The snow had followed her.
Even ten years later, Lin Xia could still feel it clinging to her bones, cold, relentless, unforgiving. It lived in her memories the way scars lived beneath skin: unseen, but aching when the world turned quiet.
The Forbidden City rose before her now, its vermilion walls cutting sharply against the pale winter sky. The roofs gleamed with glazed tiles like frozen waves, golden and untouchable, as though the heavens themselves had crowned the place. From a distance, it was magnificent.
Up close, it smelled of blood that had long since dried.
Lin Xia lowered her gaze as she crossed the outer gate, a bamboo tray balanced neatly in her hands. Steam curled from porcelain teacups, carrying the delicate fragrance of jasmine and chrysanthemum. Her steps were small, obedient. Her spine bent just enough. Her face plain, forgettable, carefully so.
She was no longer Lin Xia of the noble Lin Family.
Here, she was "Mei Nu" , a nameless tea maid newly assigned to the Eastern Hall.
No one looked twice at tea maids.
That was why she had chosen this role.
The guards barely glanced at her as she passed. Their armor clinked softly, spears upright, eyes dull with routine. They did not see the dagger strapped tight against her thigh, wrapped in cloth dyed the same muted gray as her servant's robes. They did not hear the echo of screams that sometimes rang in her ears when footsteps aligned just right.
Ten years ago, these same walls had watched silently as an imperial decree sealed the fate of the Lin Family.
Treason, the decree had said.
The word still tasted bitter.
Inside the palace, warmth enveloped her, incense smoke, lacquered wood, silk curtains stirring with faint drafts. Officials murmured behind carved screens. Somewhere deeper within the complex, a court musician plucked at strings, the sound light and distant, like laughter from another life.
Lin Xia walked steadily, counting her breaths.
One. Two. Three.
Her first target was not a man.
It was information.
She entered the Eastern Hall and knelt smoothly beside the low table, pouring tea with hands that did not tremble. Her movements were precise, trained not by court etiquette alone, but by survival. She listened as she worked.
"…His Majesty grows impatient," one official whispered.
"The northern borders are restless again."
"And the old case?"
"Hush. Do you wish to die?"
Lin Xia's lashes lowered.
The old case.
That was what they called it now. As if the slaughter of an entire family, scholars, servants, children could be reduced to a handful of dust-covered records locked away in imperial archives.
She finished pouring and retreated, silent as breath.
As she turned, a sudden chill crawled up her spine.
The hall had gone quiet.
Not fully, no dramatic hush but something had shifted, like a blade being unsheathed just behind her.
Lin Xia stopped.
Then, slowly, she lifted her eyes.
He stood near the central pillar, tall and unmoving, clad in dark robes edged with silver thread. His presence bent the space around him, commanding without effort. His hair was bound high, his expression carved from frost.
Prince Xuan Jue.
The Ice Prince.
Even among royalty, he was spoken of in lowered voices. The Emperor's third son. The one who never smiled. The one who watched everything and said little. The one whose favor could elevate or erase.
Lin Xia had memorized his face long before returning to the capital.
Seeing him in person was… different.
His eyes were sharp, dark as frozen lakes. They rested on her not with interest, but with assessment like a man measuring the weight of a sword.
She bowed immediately, heart steady.
"Your Highness," she said, voice soft, perfectly ordinary.
He did not respond at once.
Seconds stretched.
Lin Xia felt it then a faint pressure in her chest, a sense of being seen too clearly. Not recognized. Not yet. But… noticed.
"Which hall do you serve?" he asked at last.
His voice was low, even. No warmth. No cruelty.
Dangerous in its calm.
"The Eastern Hall, Your Highness," she replied.
A lie. Or rather, a truth carefully chosen.
His gaze flicked briefly to the tea tray, then back to her face.
"You pour without spilling," he observed.
Lin Xia inclined her head. "I have practiced."
"Where?"
"In the outer kitchens."
Another lie, wrapped in plausibility.
Something unreadable crossed his expression.
For a moment, just a moment Lin Xia thought she saw something else beneath the ice. A flicker. Like recognition reaching for a memory it could not grasp.
Snow.
A girl with blood on her hands.
A boy half-frozen, barely breathing.
The moment passed.
"You may go," Prince Xuan Jue said.
She bowed again and withdrew, her pulse finally quickening once she turned the corner.
Only when she was alone did she allow herself a slow exhale.
So this was him.
The son of the man who had signed the decree.
The prince who would stand between her and the truth.
Or fall.
---
That night, Lin Xia did not sleep.
She sat cross-legged in her narrow servant's quarters, the dagger laid across her knees. The blade caught the candlelight, its edge thin and merciless. She traced the engraved mark near the hilt a symbol burned into her memory.
A debt of blood.
She remembered the snowstorm. The screams. Her mother's hands pushing her into the darkness.
Live, her mother had said. And remember.
Lin Xia closed her eyes.
Tomorrow, she would begin searching the inner archives. The poison registry. The ledgers sealed under the Emperor's personal mark.
She had waited ten years.
She could wait longer.
What she did not know, what fate had already begun to weave was that the Ice Prince had not forgotten the snow either.
And ghosts, once returned, never left quietly.