The floor of the Grand Imperial Court was cold against his knees.
Wei Ji kept his head bowed, not out of respect, but to hide his eyes. The polished black stone reflected the blurred shapes of the ministers lining the hall. Their robes were silks he couldn't name, colors that seemed to drink the light from the high windows. The air smelled of sandalwood and a sharp, clean scent he now knew was concentrated Qi.
It was nothing like the parliament back home. That had been all cheap polish, sweat, and shouted accusations. This was silent. A silent that pressed down on his shoulders like a physical weight.
"Wei Ji."
The voice was a hammer blow in the quiet. It came from his right. Wei Ji didn't need to look. He'd memorized the voice after hearing it once yesterday. Minister of War, Zhu Hong. A Core Formation cultivator. A man who could shatter this marble floor with a thought.
"You stand accused of treason against the Azure Dragon Empire," Zhu Hong intoned. He wasn't shouting. He didn't need to. Every syllable carried. "Communications with agents of the White Tiger Empire have been intercepted. They speak of troop movements. Of weaknesses in our southern formations."
Zhu Hong's boots clicked on the stone as he walked into Wei Ji's down-turned line of sight. He stopped, holding out a scroll. It dangled like a dead thing.
"Do you deny it?"
Wei Ji's mind, which had been buzzing with a low-level panic since the guards dragged him from his bed at dawn, suddenly went still. Colder.
The evidence was crude. A single intercepted scroll? No chain of custody. No testimony from captured spies. In his old life, a corruption case built on one piece of paper would have been laughed out of the committee. It was a hatchet job. Amateur.
But here, it was enough to kill him.
His eyes flicked up, just for a second. He took in the court. The rows of ministers with their carefully blank faces. The elderly Grand Chancellor Sima Yi, his eyes like chips of obsidian, watching. And at the far end of the hall, on a dais carved from jade so pale it was almost white, sat the Empress.
Empress Ling. She was draped in layers of blue and silver, her face a perfect, serene mask. She looked delicate. Fragile even. She had not spoken a word.
This isn't a trial, the thought sliced through his fear. It's a performance. And I'm not the only actor.
Who benefits? Zhu Hong clearly wanted him dead. He'd made his disgust for the "mortal minister" plain. But this was too fast, too blatant. In the chessboard of court politics, Zhu Hong had just shoved a pawn forward with no subtlety.
Unless… unless the move wasn't really his.
Wei Ji's gaze landed back on the Empress. Her expression was unreadable. But she was watching. Not Zhu Hong. Him.
A test. The realization washed over him, icy and clear. She wanted to see what the useless, uncultivated man she'd whimsically appointed would do. Would he beg? Would he crumble? Or would he do something interesting?
He had one card to play. A stupid, desperate card he'd prepared on a sleepless night, fueled by paranoia. He never thought he'd need it so soon.
Wei Ji took a breath that shuddered in his chest. He lifted his head.
"I do not deny contact with a foreign empire," he said. His voice sounded thin in the vast space.
A murmur rippled through the court. Zhu Hong's lip curled in triumph.
"But you are mistaken, Minister Zhu," Wei Ji continued, forcing the words to steady. "The scroll is real. The seal upon it… is not."
He saw a flicker of confusion in Zhu Hong's eyes. Good.
"I am not an agent of the White Tiger Empire," Wei Ji said, louder now. He pushed himself to his feet, his shackles clanking. The guards tensed, but a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of the Empress's head froze them in place. "I serve the Vermilion Bird Empire."
The murmur became a rumble. Now he had their full attention.
"This," Wei Ji said, reaching slowly into the sleeve of his own plain ministerial robe. He pulled out a small, folded square of parchment. He'd spent half the night with a brush, a candle, and a memory of a tapestry he'd seen in a palace hallway. "This is the true authentication seal. The one on your scroll is a White Tiger forgery, designed to discredit my deep-cover work and sow discord between our glorious Azure Dragon and our allies in the south."
He unfolded his parchment. On it was a clumsily drawn but recognizable phoenix, wings spread, in red ink he'd made from crushed berries. It was a child's forgery of a forgery.
The hall erupted.
"Preposterous!" bellowed a minister in the front row.
"The Vermilion Bird? They would never!"
"This is a trick!"
"Silence."
The word was not loud. It was a whisper that cut through the noise like a razor. Every head turned.
Empress Ling had leaned forward, just slightly. Her eyes, a light brown that seemed almost gold in the jade-light, were fixed on Wei Ji. There was no anger in them. No surprise. Only a deep, unsettling curiosity.
"Minister Zhu," she said, her voice like water over smooth stones. "The White Tiger and Vermilion Bird empires are, as we know, at each other's throats. Would it not be… a masterstroke… for one to plant a spy and frame him as belonging to the other?"
Zhu Hong's face darkened. "Your Majesty, this worm is lying! He has no cultivation! He is dust! He concocts this fantasy to save his skin!"
"Perhaps," the Empress said, settling back. Her gaze never left Wei Ji. "The evidence is, as you first declared, compelling. Yet now, it is also… inconclusive." She let the word hang in the air. "To execute a minister on inconclusive evidence would be… unjust."
Wei Ji felt a sliver of hope, cold and sharp.
"Wei Ji," the Empress said. "You claim value. You claim service. The court is… unconvinced. You have thirty days. Prove your worth to the Azure Dragon Empire. Uncover a true threat. Find a true opportunity. Do this, and your life is yours. Fail…" She didn't finish. She didn't need to. "Your probation begins now. You will retain your title and your office. For now."
She gave a slight wave of her hand. It was dismissal.
The guards grabbed his arms again, but the grip was different. Less like dragging a prisoner, more like escorting a problem.
As he was turned around, he caught one last look at the court. Zhu Hong's face was a mask of pure, undiluted hatred. Grand Chancellor Sima Yi was watching him with a new, faint intensity. And the Empress… she was looking at Zhu Hong, a tiny, unreadable smile touching her lips.
The walk back to his office was a blur of long, empty corridors. The guards deposited him at a wooden door, nodded curtly, and left.
Wei Ji pushed the door open.
The Office of Strategic Affairs was a joke. He'd known that. A single room in a forgotten administrative wing. Yesterday, it had held a desk, two chairs, a shelf with some blank scrolls, and a thin layer of hope.
Today, it held a desk and one chair.
The shelf was gone. The spare chair was gone. The scrolls were gone. The room had been stripped. The only thing left on the desk was a thin layer of dust, now disturbed in the shape of a rectangle where something had recently been taken.
A message. Clear and brutal.
He walked to the window, his shackles still on his wrists. He looked out at a small, walled courtyard with a single dead tree.
Thirty days.
The adrenaline drained from him, leaving a hollow, trembling exhaustion. He had survived the first minute of the first round. By lying. By bluffing. By seeing the shape of the game a second before it crushed him.
He heard a soft scrape at the door.
A young servant boy shuffled in, eyes wide with fear. He placed a teacup on the desk, steam curling gently, and scurried out without a word.
Wei Ji looked at the tea. It smelled of jasmine.
His political instincts, honed over a lifetime of poison-tipped favors and backroom deals, screamed. Don't touch it.
He was about to turn away when he saw it. A small square of rice paper, folded and tucked under the cup's saucer.
His heart thudded against his ribs. He used a piece of the shackle chain to nudge the paper free, then unfolded it.
The characters were elegant, brushed in stark black ink.
Three days.
The first move begins.
—An Admirer.
Wei Ji stared at the words. The hollow feeling vanished, replaced by a familiar, cold fire in his gut.
It wasn't over. The trial had just been the opening statement.
Someone in this gilded, deadly palace was already making their move. They weren't waiting thirty days. They were giving him three.
He let the paper fall onto the dusty desk. He looked at the teacup of likely poison. He looked at the empty room that was his kingdom.
A slow smile spread across his face. It was the smile of Rajan Verma, the Fox of Kolkata, facing a rigged election.
"Okay," he whispered to the silent, watching walls. "Let's play."