At dawn, the crows gathered by the hundreds—great black wings beating in slow, deliberate circles above the citadel. They did not scatter, not even when fire was lit below. They watched. They waited. As if drawn not by carrion, but by something older, something festering beneath stone and throne.
Some nobles tried to flee in the night—disguised in servant robes, smeared with soot, mouths full of prayers. We found them all. The people needed no trial. Judgment came swift, cruel, and unspoken. The earth drank deep that morning.
I sat in the warlord's chair—once a governor's seat—ruling what remained of this city. It was quiet now, unnaturally so. The kind of silence that follows a scream, or a dream one tries to forget. The markets reopened. The temples chanted again. Children played in courtyards soaked just days before in blood. They called it peace. But I knew better.
This city did not breathe. It watched.
Sometimes I caught glimpses in the reflection of water basins—my face warping into something else, eyes too black, mouth too wide. I blinked, and it was gone. Just a trick of light, I told myself. Just exhaustion. But the scent of iron still clung to my skin no matter how hard I scrubbed, and when I closed my eyes at night, I could still hear whispering—not in my ears, but deep within the hollows of my skull.
Then: "Report!" came a cry at the gates, shattering the haze.
A soldier approached, stiff with nerves, holding a scroll wrapped in crimson ribbon. "A dispatch from the Capital, Your Highness."
The parchment was untouched by ash or dust. Smooth. Cold. Unnatural. It did not belong in this place. It smelled like lilies—funeral flowers.
I didn't need to read it.
The summons had come. The war here was over, but the true struggle awaited me in the Capital—where masks were thicker, smiles sharper, and every step forward might fall through a trapdoor. And behind it all, the visions pulsed stronger, waking from whatever sleep I'd buried them in.
I was going home.
But I no longer knew what that word meant.
Ling An – Capital City of the Northern Kingdom
The scent of sandalwood and ancient dust drifted through the chamber, heavy as fog. Smoke curled upward from blackened incense pots, trailing like fingers across the ceiling beams. Every sound was muffled here, as though the room itself refused to let the outside world intrude.
At the center stood a weathered statue of the Buddha—massive, expressionless, smiling faintly. But the smile was too calm, too still, as if it had seen far too much. The stone was cracked at the base, the eyes eroded not by time, but by something far deeper—by prayers whispered too often in the dark.
Beneath that silent gaze, a woman knelt.
She wore red like blood and gold like firelight. Her robe shimmered faintly in the lamplight, and her crown rested delicately atop hair pinned with the precision of ritual. She did not speak. Her hands rested, palms open, on her lap as she whispered a mantra. Not loud—just enough that the words might only be heard by the stone face above her. Or by something beyond it.
Behind her, in the far shadow of the room, stood a monk.
He was old—perhaps ancient. His skin was thin and grey, as if the blood beneath it had forgotten how to flow. He wore nothing but simple robes, frayed at the hem and stained with ash. A strand of prayer beads dangled from one wrist, but some of the beads were not wooden or stone—some were made from bone, carved in spiral patterns that the eye struggled to follow. He said nothing. But his eyes never left the Buddha's face. Not even once.
The woman's prayer ended.
Stillness followed, deep and unbroken, until the curtain at the chamber's edge was drawn back by a nervous hand.
A servant stepped in, bowing low. "Forgive me, Your Highness…"
No answer.
"…but news has arrived. Prince Wu An has returned. Victory… total. And swift. The court says the people call him 'Chosen by Heaven.'"
Silence.
The girl hesitated. "Your other brothers—Wu Kang and Wu Jin—they've begun to move their pieces. The northern court is shifting. There are rumors…"
The woman opened her eyes at last.
"I expected nothing less," she said quietly. Her voice was soft but cold, like silk over a blade. "They are eager, but blind. They chase the shadows of our father's legacy without knowing whose hand casts them."
The girl looked up slightly, confused. "My lady…?"
"The throne is not where power lives," she continued, standing slowly. "It never was. My brothers see armies and crowns and think they have glimpsed the truth. But truth lies deeper."
Her gaze drifted toward the altar.
Even the smoke paused.
"Even a hollow idol," she murmured, "can keep the old darkness quiet. For a time."
The monk stirred slightly. His lips moved, shaping words in an ancient tongue. The servant could not understand them, but a strange pressure settled into the air—like a second silence layered beneath the first.
The woman stepped toward a lacquered cabinet tucked behind the altar. Inside, resting atop folded silk, lay a sealed scroll marked by the inked symbol of an inverted lotus—its petals curled like teeth, its stem entwined with unreadable script.
"I will send word to the monastery," she said, more to herself than to anyone else. "The lotus waits beneath the lake. Even in winter, it grows."
The servant shivered.
The old monk, at last, turned his head toward her. His gaze did not accuse, did not question. It only knew.
The girl dropped to her knees. "Your highness…"
Only then did the lady turn fully, her face calm, unreadable.
"Prepare my robes for court. I will greet my brother myself." She commanded