggar alike, but had never seen the like. Normally, a birth was marked by wonders: candles extinguished, incense ashes leaping, imperial children accompanied by three bell tolls, guards announcing the hour, ritual officers recording the event.
But that day, nothing.
Kaelen did not cry. He opened his eyes quietly, staring at the spiderwebs on the beams, like a traveler long held outside finally admitted inside. His sclera stretched wider than usual, but his pupils were deep enough to hold the entire palace within.
That night, a palace maid tried to report this, but was cut short. She only said, "The birds are flying around the palace walls." For this she was punished with cleaning the eastern stables. It was the season of migrating birds, when chirps should have filled the garden, yet from that day on, only wind and shadows remained over the imperial gardens. Even the usually social magpies no longer perched in the courtyard.
Some called it coincidence. Others blamed the wind direction. Some whispered the emperor's recent obsession with incense had confused the birds' senses.
No one spoke of the boy without a birth hour. He was not entered into the royal genealogies, nor decreed named. Only on his full month did his mother secretly write one character by candlelight—Kaelen, meaning "the forgotten," an old word from her family tongue.
From then on, Kaelen would wake each day staring at the Silent Creeper. Its flowers never bloomed, its leaves never withered, clinging tightly to the wall like a snake sleeping in ash. Birds still circled the rooftops, as if listening to a sound hidden inside the house—heard by them but not by any human ear.
Later, some tried to find his birth hour. They searched archives, studied star charts, questioned palace staff, but no trace was found. So the tale spread: he was born outside of time.
The words circulated quietly at first—from midwife to midwife, whispered among maids in the laundry room, overheard by eunuchs near incense altars—until they reached the Court Historian. The historian searched every celestial chart, but found no position for the stars of that night, and sighed deeply:
"Some children are born in shadows beyond memory."
The words slipped beyond the palace walls, becoming rumor. No one knew the boy lived within the palace still, eyes open, existing in a world without clocks.
Echoes in Silk
Kaelen's childhood was like a slow, silent current flowing through the palace's brocade halls and ancient paintings, slipping quietly through the cracks of time. His world was mostly hidden behind folding screens—where intricate patterns and deep-hued silks wove shadows together.
His voice was the most secret wind within the palace walls, heard only by his mother. Their conversations were so soft, as if afraid to disturb the memories suspended in the air, or the silent vine that never spoke.
His mother often said his father's name had once been carved into the clouds at the horizon. The clouds rolled and the wind carried rain, washing that name again and again until it dissolved into the vast sky.
Kaelen often looked up at the shifting clouds, searching for that name. But the clouds remained silent, drifting gray and pale.
His childhood seemed woven into a tapestry of dark, complex silk—a pattern layered but without bright color. Days slipped by quietly, without drama, yet heavy with an invisible weight, like the stubborn silent vine climbing the old palace walls.
Behind the folding screens, Kaelen learned to wait, to be silent, and to make himself transparent—like the faint patterns drifting beneath silk, swaying softly with the light.
In his world, time was no straight line but a swirling cycle. Each day and night echoed similar whispers. He listened as his mother softly recited forgotten tales, heard the fading echoes of distant palace music—like unseen threads pulling him tight to a remote past.
Within this silent melody, he knew he was but a stitch in the grand brocade—close, yet alone—carrying silently the weight of silence itself.
No one told him which path the future would take. Only those rain-soaked clouds still hung on the endless vault above, faintly glowing with ancient light and secret sorrow.