The door groaned shut behind him, swallowing the chamber of relics and secrets beneath the throne hall. Jian stood in the narrow stone corridor, breath shallow, lantern still flickering in his hand. The scroll bearing Queen Lian's seal rested in his sleeve, though it now felt less like a revelation and more like a trap waiting to be sprung. He didn't trust what he had seen at least not yet. Not without context. Not without proof.
He took the servant's route through the underhalls, climbing old staircases that hadn't seen noble feet in decades. The palace above was quieter than usual. Rain still whispered across the rooftops, and the distant sound of bells from a nearby temple gave the air a haunted rhythm. Jian didn't return to his quarters. Instead, he veered left at the lotus gate and entered the guest wing the foreign wing.
He had heard of her arrival earlier that day, cloaked in formality: Lady Giselle of the Western Alliance, a diplomat and physician from across the salt deserts. Some in court scoffed at the title, others leaned in with hungry curiosity. Jian simply watched. And now, he needed answers she might possess.
The guards at the wing entrance hesitated at first, but recognition dawned. The Crown Prince required no justification for his movements.
Lady Giselle's chamber was on the far end, draped in fabrics unlike anything in the capital muted silvers and storm-blues, with embroidery that shimmered under lantern light. Her doors were open, and soft string music played within. He knocked once on the frame.
"Enter," came a calm voice.
Giselle sat by the low hearth, a book in her hands, tea steeping beside her. She did not rise. She looked younger than most envoys, though her eyes betrayed a sharpness that reminded Jian of chess players and old spies. Her hair was tied in loose braids, a single pendant of polished obsidian resting at her collar.
"I was told the prince preferred riddles to greetings," she said, glancing up.
"And I heard the envoy from the west spoke in riddles of her own," Jian replied. He stepped into the room. "May I sit?"
Giselle nodded. "But I doubt you came for tea."
He didn't sit right away. "You're a physician."
"One of many things."
"Have you seen symptoms... strange ones? Not illness. Not quite death."
That caught her attention. She placed the book down. "You've seen them too, then."
Jian's gaze narrowed. "You mean you came here knowing?"
"I came here suspecting," Giselle replied. "Reports reached our coasts months ago. Something spreading inland. Villages vanishing, bodies that don't stay down. We thought it myth until a trade envoy lost half his men near the Jade Ridge. Those who returned could not speak. Their tongues were... damaged."
Jian sat then, slowly. The firelight painted both their faces with gold and shadow.
"Why are you really here?" he asked.
"To watch," she said plainly. "And to see which way your Queendom turns."
Jian felt the weight of that sentence. She was more than a diplomat perhaps a scout. Perhaps worse. Yet her honesty, even veiled, was oddly grounding.
"You spoke of it as a sickness," he said. "But what if it's more than that?"
Giselle reached into her satchel and pulled a small leather bundle. Inside were samples scrapings of blackened skin, sketches of internal rot, notes written in a blend of western and eastern dialects.
"This is what I've gathered from bodies found near your eastern border," she said. "It spreads like disease, but responds to nothing. Fire slows it. Salt halts it for a time. But it returns."
Jian reached for one of the sketches. His hand stilled.
"These look like... experiments."
"They might be. Or perhaps the consequences of one."
A beat passed between them.
"Why show me this?"
"Because," Giselle said softly, "you came here alone. That tells me you're not like the rest of them."
Jian looked away.
"I'm trying to find the truth," he murmured.
She leaned forward. "Then stop looking in the halls of gold. Truth doesn't survive there. It rots beneath."
Jian stood slowly. He had more questions now than ever. But he also had a direction.
"I'll come again," he said.
"I'll be here."
As Jian left, he noticed a figure watching from the far corner of the guest wing a man cloaked in court robes, face unreadable. The court was always watching.
But so was Jian.
That night, as thunder cracked the sky open once more, he stood at his balcony, scroll in hand, and whispered to the storm:
"If this Queendom is sick... I need to know who's bleeding it from within."