The hall had no air. Even the incense guttered as if it feared to rise. Ministers stood stiff as grave-markers, the weight of unsaid words pressing down on their tongues. Yet the word treason already moved among them, silent but sharp, a knife carried in every look cast toward my sister.
Wu Ling stood veiled, crimson draped like a seal over her defiance. Her stillness, once a weapon, betrayed the faintest quiver now. I saw it because I knew her; because once, long ago, we had spoken in shadows as siblings, before she decided that every brother was an obstacle, every bond a chain she would break.
Wu Kang, beside her, puffed his chest with the pride of a man who believed himself sharpened into steel. But I heard only her cadence in his words, every accusation that left his mouth a note struck from her hand. He was her echo, and even now, when the ground cracked beneath her, he did not realize.
I stood silent. The thing beneath my ribs coiled, patient, savoring her unraveling.
A minister at the left step forward. His face was pale with fear, but the seal of his office gave him courage. "Your Majesty," he said, bowing so low his voice muffled in the floor, "the Lady Wu Ling consorted with factions that plotted beyond the court. Her hand has moved in shadows, against the balance of the realm."
Another joined, then another. What they feared to speak became easier once the first stone was cast. The word treason broke free of whispers and walked openly across the chamber.
Wu Ling did not bow. She lifted her veil just enough for her voice to carry. "Lies from men who profit in my father's absence. You mistake counsel for conspiracy. You mistake a woman's clarity for rebellion."
Her tone was steady, but I saw it — the faint shift in her shoulders, the way her fingers folded tighter against her palms. She turned then, not to the ministers, not to the Lord Protector whose shadow loomed like a mountain behind the throne, but to her husband.
"My Emperor," she said, her voice soft now, coaxing. "You know me. I have given you loyalty, counsel, a throne steadied in storms. You will not let them call me traitor."
The Emperor did not answer. His gaze was still, deeper than the incense smoke, and for the first time I saw Wu Ling falter.
She tried again, her words gaining weight. "You are the Son of Heaven. Show them. Say it now — that I stand innocent, that none here may raise a finger against me."
Still, he said nothing. His silence grew heavy, a silence that drew all eyes toward him, even mine. I had lived my life believing him a puppet, a hollow figurehead beneath the hand of my father, beneath the will of my sister. But this silence was not hollow. It was chosen. And in it I felt the faint stir of something that unsettled me more than treason — ambition.
Wu Ling's calm cracked. I heard it in the edge of her breath. "You are nothing without me," she said at last, the coaxing gone, replaced by command. "Speak. Command them. Prove to all that your word is stronger than theirs."
The Emperor turned his head, slow as if the movement itself measured years. His eyes met hers. No heat, no fury. Only depth.
"Is that what you want of me?" he asked, his voice level. "A word?"
The chamber held its breath. Even the Lord Protector shifted his weight, as though caught between steel and surprise.
Wu Ling's veil trembled once. "Yes," she whispered.
"Then hear it," the Emperor said.
The stillness broke like bone under a hammer.
He did not shout, did not thunder. He simply pronounced it, the way a man might name the season as winter, or the tide as low.
"Treason."
The word struck harder than any blade. Wu Ling staggered a half-step, the veil slipping from her shoulder like spilled blood. Her eyes found mine then — wide, burning, refusing to be pitied.
The Lord Protector's voice followed, deep and implacable. "By the law of the realm, treason demands death. Yet she is your consort, Son of Heaven. The sword cannot fall without your hand."
The court rippled, some gasping, others closing their lips like shutters in a storm. My chest tightened. The thing beneath my ribs pressed upward, drinking in the taste of collapse, the slow unmaking of the woman who had believed herself invincible.
Wu Ling looked at her husband, her Emperor, her puppet. For the first time, she searched his face and found no strings to pull.
"Will you?" she asked, her voice stripped bare. "Will you kill me, then?"
The Emperor did not blink. "I will not kill you," he said softly. "But I will not save you."
The Lord Protector bowed his head, the bow of a headsman receiving command. "Then the sword is mine to wield."
The words fell like a stone into a well. The echo did not return.
Wu Ling drew herself tall, as if defiance could change the weight of judgment. Her veil slipped fully now, crimson pooling at her feet. She looked not at her husband, not at our father, but at me.
"Brother," she said. Only the one word. I could not tell if it was curse, plea, or reminder.
I did not answer.
The bells tolled once. The sound shivered through the rafters, through the marrow of the court, through the hollows of my ribs.
And in that single strike, I knew she was already dead.