Lyra had never stepped inside the Jade Lotus Hall before.
From the servant's corridor, she could only glimpse flashes of it through the slatted partitions, pearls glimmering in lantern-light, silk banners rippling in the draft of passing nobles. The Hall smelled of rosewater and roasted duck, a perfume so different from the soap and starch of the servants' quarters that she almost felt dizzy.
She carried her tray like a shield, eyes low. It was the Winter's Crescent Banquet, the one night when both the Celestial Harmony Sect and the Imperial court shared the same roof. For most servants, it meant endless errands and aching feet. For Lyra, it meant something more dangerous: too many eyes.
Tonight, her plain linen dress felt thinner than ever. The gold-plated goblets on her tray hummed faintly with the vibration of voices, disciples boasting about their cultivation breakthroughs, court officials trading whispers like coin, musicians coaxing crystal notes from their guzhengs.
She had been warned not to dawdle, but she slowed anyway when she passed the carved ivory screens at the center of the Hall. There, beneath a canopy of black silk embroidered with constellations, sat a man she had never seen before.
At first glance, he didn't belong. No Sect insignia on his robe. No Imperial crest either. He wore plain black, the kind of black that swallowed the lantern light instead of reflecting it. His hair was long and loose, a shadow pooling over his shoulders, and his skin had the pallor of moonlight caught on snow.
She realized, with an uneasy pull in her chest, that no one sat within two seats of him.
As if sensing her stare, the man lifted his gaze.
It was a mistake to meet his eyes. They were too still, too deep, and when they caught hers she felt as though the ground beneath her had become water, dark and fathomless, and she was already sinking.
A crash tore the moment apart.
The front gates slammed inward, their jade inlays shattering in a burst of splinters. A wave of masked figures flooded in, their robes the same lightless black as the man's, but without his composure. Shadows seemed to trail from their bodies, licking the floor like smoke.
The Hall erupted. Nobles scrambled behind overturned tables. Disciples drew swords that gleamed in the lantern light. Someone shouted for the Imperial Guard.
Lyra froze in the middle of it all, her tray clattering to the floor.
The masked intruders moved with unnatural speed, not toward the Sect elders or the Empress, but toward the lone black-robed man. He didn't rise. He didn't even turn his head until the first assassin reached him. Then, faster than sight, his hand shot out, catching the attacker by the throat.
The man's voice, when it came, was soft and unhurried. "So they finally sent children to do a sovereign's work."
The assassin convulsed, their mask cracking as darkness surged from the man's palm. The shadows seemed alive, coiling like serpents, and when they withdrew, the body collapsed to the floor, lifeless.
The others didn't falter. They surrounded him in a tightening ring.
Lyra didn't know why she moved. One moment she was rooted to the spot, the next she was darting behind an upturned table, crawling toward the dais. Maybe it was instinct, maybe the pull of those strange eyes still echoing in her mind. Or maybe it was the way the masked figures radiated a hunger she recognized, the hunger to destroy something rare before it could shine.
The battle was brief but brutal. The man in black cut through them like a shadow cutting through flame, but there were too many. A blade slipped past his guard, striking deep into his side.
He staggered. Blood blacker than it should have been welled between his fingers. For the first time, he looked… mortal.
Their eyes met again.
"Help me," he said. It wasn't a plea. It was an order, the kind that assumes obedience.
Lyra didn't think. She reached him just as another masked attacker lunged. Her hand closed around the man's wrist, cold as river ice, pulling him aside. The blade meant for his heart missed, slicing across her palm instead.
Pain flared, but so did something else. Something alive.
The world dimmed. No, not dimmed, shifted. The lantern light thinned, replaced by the silvery cast of moonlight. Shadows on the walls stretched toward her like grasping hands, then bent inward, pouring into her skin.
She couldn't breathe.
The man in black caught her by the shoulders. His voice was a rasp now, urgent. "Too late. You've taken it."
"What,?"
He didn't answer. The last of the attackers fell under a disciple's blade. The Hall was chaos, guards shouting, the Empress barking orders, Sect elders scanning for threats, but Lyra only saw the man's face as his grip loosened.
"You… will be hunted," he murmured, his blood staining the hem of her dress. "And if you cannot master it, you will destroy more than they ever could."
Then he pressed a palm against her chest. Cold, colder than death. The sensation was a tide, surging into her, through her, filling every hollow space until she thought her ribs would crack.
The last thing she saw was his mouth shaping a name, hers? his?, before his body dissolved into shadow and was gone.
The Hall was still roaring with noise when Lyra collapsed.