The inner palace does not echo anymore.
It absorbs sound.
My footsteps die the moment they touch the jade floor, as if the hall has decided noise is unnecessary now. Incense burns without smoke. The pillars are intact, but they feel hollowed, like bones long emptied and repurposed as structure.
My father waits at the center.
The Lord Protector stands with his hands folded behind his back, posture relaxed, unarmored, unhurried. He does not rise when I enter. He does not reach for a weapon. He does not even look surprised.
I stop ten paces away.
In my left hand, wrapped in a length of black silk already soaked through, is Wu Shuang's head.
I let it fall.
It hits the floor once, dull and wet, and rolls until it stops at his feet. Her eyes are open. Whatever bound her expression in life has loosened in death; now she looks almost peaceful, as if curiosity carried her through the final instant.
The silk unravels.
Gold-black blood seeps across the jade, hissing faintly before the floor drinks it in.
The Lord Protector looks down.
He studies her face the way a craftsman studies a broken tool—not with grief, not with anger, but with assessment.
"So," he says quietly. "You reached that stage."
That is all.
No shout.
No curse.
No command to guards who do not exist anymore.
"You sent her to stop me," I say. My voice sounds distant even to myself. "You told her I was still unfinished."
"I told her the truth," he replies. "That you would either break… or complete."
He finally lifts his gaze to me.
"And now I see which."
The Presence tightens—not in rage, not in hunger—but in alignment. Something between us resonates, not as kinship, but as shared methodology.
"You used her," I say.
"Yes."
"You used Wu Jin."
"Yes."
"You used the city."
"Yes."
His answers do not vary.
"And now?" I ask.
He smiles faintly. "Now we see whether you understand why."
Outside the palace, the city groans under renewed pressure.
The Southern Kingdom pushes again—not with songs this time, not with priests leading the charge, but with artillery and disciplined infantry. Cannons thunder from the southern approaches, hammering outer districts already half-emptied. Smoke crawls through the streets like something alive.
The Black Tigers answer.
They do not meet the South at the gates.
They bleed them from the sides.
From alleys. From rooftops. From courtyards that were cleared hours earlier and now return death instead of shelter. Southern banners fall. Officers vanish mid-command. Whole companies retreat only to find the roads behind them no longer exist.
Ling An is being retaken—not ceremonially, not proudly—but systematically.
Beyond the northern hills, Zhou watches.
Their camps remain orderly. Their banners do not move. Scouts record everything: the efficiency of the Tigers, the city's refusal to collapse, the fact that something far worse than an emperor now stands at the center of the capital.
Zhou waits.
They always have.
Back in the palace, my father steps around Wu Shuang's head, careful not to soil his boots.
"You think this ends with you killing me," he says. "That this is the old story."
"It ends with you no longer deciding," I reply.
He chuckles softly. "No, An. That's where it begins."
He gestures to the hall, to the city beyond it, to the world tightening around us. "I built this board so that only monsters could play on it. Kings break. Armies rot. Faith burns out."
He looks at me—not with pride, but with satisfaction.
"But you," he continues, "you can survive what comes next."
The Presence hums.
Not approval.
Recognition.
"You don't fear me," I say.
"I never feared weapons," he answers. "Only waste."
For the first time, anger moves—not loud, not explosive, but deep and cold.
"You would sacrifice everything," I say. "Children. Cities. Blood."
"Yes," he replies simply. "Including my own."
Silence expands between us, vast and suffocating.
Outside, the Southern advance stalls again. The Black Tigers tighten the noose. Fires burn where supply lines once ran. Ling An, wounded and furious, refuses to fall.
Zhou's messengers ride back to their command tents.
They will report one truth tonight:
The city is no longer defended by a dynasty.
It is defended by a will.
I look down once more at Wu Shuang's head, then back at the man who made us both.
"This isn't your world anymore," I say.
My father inclines his head.
"Of course not," he replies. "It's yours."
And in that moment, I understand the depth of the trap—not behind me, not around me, but ahead.
The war outside is still ongoing.
The Southern Kingdom bleeds.
Zhou waits.
And inside the palace, father and son stand facing each other, both knowing the same terrible truth:
Whatever happens next
will not be decided by armies,
but by which of us
is willing to let the world burn
longer.