Chapter Five – Shadows in the palace
The moon shone high above the palace, silver light spilling across tiled roofs and jade courtyards. The night hummed with the low whisper of cicadas and the distant rush of fountains. Guards patrolled the marble halls, their polished armor gleaming like shards of moonlight.
And then… the silence shifted.
From the shadows of the outer wall, six figures emerged, moving like liquid shadows against stone. Their steps made no sound, not even the whisper could be heard. Cloaked in midnight, they scaled the wall with effortless grace, fingers hooking into grooves, muscles flowing like coiled steel.
At their head moved Jia.
Her jade-green eyes glimmered in the dark, a predator's gleam beneath lashes as fine as brushstrokes. She raised one hand, and the warriors froze. Ahead, two guards stood chatting lazily by a lantern.
Fools.
A flick of her wrist a silent command.
The smallest of the group, Lin, slipped forward like mist. Her bare feet kissed the ground without sound as she came up behind one guard. In the blink of an eye, a slender needle slid between his collar and ear. His breath caught—and then he sagged soundlessly. The second guard barely turned before a whip coiled around his throat, tightening with cruel elegance. He crumpled in silence.
Jia's lips curved faintly. Flawless.
"Move," she mouthed.
They flowed through the palace like black water, slipping past sentries, vanishing into alcoves, crawling across the sloped roofs. Each time they met a patrol, the outcome was the same: a brief struggle, a muffled gasp, and then silence as another body melted into the shadows—alive, but unconscious.
The palace slept, unaware of the wolves in its walls.
Inside the Hall of Painted Dragons, a lantern burned low. Its light stretched across priceless screens and carved pillars—illuminating the scroll they had come for. It rested upon an altar, sealed with crimson wax and bound in silk embroidered with the imperial crest.
Jia stepped forward, her fingers gliding over the lacquered wood. For a heartbeat, her reflection stared back at her—calm, beautiful, lethal.
"The scroll," whispered Mei, the fiery-haired warrior, voice hungry.
But Jia's hand shot up, silencing her. Her eyes swept the room, pupils narrowing. Every instinct screamed caution. Something was… off.
"Lin," she said softly. The girl with twin buns was already moving, sliding a paper charm across the floor. A faint shimmer pulsed as the charm glowed revealing threads of poison traps.
"Ha," Lin whispered, smirking. "Clever little mice. But not clever enough."
She raised her dagger up. And cut them up swifter than the poison could be effective.
The trap was gone. The scroll was theirs.
Jia strode forward, unbinding the silk and sliding the scroll into a black case. The weight of it pulsed in her hand power, knowledge, secrets worth kingdoms.
"It's time," Jia murmured.
They vanished again, ghosts through a labyrinth of moonlit halls.
---
At the Training Grounds…
Ryouma Kenzaki stood alone beneath the full moon, his katana resting across his shoulder. Sweat slicked his temples from a late-night session, but he had not yet left. Something—something—kept him rooted to the earth.
The air had shifted.
Not the cool whisper of wind through bamboo. Not the quiet hum of crickets. Something else. Something that pressed against his instincts like the edge of a blade.
He tilted his head, amber eyes narrowing.
Far beyond the training grounds, deep within the palace walls, the faintest flicker of movement brushed his senses too soft for human ears, too swift for ordinary sight. But Ryouma was no ordinary man.
His fingers curled around his hilt.
"…so you came ?" he whispered to the wind.
The moon shone bright, silver like a blade. Somewhere in the darkness, laughter echoed a soft, feminine laugh that did not belong in the palace.
And then it was gone.
Ryouma stood very still, the weight of unseen eyes crawling down his spine.
They're here.