The city and the Emperor never truly slept, but some corners drowned in silence deeper than night itself. The old Kia mansion stood among those corners, quiet as a grave. Where once banners snapped above the walls and the laughter of servants drifted into the street, now shadows clung thick across its gates. Few dared pass by. Fewer still lingered.
General Jo Berque stood at its threshold. His armor was dulled by years of war, his face marked with the wear of countless campaigns. Yet tonight he felt something he had not on any battlefield – unease, sharpened into fear.
He had not come on imperial order. This was his own choice. And choices without sanction carried death.
He remembered the wars. Eastern Gate, where Kiasin had fought beside him, the two of them shoulder to shoulder against waves of barbarians. Western Gate, where both had nearly frozen in the mountain passes, surviving only because one had given the other warmth of fire and trust. They were sworn brothers not by ritual, but by battle.
Every year since, Jo had kept to a habit: visiting the villages of his province, speaking with heads, counting the households himself. The Empire's ledgers were often full of lies, but he trusted what he saw with his own eyes.
And in recent years, something gnawed at him.
Supplies distributed by the palace no longer matched the people in the villages. Collections gathered at tax season no longer aligned with the harvests. At first, he had dismissed it – scribes made mistakes, governors skimmed their share. But the pattern grew, deeper, wider.
And now, in Kiasin's province, he had seen the same mismatches.
At first, it had been only numbers. Then came the rumors. Whispers of families disappearing – not wandering, not fleeing, but vanishing, root and branch. Yet no missing persons were recorded, no names erased from the ledgers. On paper, the people still lived.
But he had seen the truth in empty houses.
He slipped through the side gate and crossed the inner court to the ancestral room. The doors yielded with a tired groan. Within, stale incense clung to the air; rows of spirit tablets lined the shelves, their lacquered faces watching in mute judgment. A single oil lamp trembled on the altar, throwing long shadows across carved beams.
Jo bowed once – to friendship, to the dead, to the house he was trespassing.
His eye caught on a tablet set slightly apart from the rest, its lacquer darker, edges newly worn: the Sixth Brother's memorial. No name inscribed, only the rank mark and lineage seal – as if even remembrance refused to say more.
He reached for it.
The wood was warm from the lamp's breath. As he lifted, he felt a tiny give – a hairline seam along the base. The tablet tipped back. A shallow cavity revealed itself in the altar shelf, lined with red silk.
Inside lay a folded strip of yellowed parchment.
Jo unfolded it with calloused care. Ink glinted like old blood. Names – written in a careful hand, paired in twos. Husband and wife. Village and ward. A brief mark beside each: vanished.
His throat tightened. He counted silently, lips barely moving. Then he counted again, slower.
If those couples had borne sons in the following year… the ages would match the Seven Kings and the Princess exactly.
His breath went thin.
Could it be? Are the empire's paragons bound to these missing roots?
He lowered the parchment and slid it beneath his cloak.
A faint click sounded in the rafters.
He moved without thinking. A sliver of steel hissed through the oil-lamp light and kissed his forearm – not a killing stroke, a brush. Heat flared under his skin. He looked down and saw, already reddening, a thin sigil searing into the flesh: a mark.
Not to kill intruders.
To brand them.
Shadows rippled along the ceiling beam – a masked face, a grin like a scar – and then melted back into the wood.
Kiasin's warning came back to him like a cold hand on the spine: Conspiracies root themselves deeper than the throne. Even the palace walls bleed secrets.
Jo exhaled through his teeth, cradling the marked arm. "Kia… you were right."
He set the Sixth Brother's tablet back into place, bowed once more to the dark, and slipped out into the night.
The next days blurred.
Jo walked the streets under cloak and silence, visiting houses traced from the list. At each, the pattern repeated: families gone, neighbors whispering that they had "moved" or "been summoned," but with no clarity. And at each, shadows followed him. Once, steel flashed from a roof and nearly parted his throat; only the tilt of his head saved him. Another time, poison darts hissed through the dark, embedding in the wood by his bed. A third, a net of wire sprang from a garden wall – he tore free, leaving cloth and blood behind.
By then the brand on his forearm had darkened to a faint, unmistakable sigil. The Emperor's assassins did not need to ask who had trespassed. He was tagged.
His suspicions grew heavier, but his proofs were air. Numbers, empty houses, silence. No document beyond the hidden list, no testimony he could bring before a court. The parchment was a blade with no hilt – dangerous to wield, impossible to show.
Yet the coincidences haunted him: the count and timing of vanished couples aligned with the number and ages of the palace's Seven Kings and the Princess.
Could it be? Were the honored children of the palace born not of blessing, but of theft?
Bile rose in his throat. He swallowed it back. He could not speak it. To accuse without evidence was to die without honor. To speak it openly could stampede panic through the provinces – and paint a target on every ally he still had.
On the fourth night, thunder rolled not from the sky but from the boots of men.
Armored guards, imperial crest burning on their breastplates, swarmed his mansion. Their blades glittered in torchlight, their movements sharp, rehearsed.
"General Jo Berque," their captain barked. "By decree of His Majesty, you are to be seized and brought before the throne."
There was no resistance he could offer. His loyal men had been dismissed days before on false errands. The timing was perfect. A net woven long before he knew he was prey.
They dragged him through palace corridors. Incense burned heavy, banners swayed, courtiers shrank back against walls as he passed. By the time he entered the throne hall, his steps dragged with exhaustion, but his back remained straight.
The Emperor sat waiting.
He did not need to roar to command silence. His very presence froze the air. Draped in robes like molten gold, crown tilting like a blade, his eyes bore into Jo with a weight colder than any battlefield.
"Explain yourself," the Emperor said. The words were calm, but their calmness was more dangerous than fury. "Speak of your deeds."
The hall trembled with stillness. Priests, ministers, even the Preceptor stood watching, silent as carved wood.
Jo raised his head. Blood dried on his side, the brand on his forearm a faint ember. His breath rasped. And yet his lips curved into a smile – not of madness, but of defiance.
"My deeds?" His voice was low, cutting. "Your Majesty already knows. Why drag me here to recite what you keep sealed?"
A murmur rippled through the ministers. Few ever spoke so bluntly in that hall.
The Emperor's eyes narrowed. "If you value your life, answer me plainly. Do not force me to pass sentence."
Jo's smile widened, bitter as gall. "My life is already yours, Emperor. My family's lives, too. You hold them tighter than chains. But you cannot force me to say what you already hide. If I speak it aloud, I die – and others with me. If I stay silent, I live another breath. And perhaps another. That is my choice."
The Emperor rose, robes snapping like storm-winds. His roar cracked through the chamber.
"How dare you!"
The guards moved instantly.
"Torture him! Strip him of his title! From this day, Jo Berque is no General. Throw him into the dungeons!"
The order echoed like thunder. Ministers flinched, priests shut their eyes.
The Emperor's hand clenched around the armrest of the throne. "I will make you pay for every insolent word, every unspoken thought. You will learn what it means to challenge me."
And yet – Jo did not bow.
His face was pale, his body weak, but his eyes locked on the Emperor's with a cold fire. His voice was quiet, but it struck the silence like steel.
"We will see."
The chamber held its breath.
The Emperor stood as a storm, Jo as a battered stone. Neither yielded.
"The dungeon swallowed him whole, yet his silence weighed heavier than chains – for in silence lingered the threat that no decree could crush."