The prison carriage smelled of iron and damp straw.
Li Xianyin sat inside it alone, wrists bound, ankles chained, her once-luxurious robes replaced by coarse grey cloth that scraped her skin raw with every movement. The wheels rattled over uneven stone roads as the capital receded behind her—its towers swallowed by fog, its screams fading into memory.
She did not look back.
No one had announced her arrest. No trial had been held. Yuechan did not bother with such formalities. The new dynasty did not need justice—only silence.
Outside, soldiers laughed.
"Strange," one said. "She didn't cry."
"Why would she?" another replied. "Her whole life was borrowed. Now it's being returned."
Xianyin closed her eyes.
Borrowed.
That word followed her like a curse.
Her mother had been called Empress of Grace, praised for her virtue, her lineage, her flawless conduct. Yet she had died quietly, without explanation, without justice. And her father—Emperor Li Jian—had mourned just long enough for the court to consider it respectable before elevating a concubine to the position of Empress.
That concubine's daughter now wore the crown.
Borrowed, indeed.
The carriage lurched to a halt.
Chains clinked. The door was thrown open, and harsh daylight flooded in, blinding her.
"Out."
Xianyin stepped down carefully, ignoring the shove at her back. She found herself at the foot of a mountain fortress—grim, black-stoned, its towers biting into the sky like fangs.
Exile Prison.
A place where names were erased.
Inside, the air was cold and thick with despair. Prisoners stared from behind iron bars—some hollow-eyed, some feverish, some already half-dead. She felt their gazes crawl over her, curious, resentful, hungry.
The warden approached.
A tall man with a scar across his cheek and eyes sharp enough to measure worth at a glance.
"This one," he said, looking at her papers. "Former First Princess?"
Xianyin lifted her chin. "Li Xianyin."
The warden snorted. "Not anymore."
He gestured to a guard. "Register her."
A young clerk dipped his brush into ink. "Name?"
Silence stretched.
Xianyin hesitated.
For the first time in her life, she realized something terrifying.
Her name belonged to the empire that had just died.
If she spoke it, it would drag her back into the past—into vengeance, into blood, into the gaze of a sister who would never let her live.
She inhaled slowly.
"…No name," she said.
The clerk paused. "Everyone has a name."
"Not me," Xianyin replied evenly.
The warden studied her, something unreadable flickering through his gaze. After a moment, he waved a hand.
"Write her as Prisoner 307."
The brush scratched.
Just like that, Li Xianyin vanished.
Her cell was small, damp, and windowless. Straw lay rotting in the corner. Somewhere down the corridor, someone was screaming.
She sat against the wall and listened.
Hours passed. Maybe days. Time lost meaning.
Hunger came first, then exhaustion. Sleep came in fragments, haunted by half-remembered dreams—phoenixes burning, crowns splitting open, blood seeping through cracks in jade.
On the seventh night, footsteps stopped outside her cell.
A key turned.
A man entered.
He was not dressed like the guards. His robes were dark blue, simple but finely made, and his posture was relaxed in a way soldiers never were.
"You're calm," he said, as if commenting on the weather.
Xianyin looked up. "Should I scream?"
He smiled faintly. "Most do."
He crouched in front of her cell, studying her face through the bars. "Do you know why you're still alive?"
She shook her head.
"Because killing you would be easy," he said. "And Her Majesty prefers difficulty."
Xianyin's eyes sharpened.
"Yuechan wants you to suffer," he continued. "But suffering can end. She wants something that lasts."
He slid something through the bars.
A jade token.
Cracked.
Ancient.
Xianyin's breath caught.
She recognized it.
Her mother's clan.
"How did you get this?" she asked quietly.
The man straightened. "Because not everyone in this empire bends the knee to the new crown."
He met her gaze fully now.
"Live," he said. "And when the veins of the fallen crown begin to pulse again, remember who gave you the chance."
Then he turned and left.
The cell door closed.
Xianyin stared at the jade token in her hands.
For the first time since the palace burned, something stirred in her chest.
Not rage.
Not grief.
Purpose.