The bells did not fade; they ended.
One heartbeat they were a net across the city, the next they were gone, as if some unseen hand had cut every rope at once.
The silence that followed was not empty. It was the pause before a bowstring's release.
The Lord Protector stepped into the Hall of Judgement.
His armor was blackened steel, worn without ostentation, its edges dulled from years rather than polish. A cloak of heavy wool hung from his shoulders, plain as a soldier's, the hem brushed with ash from streets he had not walked in days. His beard was trimmed close, streaked with more white than when I last saw him, and a shallow pallor clung to his skin — the only sign of the fever that had confined him to bed.
But his eyes were clear.
They moved over the hall, weighing the gathered like a scale that could not be cheated. Ministers stilled. Wu Kang's jaw, always tense, locked to granite. My sister remained motionless beneath her veil, as if her stillness could claim the room for herself.
Three days, I thought. Only three days ill, and the court had already begun its descent into teeth and knives.
He stopped at the foot of the Emperor's dais. The two men regarded one another — not ruler and subject, but two mountains deciding whether the valley between them would hold.
"Your Majesty," my father said. His voice was low, steady, unshaken by illness.
The Emperor inclined his head. "Lord Protector."
No one in the court breathed too loudly.
My father's gaze shifted to me.
"Prince," he said, as if confirming a fact that had not changed in his absence.
The thing beneath my ribs did not stir. It watched, the way a wolf watches the wind before choosing which way to hunt.
I did not bow.
"Father."
A thin line drew between his brows, then smoothed. His attention returned to the Emperor.
"I come to see the order of this court restored," he said. "In my few days' illness, the air has thickened with talk."
"Talk," the Emperor echoed.
"The kind that grows in corners when no one sweeps them," my father said. "Ministers have moved too quickly. Commanders have counted themselves above the board. And some…" He let his gaze pass, unhurried, over Wu Kang, "…have mistaken the absence of the hand for the absence of the game."
Wu Kang's knuckles whitened at his side.
The Emperor's eyes were unreadable. "Then speak, Lord Protector. What must be done?"
My father glanced once more at me. "We begin by naming the players openly. And then we choose who remains."
The court shifted, a ripple without sound. This was not the language of reconciliation.
The Emperor leaned forward slightly. "And in this naming, will you begin with the prince?"
My father did not answer at once. The hall waited, each heartbeat a grain of sand in a measuring glass.
"We will speak of my son," he said at last, "where walls are closer and ears are fewer."
The Emperor gave the smallest nod, as if granting permission to a storm.
My father turned. "Prince. Walk with me."
I stepped forward, Shen Yue and Liao Yun falling in behind like shadows with swords. At the great doors, the guards shifted to bar them, but my father did not speak. He merely looked at them until they stepped aside.
The corridors beyond the Hall of Judgement felt different from the streets outside — not quieter, but heavier. Torches hissed faintly, their light pressing back shadows that clung too willingly to the corners.
We turned down a side passage. My father's stride was not fast, but it was deliberate, as if each step was laid along a map none of us could see. He did not ask about the monk. He did not ask about the spirals. He did not need to — the smell of smoke from the river quarter still clung to my cloak.
At last we came to a lacquered door set deep in the wall. He opened it without knocking.
The room beyond was small, walled in dark wood, the air warm from a brazier set low in the corner. A long table stood to one side, unrolled maps and old campaign ledgers scattered across it.
And at the far end, seated where the light fell cleanest, was my sister.
Wu Ling.
Her veil was gone. Her hair was coiled in the style my mother had once worn when the court was young and still believed in its own permanence. Her gaze was fixed on me, unblinking, unreadable — the look of someone who had already measured your breath against the hour you would die.
She did not rise.
"My daughter," my father said, closing the door behind us. "You have kept the board in my absence."
Her mouth curved in a slow, precise smile. "I have kept it from overturning."
"By whose hand?" I asked.
Her eyes did not leave mine. "By the hand willing to hold it steady when others reach for the pieces."
The thing inside me shifted, not in warning, but in recognition.
My father moved to the table. "There is much to be spoken, and less time than I would wish. The monk walks. The city burns in its own breath. And while I lay ill, lines were drawn in places even I do not see."
Wu Ling's voice was soft. "Some of those lines cannot be erased."
"Then we will see," my father said.
He looked at me. "Tell me of the river."
The brazier's flame cracked once, sending the faint smell of pine into the air.
I began.