The courtyard was full by the time I arrived. Cold light bled over the roofs, turning the tiles to pale teeth.
Wu Kang stood in the stocks, his face bare, his hair matted with blood but combed back as if for ceremony. His smile was the same as yesterday — thin, hard, deliberate. He had chosen how he would look when the city saw him.
The crowd was silent at first, as if afraid to breathe. Then a woman spat. A man shouted. Soon the voices swelled — curses, jeers, even prayers muttered into sleeves. Children clung to their mothers' hems, eyes wide as saucers.
Shen Yue stood to my left, stiff as a pike. Liao Yun stood to my right, face carved from wood.
I gave the signal.
The guards pulled Wu Kang to his feet and began the march through the main square. The stocks rattled with each step, a cruel drumbeat. The people followed, some throwing rotten vegetables, others only watching. Watching was worse. Watching meant remembering.
Halfway to the gate, the Lord Protector appeared.
He stepped into the road with no herald, no fanfare, only his presence — enough to still the crowd. His eyes found me first, sharp as a whetstone.
"This ends here," he said.
I kept my hand raised, kept the march moving.
"Stop them," Father ordered.
The guards froze. The crowd stilled, waiting to see whether the house of Wu would break itself in public.
"You want to parade your brother through Ling An?" the Lord Protector demanded, voice low but cutting. "In chains, for every minister, every foreign envoy, every southern spy to see? You want Zhou to know the North eats its own?"
"They already know," I said. "Let them see it with their own eyes, so they do not mistake us for a house too weak to punish betrayal."
"This is not strength," Father snapped. "This is spectacle. You are turning this city into a theater."
"The city is already a theater," I said. "Better to choose the play than let someone else write it."
Our eyes locked. For a heartbeat, I thought he might strike me where I stood.
"You do not understand balance," he said. "A house does not stand on one pillar. Every man you hang, every house you burn, every enemy you parade breaks another beam."
"Then let it break," I said coldly. "Better a house that collapses than one that rots while still standing."
Something in his gaze faltered then — not fear, but recognition. The boy he had trained was gone. Something else stood before him.
"You are not done with this war," he said. "You are feeding it."
"Yes," I said, and lowered my hand.
The guards dragged Wu Kang forward again. The crowd roared, sensing blood though none had yet been spilled.
That night, the council chamber was empty except for Shen Yue. She stood with her back to me, her hands clasped behind her as if to keep them from touching her sword.
"Your father is right," she said quietly.
"Then stand with him," I said.
"I stand with you," she said. "That is the problem."
When she turned, her eyes were wet but her jaw was set. "You are becoming something the court will fear more than your brother. Even your men whisper about the way the air bends around you."
I did not deny it.
"They should fear me," I said.
"Fear is not the same as loyalty."
"It lasts longer," I replied.
Her hand curled at her side, then fell still. "What do you want, Wu An? Truly?"
The thing inside me stirred then, a slow coil, as if it had been waiting for the question.
"I want the roof to hold," I said. "Even if I have to nail it down with blood."
She stepped closer, near enough that I could see the tremor in her throat. "And when the roof holds, what will you be?"
I did not answer. The silence under my ribs answered for me. It did not promise to stop.
At dawn, Wu Kang was marched to the city gate. The crowd had grown, thicker now, the air heavy with the stink of sweat and old fear.
He stood straight despite the chains, despite the blood on his mouth. When they bound him to the cart, he looked at me and smiled.
"Parade me," he said. "But remember that the Emperor sleeps. When he wakes, you will wish you had killed me here."
The silence inside me listened. It liked the sound of that.
As the cart rolled out, I saw southern riders at the edge of the crowd. They did not speak. They only watched, faces unreadable, taking our measure like merchants weighing grain.
Zhou's envoys would hear of this before nightfall. They would know what we were willing to do to our own.
The roof would hold — or break — by my hand.
And when it broke, I would be the one standing beneath it.