I left the map behind.
I left the ink still wet, the names circled in red, the fire crackling behind me like a pulse I no longer needed to hear.
The Empress had told me something once—softly, over porcelain cups and poisoned tea.
"Loyalty can be bought. But fear… fear is something they never forget."
She hadn't smiled when she said it. Hadn't needed to.
She was smiling now, I imagined—curled on her throne of paper and silk, while I slipped into the dark and finished the things she'd never dirty her hands with.
The names on the list weren't strangers.
They were men who had smiled in court and shaken hands with Mingyu. Women who had fawned over the Emperor and whispered poison into ministers' ears. Nobles with their own ambitions. Generals who'd waited too long to pick a side.
They had chosen wrong.
And I had no interest in giving second chances.
I started at the edge of the city.