Back in Ling An, Wu Jin could not keep his hands from shaking.
He sat in the ruins of the Lotus Hall, counselors arguing around him like crows over a corpse. Zhou's envoy demanded clearer jurisdiction for their "aid." Ministers demanded justice for the collapse, the dead, for the rumor that two sons of the same man had tried to kill each other in front of the throne.
Wu Jin heard little.
His mind still replayed three words.
It is being settled.
"Your Majesty," a minister was saying, "the southern border—there are no new reports. Hei Fort sends no dispatches. The Regency's banners have been seen, then not seen. It is as if the marsh swallowed both sides."
Zhou's envoy leaned on his staff. "War ending itself is a blessing," he said smoothly.
"Wars do not end themselves," Wu Jin snapped, voice suddenly sharp. "They are ended by men."
He thought of his father at the river. Of dead disappeared, of towers rising. Of bells not yet rung.
"My lord," Wu Shuang's voice cut in.
She stepped forward, robes ash-streaked, hair bound with a plain cord. She carried no incense, no seal, no ornament. Only the bell-clapper wrapped in ribbon hidden in her sleeve.
"I must speak with you. Alone."
The court murmured. He dismissed them with a flick of his fingers that would have made their father proud.
When they were alone among the cracked pillars, Wu Jin spoke first.
"You knew," he said. "You knew he was alive. You had his letters. You were his eyes here."
Her chin lifted, just enough to be defiant without being cruel.
"I knew he was not finished," she said. "I never knew when he would step back into the room."
"You helped him," Wu Jin said. "You moved seals, softened edicts, soothed fears. He arranged me as king. You arranged the world to accept it. You could have told me."
"You would not have believed me," she said. "You believed you were taking the throne. If I had told you it was handed to you, you would have broken it to prove me wrong. He counted on that. So did I."
He flinched.
"And now?"
"Now he has shown his hand," she said. "And you must decide if you will play the piece he carved… or break the board."
"Can I?" he asked softly. "He made the board."
She reached into her sleeve. Brought out the bell-clapper. Held it between them.
"He told me to wait for the bell," she said. "He did not tell me I had to ring his."
On Mount Qiyun, the path opened into a courtyard carved out of stone and time.
No banners. No idols. Just a ring of worn pillars and, in the center, a dry basin etched with lines like a map of veins. The monk led us to the edge.
"Here," he said. "He first brought it."
"The bridge?" I asked.
"The idea of it," he said. "Not yours. The older one. The one between mandate and void."
He knelt. Ran his fingertips along one of the lines. The stone darkened under his touch, then lightened, as if remembering and then deciding not to.
"The Lord Protector came here before you were born," the monk said. "He asked us what lay beyond the gods. We told him: nothing that cares."
"So he decided to build something that would," I said.
"He decided," the monk corrected gently, "to build something that would listen without judging. That would carry will from one side of the world to the other without questioning its cargo."
"A bridge," Shen Yue murmured.
"Yes. We warned him. Anything that carries enough will… eventually begins to have one of its own. But he was not a man afraid of second consequences."
I looked down at the lines.
I saw rivers. Borders. Armies. Forts. Cities.
I saw myself, kneeling over a black mirror beneath Ling An.
I saw Wu Jin, sitting on a throne his hands never truly held.
And under everything, I saw my father walking, touching stone. Naming it.