Word reached us before dawn.
Wu Kang had taken the Emperor.
Not in whispers, not in rumor, but in the blunt report of soldiers who had survived the night. He had come with his own men, shadows drawn from the Eastern Palace, blades hidden until they shone. He had seized the Dragon Son in his own chambers and dragged him eastward.
The city woke to silence broken only by panic. Ministers shut their doors. Generals tightened their gates. The South did not stir, not yet—but their envoys sent messages with the speed of hawks, carrying news across the border like meat dropped into a wolf's den.
The Lord Protector summoned us. His sickness had not left him, but his presence in the northern hall carried the weight of an army.
I entered with Shen Yue at my side, Liao Yun a step behind. Wu Jin was already there. He stood at the Lord Protector's right hand, as though he had been waiting all night. The generals were gathered, their armor still dusty from dawn drills, their eyes shifting between the brothers who had not yet broken into open war.
The Lord Protector's voice was steel dulled by age but not by fear.
"Wu Kang holds the Emperor. The South watches. If the court fractures, Liang will not survive the month."
His gaze burned into me, then into Wu Jin. "Tell me—what path remains?"
Wu Jin spoke first, his tone polished, each word folded neat as silk.
"If we name Wu Kang traitor, we give the South their excuse. They will claim the Mandate has left the North. Better to call him grieving, misguided, and to wait. A hawk cannot fly long while carrying prey."
The generals muttered. Some nodded. Others clenched fists.
I let silence weigh before I answered.
"Wu Kang has not stumbled," I said. "He has chosen. He took the Emperor not as a mourner, but as a gaoler. He means to hold the throne in his shadow until the court bows."
I let my eyes fall on the generals, one by one. "If you call this grief, you will wake to find yourselves already sworn to him. Treason wears many masks, but it does not stop being treason."
The Lord Protector's hand closed on the armrest of his chair. The wood creaked.
The hall breathed as though it stood between two blades.
I stepped forward. From my sleeve, I drew the falcon seal. The token lay heavy in my palm, darkened by shadow.
"This was found on the saboteur who poisoned the wedding cup. He carried coin to spread chaos, to smear blame."
I raised it higher so the generals could see. "My own mother's clan. Blood meant to protect me, turned against me."
The murmurs swelled. Ministers leaned forward, generals shifted. Some looked at me with suspicion, others with pity.
Wu Jin's voice cut through them like a calm knife.
"A troubling token," he said. "But tokens can be planted. Evidence is a blade—it cuts forward and back. Will you use it to strike your own blood, brother? Or will you claim a shadow where none yet stands?"
The ministers' eyes turned to me. The generals' brows tightened.
I closed my fist around the seal.
"I strike when the cut will kill, not when it will wound," I said.
Shen Yue's presence at my side was a pillar. She did not speak, but her silence was sharper than words.
The doors opened.
A guard entered, bowing low, his voice shaking. "Your Highnesses, my Lord… the cousin has arrived."
Wu Shuang.
She stepped into the hall with the measured grace of someone who knew she was both guest and hostage. Her robes were plain, her eyes dark as river stone. She had been missing for years, stolen into the South, released back to me as a gift I still could not read.
The ministers shifted uneasily. To them, she was family in name but stranger in truth. To them, she was Southern shadow wearing Northern blood.
Wu Jin's gaze flicked to her, unreadable. The Lord Protector's face did not change, but his knuckles whitened on the arm of his chair.
"She is blood," I said evenly. "Our cousin. Lost and returned. The South did not kill her—they released her. Ask yourselves why."
The hall rippled with unease.
"She is not a gift," Shen Yue added quietly. "She is a message. And if we cannot read it, the South will."
Wu Shuang's eyes found mine then. For a moment, there was nothing—no plea, no fear, no warmth. Only patience, as if she had waited all these years for this hall, this gathering, this moment.
The Lord Protector rose, and the generals bowed low.
"Then we read the message together," he said. "Wu Kang holds the Emperor. The South waits. Treachery gnaws at our halls. This council will decide how Liang breathes—or how Liang bleeds."
He looked at me, then at Wu Jin.
"Speak your next moves. For there will not be time for a second."
The silence in my chest pressed outward, vast and waiting.
And in that silence, I saw every piece on the board: Wu Kang with the Emperor, Wu Jin with his poisons, Wu Shuang with her unknown past, Shen Yue at my side.
I knew then: this was no longer a council. It was a battlefield dressed in silk.