When we reached Ling An, the gates opened without ceremony. There were no ministers, no banners, no trumpets to welcome the army that had broken Huailing's back. Only a single eunuch stood waiting, head bowed, his white robe stirring faintly in the wind.
"His Majesty's court is… indisposed," he said carefully, as if the words were lined with razors. "You are to present your prisoner at dawn. Until then, the Prince may retire to his quarters."
The army muttered as we passed under the arch. The people watched from windows, faces pale and shuttered like lanterns almost out of oil. No cheers, no rice thrown in the street. Just the hollow weight of eyes.
Wu Kang was dragged past them, ropes biting his wrists. His head was high, his mouth smiling, blood dried on his teeth like lacquer. The crowd did not spit, did not jeer. They only stared, as if waiting to see which brother would bleed first.
I had barely crossed the threshold of my own hall when the summons came. Not from the court, not from the eunuchs—his seal, my father's.
The Lord Protector did not wait for me to kneel. He did not sit, either. He stood at the center of the room, fists tight at his sides.
"You have made a pyre of Huailing," he said, voice low but iron. "Do you think this house is built to rule a desert?"
I said nothing.
He came closer. "Your duty was to subdue the city. Not gut it. Not parade its corpses as banners. Every man you hanged was a name we could have used. Every house you burned was silver we will never collect."
"They were not lessons to be bought," I said evenly. "They were warnings to be carved. For the South. For the Empire of Zhou to the north. For any lord who dreams of bending the North's knee while my back is turned."
His eyes narrowed, and for a moment I saw the steel that had once cowed Emperors. "This was not a war of banners," he said. "This was a war to keep the roof from falling. You have painted the rafters red. Now the city will look up and remember blood instead of sky."
"They will also remember who holds the roof," I said.
He struck the table with his palm. "Fear is a leash that snaps if you pull too hard!"
"It held today," I said, and though I did not raise my voice, the silence under my ribs lent it weight. "Tomorrow it will hold again."
He stared at me as though weighing which enemy he feared more—Wu Kang, or the man standing before him.
Finally he stepped back. "You will present your brother at dawn," he said. "Alive. Unmarked. And you will listen when the ministers speak of temperance."
"I will listen," I said. "And then I will remind them that the Emperor is still missing."
The Lord Protector's jaw hardened. "We will find him."
"Wu Kang knows where he is," I said.
That stopped him.
He searched my face. "How do you know?"
"Because he smiles," I said. "And men do not smile with broken teeth unless they know which door will open next."
The Lord Protector's hand clenched once, as if crushing a thought.
"Then make him speak," he said
I left the hall with the echo of my father's words in my ears. Outside, the night pressed close, heavy with the smell of smoke from our own campfires.
Wu Kang was being held in the stockade. I passed him in the courtyard—his head lifted, his smile still fixed like a scar.
"Tomorrow they will parade you through the city," I said.
"Good," he answered. "Let them see which brother returns with a leash in his hands."
I stopped, just long enough to let him see that I did not flinch.
"You know where he is," I said.
Wu Kang's grin widened until it looked like pain. "Of course I do," he said softly.
"And when the city is ready to burn," he added, "I will tell them."
The torches hissed as if in answer.
I turned away, the silence under my ribs listening, waiting. Tomorrow would come. And with it, the reckoning.