The order came at midnight.
I was not to return to the barracks. I was not to speak to the other Shadows. By Imperial decree, my mat was moved from the cold stone of the cellars to the polished cedar floors of the Emperor's bedchamber.
"You are to be his 'Living Shield,'" General Fang had sneered as he watched me gather my meager belongings. He looked at me with a suspicion so sharp it felt like a blade against my neck. "If a single fly bites him in the night, I will have your head. Do you understand, Forty-Seven?"
"My life for his," I replied, my voice a hollow echo.
Now, the heavy doors of the inner sanctum clicked shut, leaving me alone with the man who had just touched my soul.
The emperor's bedchamber was a cavern of dark wood and heavy black silk. A single incense burner breathed out a thin, silver ribbon of sandalwood. Zhenkai stood by the window, his back to me. He had changed into a simple black robe, but he still wore the sword at his hip.
"The mat is there," he said, gesturing toward the foot of the massive, dragon-carved bed. "You will sleep with your blades unsheathed. If anyone enters this room without my voice, you kill them. Even if they wear the General's crest."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
I knelt, placing my twin short blades on the floor beside the thin mat. I sat cross-legged, the silk of my guard-robes rustling in the silence. The tension was a living thing, prowling between us in the shadows.
Zhenkai turned. He didn't go to the bed. He went to a small, unassuming desk in the corner of the room. He sat and began to go over a stack of scrolls, but I could tell he wasn't reading. His eyes were fixed on a single point, his jaw tight.
An hour passed. Then two.
My training at the House of Ravens had taught me how to sit still for days, to slow my heart until I was invisible. But tonight, my pulse was a riot. Every time he shifted his weight, every time the silk of his robe brushed the floor, I felt it in my own skin.
"Why haven't you asked?" he said suddenly, his voice cutting through the dark.
I didn't move. "A Shadow does not ask questions."
"Liar." He stood and walked toward me, stopping just at the edge of my mat. He looked down at me, his face half-hidden in the gloom. "You want to know why I saved you that night. You want to know why I killed your family but let the 'Red Lotus' live."
I looked up, my mask of indifference finally cracking. "You didn't save me. You destroyed me. You took a Princess and turned her into a ghost."
Zhenkai knelt. He didn't touch me this time, but the proximity was worse. I could feel the heat of him, the sheer gravity of his presence.
"I had to burn the palace to save the kingdom from my father's madness," he whispered, his eyes burning with a desperate intensity. "And I had to burn you to save you from the flames. Look at the desk, Meilin."
I followed his gaze. On the desk, half-hidden under a map of the Northern borders, was a small, crumpled piece of parchment. It wasn't a military order. It was a drawing.
It was a sketch of a gold phoenix crown, half-submerged in water. Beside it, in a handwriting that was sharp and precise, were hundreds of dates and coordinates—every bridge, every village, and every temple along the Xuán Hé river for the last five years.
He hadn't been hunting for a survivor to execute. He had been searching for a girl he thought he'd lost.
"I have sent ships," he said, his voice breaking. "I have bribed fishermen. I have walked the banks of that river until my boots rotted. Every time they found a body, I prayed it wasn't you. And every time it wasn't, I cursed the gods for letting you stay dead."
I felt a coldness wash over me that had nothing to do with the Northern winter. My hand moved toward my blade—not to kill him, but because the truth was more terrifying than a dagger.
"Why?" I whispered. "Why go to such lengths for a bride you barely knew?"
Zhenkai reached out, his fingers hovering just an inch from my cheek, as if he were afraid, I would vanish if he touched me.
"Because the night I gave you that dagger was the night I realized I didn't want a kingdom," he breathed. "I wanted the girl who was brave enough to jump."
A sudden, muffled sound came from the balcony outside. A scrape of metal on stone.
In a heartbeat, the "Swoon" was gone. I was Shadow Forty-Seven again. I lunged forward, tackling Zhenkai to the floor just as a hail of crossbow bolts shredded the black silk hangings of the bed where his head had been.
"Don't move," I hissed, pinning him beneath me, my short-blade out and gleaming in the moonlight.
Zhenkai looked up at me, a dark, wild smirk touching his lips despite the danger. "I told you, Shadow. You make an excellent shield."