The palace drums did not pause for grief. They beat like a second heartbeat to the capital, steady and merciless, drowning out the sobs of courtiers who had already learned how to weep on command. Prince Ning was gone, and already another hand reached for his seat.
Minister Li sat beneath the carved rafters of the Board of Rites, stripped of rank but not of mind. Around him, ministers shifted in their robes like restless birds. No one dared meet his eyes directly; disgrace was a contagion, and Ziyan's supposed regicide had made him plague-ridden. Yet when the Emperor's herald called the gathering to order, all voices bent toward a single name.
"Lord Zhang," the herald intoned, "by decree of His Majesty, is appointed as acting overseer of the Southern Academies and entrusted with temporary authority over the Ministry of War's supply chains, until the matter of Prince Ning's succession is resolved."
The court murmured like a stirred hive. Zhang stepped forward. He was not old, not young—his face the age of ambition, his eyes the age of winter. His robe was plain compared to the lacquered silks around him, but the way he wore it left no one in doubt: this man did not need jewels to command.
"My Emperor grieves," Zhang said, his bow precise. "And the people tremble. Let us not waste time with fear. Grain must reach the front. Teachers must teach. The Empire must stand, even if its princes fall."
A bold speech, in a hall still shadowed by Ning's blood. Ministers exchanged glances, gauging which way the wind now blew. Minister Li alone did not move. He studied Zhang's tone, the careful marriage of humility and threat. A viper, he thought, but one who smiles before the bite.
When the assembly broke, Zhang approached him. "My condolences, Minister," he said smoothly. "Your daughter's disgrace is a wound to the Li name. Yet your loyalty is clear—you struck her name from your registers, and that is no small sacrifice."
Minister Li inclined his head, careful. "The Empire is heavier than any blood."
"Indeed." Zhang's eyes glimmered like frost. "And loyalty deserves protection. Join your house to mine, and you will not fall further."
Minister Li let silence do his work. "And if I do not?"
Zhang's smile did not change. "Then the river will wash your house away, and no one will remember the stones beneath."
Far from the hall, Ziyan woke to the cold breath of the carpenter's shop, Feiyan's absence still pressing against the air like a missing limb. The silk around her wrist itched with meaning. She lit a lamp and unrolled parchment. Her hand hesitated only once before she tied the blue thread around the message and slid it under the back door, where a boy courier waited in the shadows.
"If anyone answers," she whispered, "I will know if Feiyan's gift was hope or a trap."
The boy vanished into the night. Ziyan pressed her palm to her sleeve where the lotus mark burned faintly. Roads and blades, Feiyan had said. Empires change—or girls die. Ziyan closed her eyes. She had been cut from her family. She had been named traitor. But she was not finished.
By the second bell, Zhang had already moved three ministries into his hand. He summoned merchants from the Guilds, bribed border prefects with promises instead of coin, and ordered soldiers to sweep the refugee camps under the guise of "security." Unlike Zhao, whose power came from steel, Zhang's power came from whispers. He planted them as easily as seeds, and by dawn they were fruit.
In the teahouses, men muttered that only Zhang could steady the Empire. In the academies, teachers repeated his words to trembling pupils. Even in the barracks, soldiers learned his name before they knew their orders. Wei, hiding in the outer wards, heard it from a drunken captain: "Zhang is the Emperor's hand now. And his first task is to crush the phoenix girl."
That evening, Minister Li unrolled the ledger he had held in silence for twenty years. He had thought it a weapon sharp enough to cut Zhao. Now, he weighed it against Zhang. He sent three copies in secret: one to the Guilds, one to the Censorate, and one to the Emperor's archivist. Let them gnaw at each other, he thought. Let their hunger slow Zhang's climb.
But even as he sealed the last scroll, a servant brought news. "My lord—Lord Zhang invites you to tea tomorrow. He says he values your counsel." Minister Li closed his eyes. He could already feel the rope tightening.
Near midnight, a knock rattled the carpenter's back door. Ziyan opened it to find the boy courier pale with fear. "My lady," he whispered, "someone answered. They tied the silk back with another thread—white, not blue. And they said: 'The Academies are no longer yours. Zhang owns their gates.'"
Ziyan's breath chilled. Education had been her father's stronghold, her own inheritance of ink and memory. If Zhang had seized it, then even knowledge was no longer safe. She closed her fist around the silk. "Then we will find another gate," she said. "And we will break it."
In the palace, Zhang knelt before the Emperor. The old ruler's eyes were clouded, his voice thin. "Serve me well, Zhang," the Emperor murmured. "The throne cannot bear another fall."
Zhang bowed low, but his smile was hidden in the floor's reflection. "Majesty," he said, "a new winter has begun. And I will see that it does not end."