Snow did not fall in the Cold Palace.
Here, winter did not descend from the sky in gentle flakes—it seeped upward from the stone, a breathless frost rising from the bones of the earth, climbing walls, threading through the paper of warped latticed windows. The Cold Palace was where warmth came to die.
Feng Lian sat cross-legged on the cracked floor, fingers laid lightly over the thin clay bowl before her. The porridge inside had cooled into a pale, lumpy skin. A fly hovered over it, uncertain, then veered away as if something unseen had hissed.
"Eat, Your Majesty," murmured the old attendant by the door. "Her Ladyship Mei Yin insisted this reach you while it was still warm."
Her Ladyship.
Consort Mei Yin, with her trembling hands and downcast lashes. Mei, who had clung to Lian's sleeve in the great hall the day of the condemnation, eyes brimming with tears that smelled of jasmine smoke and calculation.
Lian's teeth ached.
"I am not Empress here," she said, voice a shard of hoarfrost. "Only a prisoner."
The attendant, Granny Rong, flinched at the word, glancing nervously at the high, iron-bound door. "Walls grow ears in places like this, child. Best not to give them sharp words to carry."
Child. It would have been a kindness, once, to be called that.
Now the word fit her no more than her old phoenix coronet would. That crown of hammered gold and inlaid fire-jade lay somewhere in a locked chest—or melted, perhaps, into coins to fund the Regent Council's wars. She imagined its delicate wings blackened, the tiny rubies that had once glittered in her hair poured molten and indifferent into some soldier's pay.
"Leave it," Lian said, lifting her hands from the bowl. Her fingertips tingled faintly, as if they'd been too near a flame. "I'll eat later."
Granny Rong hesitated, then shuffled closer on swollen knees and set the tray on the low, three-legged table that leaned drunkenly against the wall. Her lined face softened as she studied Lian. "You grow thinner with each passing day. It will bring misfortune if you fade before they decide what to do with you."
"They already decided," Lian said. Her gaze drifted to the barred window, where the faintest smear of winter light struggled through the dust. The iron lattice cast a pattern on the far wall like the shadow of a cage laid over another cage. "They threw me here to rot. That is a decision."
"Decisions crumble, child. Like plaster, like stone." Granny Rong's voice lowered. "Men think they build forever. Heaven laughs."
Lian almost smiled. It felt foreign on her face, a movement her muscles had forgotten. "Heaven was silent when they raised the blade."
Her mind tried not to replay it. The scaffold. The crowd. The proclamations. The glitter of the Grand General's sword.
And then—
Li Wei's breath against her ear, the heat of his hand on her trembling fingers. The rustle of heavy robes as he stepped away from her side.
When the memory came, it did not come in order. It came like a broken mirror: flashes, angles, naked sky.
His eyes, when he turned back to her.
Remember that you are fire.
The words had not left his lips; they had burned in her bones. But what he had spoken, the last thing his mouth had shaped in the mortal world, had been a command.
"Forget me and fly."
As if she could ever forget the man who had stepped between her and the executioner's steel. The blade meant for her neck had found his heart instead.
Li Wei's body had fallen with a sound she heard even now in the quietest hours—an impact that seemed to shake the scaffold, the sky, the fragile scaffolding of her sanity.
"Your Majesty." Granny Rong's voice crept through the storm in Lian's skull. "I…heard something, in the outer courtyard."
Lian blinked. The old woman was wringing her hands, voice a conspirator's whisper.
"What?"
"A carriage arrived this dawn. Plain on the outside, but the horses were too finely groomed, their hooves lacquered red. No crest on the panels, but the guards wore lacquered pauldrons—House Huo's colors beneath Regent brocade. The Grand General is here."
The Grand General. The Iron Architect.
The man whose sword had cut her world in two.
Lian's hand curled slowly into a fist in her lap. Once, the movement would have stirred warmth in her palm, a delicate glow like banked embers. Now there was nothing but the ache of absence, the phantom itch of a limb torn away.
The Spirit-Numbing Ash worked subtly, Mei Yin's poison of choice. It smothered the channels in which spiritual power flowed, not destroying them outright, but filling them like cold mud, like words unsaid. No violent backlash, no obvious signs. Just…emptiness. A hollow where fire had once slept.
"Did you see the General?" Lian asked.
Granny Rong shook her head. "No. But I saw Consort Mei Yin step down from the carriage. Her maidservants carried a covered basket and a lacquered box."
Of course. Mei Yin would not miss a chance to perform kindness before an audience, even if the audience were only jailers and ghosts.
"She'll come to see you," Granny Rong said, not quite meeting Lian's eyes. "She always does, when the General is in the palace. To show him how faithful she is. How merciful."
Merciful.
Lian pictured Mei Yin's soft mouth curving into a practiced pout, the way she would dab delicately at the corner of her eye with a silk handkerchief while expressing how deeply, how terribly she grieved for her poor elder sister, the fallen Empress.
"Let her come," Lian murmured. She reached for the bowl, the motion slow but deliberate. "I should not disappoint such devotion."
She lifted the porridge to her lips. The smell was faintly bitter under the rice—like charcoal, like cooled incense. Spirit-Numbing Ash had no obvious taste, but she had come to recognize the ghost of it. That, and the way her pulse seemed to withdraw from her fingertips after each meal, as if fleeing deeper into some unreachable center.
Lian swallowed once. Twice.
The world did not tilt, did not darken. It simply…failed to brighten. The ember that was her Phoenix Core, buried somewhere deep in the ruins of her spiritual sea, remained quiet as a grave.
Forget me and fly.
She closed her eyes briefly as the porridge scraped down her throat. The bowl was half-empty when footsteps sounded in the corridor outside—a measured, languid rhythm, accompanied by the whisper of silk.
"Go," Lian said quietly to Granny Rong. "You heard the walls. It's best they hear only one voice in this room."
The old woman hesitated. "If you need—"
"I need you not to share my fate," Lian said, still looking at the door. "Go."
Granny Rong bowed as low as her joints allowed and shuffled away, disappearing just as the lock scraped and the heavy door groaned inward.
Cold air spilled into the cell, carrying with it a cloud of perfume—lotus and crushed snow-pea blossoms, the scent layered enough to feel like a physical caress. Consort Mei Yin stepped inside, framed by the gloom of the corridor and the narrow slice of outer light.
She wore mourning white, of course. The silk clung to her like fresh snow, sleeves trailing like mist. A single strand of black pearls circled her throat, a thin noose of beauty. Her hair, pinned in the modest coils of a virtuous widow, was held by a jade comb carved in the shape of a crying dove.
"Sister," Mei Yin breathed, lowering her gaze as if dazzled by the sight of Lian in her faded gray prison robe. "Forgive me. Every time I see you here, my heart…" She pressed a delicate hand to her chest. "It shatters anew."
Lian studied her in silence.
In the main palace, Mei Yin's beauty had always been like water: clear, flowing, reflecting whatever was placed before it. Now, in this stripped place of stone and rust, the artifice stood out sharply. The carefully smudged kohl at the corner of her eyes, the exact degree of paleness achieved by avoiding the sun yet never missing her rouge.
"Be careful," Lian said at last. "You'll run out of pieces."
Mei Yin blinked, the faintest ripple in her composure. "Pieces?"
"Of your heart," Lian said. "You break it so often."
The consort laughed then, a soft, tinkling sound that might have charmed a courtyard of ladies and eunuchs. In this cell, it echoed strangely, like a spoon tapping the inside of a skull.
"You're still the same, Sister," she said. "Sharp tongue, sharp eyes. Even now, you look at me as if you can see under my skin."
"I used to," Lian replied, almost absently. "Now my sight is…duller."
Mei Yin's gaze flickered to the half-empty bowl on the table, then back. Satisfaction touched the corners of her mouth for a heartbeat before smoothing away. "I've brought you something."
A maid slipped in behind her, head bowed, carrying the lacquered box Granny Rong had mentioned. Mei Yin waved a languid hand.
"Set it there. And mind you don't trip—this floor is treacherous. The Empress might cut herself if you startle her."
The maid obeyed, retreating quickly. When the door closed, the cell shrank again, swallowing the last of the outer light.
Mei Yin approached the box and knelt with practiced grace. "The General insisted," she murmured. "He worries that you are treated too harshly. He says…he owes you that much."
Lian's jaw tightened. Grand General Huo owed her many things. Fair judgment was not among them.
"How kind," she said. "Is it a new set of chains? Or perhaps a silk rope for hanging—more dignified than this stone."
Mei Yin glanced up, wounded. "You are cruel to make light of such things."
"Cruel?" The word struck Lian oddly, like a bird flying into a closed window. She thought of Li Wei's blood blooming across white robes, the crowd's roar, the General's blade disciplined and unhesitating. "No. Cruelty is the art of deliberate injury. I am simply…sore."
Mei Yin opened the box. Inside, neatly stacked, was a set of robes—plain but of good cotton, thicker than the thin garment Lian wore. Beneath them lay a comb, a polished bronze mirror, and a small packet tied with red string.
"The Cold Palace is damp," Mei Yin said, lifting the robes and shaking them gently. "You should not freeze. Though…" Her eyes skimmed Lian's bared wrists, the pallor of her skin. "They say the Phoenix cannot catch cold."
They say.
Lian tasted iron at the back of her tongue. "They say many things."
Mei Yin smiled faintly. "Huo says the tales were exaggerated. That the Phoenix is a myth wrapped in silk, useful for keeping enemies afraid and subjects obedient. He says your…awakening was a hallucination brought on by stress."
"How reassuring for him," Lian said. "To live in a world where what frightens him does not exist."
"He does not frighten easily," Mei Yin said softly.
"No," Lian agreed. "He does not. Only the unknown terrifies men like him. That is why they try so hard to catalog the world. Name each threat. Cage each flame."
Mei Yin's fingers brushed the red-tied packet. Her lashes lowered, veiling her eyes. "They say you burned a man once, with a thought."
Lian went very still. The cell seemed to contract, the air pressing against her skin.
"Who is 'they'?" she asked.
Mei Yin tilted her head. "Servants talk. Guards drink. Physicians sigh over their cups. There are stories of a palace spy who cornered you in the inner gardens the year of the great drought. Of how he reached for you, and you…stared at him, and his sleeves caught fire."
The memory flashed—not the way Mei Yin told it, but as it had been. A drunk cleric, hands fumbling, breath sour. The prick of panic, the surge of heat. The scent of scorched silk and hair, his howl as he flailed, the way the flames had leaped even in the damp night air.
Lian's hand closed around the edge of the table until her knuckles whitened. Back then, the fire had terrified her. A wild thing, slipping its leash.
Li Wei had found her shaking, kneeling in the charred dirt. He'd wrapped his own cloak around her shoulders, ignoring the smell, the cinders clinging to her hair.
"Fire defends," he had said quietly, not condemning, not afraid. "But you must learn when to call it—and when to let it sleep."
Let it sleep.
The Spirit-Numbing Ash had taken that choice from her.
"You were there, weren't you?" Mei Yin coaxed, her voice soft and coaxing, like a hand smoothing a frightened bird. "You felt it. Does it…hurt, Sister, to be cut off from such a gift?"
Lian looked at her.
Mei Yin's face was all sympathy. It was almost flawless. Almost.
"What do you want?" Lian asked.
The consort's smile did not falter. "Only to ease your suffering. You've lost your husband, your crown, your freedom. Now they say you have lost your…talent as well. I thought you might want to talk, woman to woman."
"Woman to woman," Lian repeated. "Does that mean 'viper to viper' now?"
The faintest flicker passed through Mei Yin's eyes. "You think me a snake?"
"I think you are whatever you need to be to survive," Lian said. "In that, we are not so different. Only our methods differ. I burned a man once without meaning to. You…" Her gaze dropped to the packet. "You prefer your fires to be slow and invisible."
Mei Yin's hand stilled.
Then she laughed, the sound low and genuinely amused for the first time. "Oh, Sister. Even without your flame, you see so much."
Lian's pulse ticked in her throat.
"How long?" she asked. "How long has it been in my food?"
Mei Yin toyed with the packet, turning it between her fingers, the red string gleaming like a smear of blood. "Since the second day," she said lightly. "The Regent Council wanted you dead. Huo wanted you shackled. I offered a compromise. A sleeping Phoenix is easier to guard than a dead Empress—or a living weapon."
"You betrayed him," Lian said. "The General. With this. You've shown him you do not trust his chains."
Mei Yin's smile sharpened, then softened. "Men like Huo never fear what they can see. But they trust nothing they do not control. He thought my plan cruel." She shrugged delicately. "I told him cruelty is mercy, if it prevents greater suffering."
"Whose?" Lian asked. "Mine? Or his?"
Mei Yin's lashes lifted. "Everyone's. Do you know what would happen if word of your Core spread? Neighboring kingdoms would send assassins and suitors both. Priests would clamor for your execution or your worship. The Regent Council would cut you into pieces and serve you to their altars, each claiming a blessing. The empire would bleed itself dry over you." She leaned forward, eyes gleaming. "This way, you are safe. Hidden. A forgotten ember."
"Safe," Lian echoed, tasting the word like ash. "In a cell."
"You're alive," Mei Yin said. "And as long as you stay that way, Huo cannot declare the Phoenix line extinguished. He cannot crown a new Empress without risk. You are a chess piece even now, Sister. I am simply keeping you from exploding off the board."
"How generous," Lian murmured.
Mei Yin's hand loosened on the packet. "I will continue to send your meals," she said. "The ash will ensure you never draw too deeply on what sleeps inside you. Think of it as a soft bandage. A muffling. One day, perhaps, when the empire is calmer, the Regent Council less…nervous, we can reassess."
Reassess.
Lian exhaled slowly. The urge to lunge across the space, to claw at Mei Yin's painted face, flared and died in the same breath. She would not give the consort the satisfaction of seeing her break.
"Tell me something," Lian said. "Does he know?"
Mei Yin paused. "Who?"
"Li Wei," Lian said, savoring the name as if it might somehow reach him, wherever he was—or was not. "In your prayers, when you kneel at the imperial tablets and weep, do you confess? Do you tell his spirit that you drug his wife in the dark while crying for his light in the day?"
Mei Yin's jaw tightened, just enough to crack the porcelain smoothness of her face. "The late Emperor," she said evenly, "made many choices without consulting us. He took burdens upon himself that were not his alone to shoulder. Perhaps, wherever he is now, he understands that we who remain must also make hard choices."
"Hard," Lian said. "Yes. Hard, and convenient."
"You think I envied you," Mei Yin said suddenly, the words slipping out sharp as a splinter. "In your gilded cage. With your legends and your Core and his attention." Her lips trembled, then steadied. "Some of us would have been content with ordinary lives. Ordinary husbands. Ordinary fates. But we were all dragged into his blaze, Sister. You most of all. I am only trying to keep the rest of us from burning."
Silence folded thick between them.
Lian felt for her Core—out of habit more than hope. Nothing answered. No warmth, no flicker. Only the numbness, deep and abiding, like snow over a buried city.
Forget me and fly.
Fly where, with clipped wings? With veins filled with ash?
Li Wei, she thought, not daring to shape the name aloud again. If your soul walks the Yellow Springs, turn back. There is nothing here worth your return.
But another voice in her, older than her marriage and younger than her grief, whispered: liar. There is you.
"I will eat what you send," Lian said finally. Let Mei Yin hear surrender in it if she wished. "It is better than starving."
Mei Yin's shoulders eased. "Good. Huo will be…relieved."
"Will he?" Lian asked. "Or will he find a new fear to build walls around?"
Mei Yin rose, smoothing her skirt. "Walls keep barbarians out and monsters in. I'm not particular which side of the stone I stand on, as long as I live to see another season."
She stepped back toward the door, then paused, studying Lian one last time. "Rest, Sister. The world beyond these walls is…changing. Rumors rise like steam from the streets. The regents snap at each other like dogs over a bone. Huo sharpens his knives. There is even talk of some common-born soldier in the southern districts whose eyes…" She frowned slightly. "Whose eyes make men bow without knowing why."
A tremor moved through Lian, too swift and fine to reach her face. "Common-born soldiers are like snowflakes," she said, forcing her voice gentle. "Plentiful. Short-lived."
"Perhaps." Mei Yin's gaze lingered. "In any case, your concern for such things is over. You will not see battlefields or throne rooms again."
"Perhaps," Lian echoed.
Mei Yin inclined her head, veil of grief slipping back into place. "Farewell, Sister. May your dreams be kinder than your days."
The door opened. Cold, unperfumed air knifed in. Mei Yin slipped out, her scent a vanishing ribbon, the packet of ash tucked neat against her breast.
When the lock slid home, the silence returned, thick and close.
Lian sat for a long time without moving.
Then, slowly, she placed a hand over her stomach, fingers splayed as if feeling for a heartbeat that was not entirely her own.
"You died for a secret," she whispered into the empty cell. "And they buried it under poison and stone."
Her breath misted in the air, each exhale pale as surrender.
"But even ash remembers fire."
She closed her eyes.
Somewhere, beyond the Cold Palace and the Regent Council's decrees, beyond Mei Yin's soft knives and Huo's iron walls, the empire moved. Dock ten, house three. A nameless soldier with a sword and a ghost of a crown.
Ordinary, she thought, tasting the lie in Mei Yin's wish for an ordinary life.
She had never been ordinary. Neither had he.
"They say a Phoenix cannot rise without a sacrifice of fire," she murmured to the stones. "They took my fire. They think the sacrifice was mine."
Her fingers curled slowly, nails biting into her palms until the pain sharpened her.
"They are wrong," Lian said, voice low and steady as a vow. "The sacrifice was his. And I will not let it be wasted."
In the frozen hollow of her spiritual sea, something—too small to be called a spark, too brief to be called heat—quivered and was gone.
Not yet, it seemed to say.
Not yet.
Lian opened her eyes to the cold, and for the first time since the scaffold, she did not feel only broken.
She felt waiting.