It should have been a triumph—a commander returning from victory. Instead, it felt like an exorcism in reverse. Each mile dragged something deeper out of me.
The visions came faster now. Clearer. Hungrier.
I saw men in crimson robes walking in slow circles beneath a sky that bled. I saw an old monk seated atop a lotus pedestal carved from charred bone—his hands open, his mouth unmoving, but the words still echoed inside me like a drumbeat beneath the skin. I recognized him.
Not from life—but from the vault.
From beneath Cao Wen.
The Lotus Pit.
It waits. It remembers. It chose.
I saw the scrolls again—the ones that bled when read, the star-maps that depicted no stars I've ever seen, only teeth. I saw a seal burning with the mark of the inverted lotus—the same symbol that adorned the Empress's altar in the capital, the same shape stitched in ash on the monk's bone beads.
I saw my hands soaked not in blood, but in ink—thick, black, and alive. It crawled down my wrists, into my veins, up through my eyes. I felt it writing something in me.
What does it mean?
What is this being trying to tell me?
Or worse—what has it already told me, and made me forget?
By the third day, the soldiers began to whisper.
They no longer looked at me as a leader, but as something cracked open and leaking. A vessel wearing the shape of their commander.
They didn't know what I saw. I made sure of that. I kept the mask on. I gave orders. I marched in silence. But behind my eyes, the screaming hadn't stopped.
Each night, I awoke with salt in my mouth and the taste of lotus ash on my tongue. I tried to wipe it away, but my hands were always clean.
The Empress kneels before her silent Buddha in the capital, but I've seen the truth beneath its feet.
Even a hollow idol can keep the old darkness quiet—for a time.
As the gates of Ling An drew closer, black against the winter sky, I realized something terrible:
Home no longer knows me.
And I no longer know what I am.
As the towers of Ling An loomed on the horizon—tall, pale spires piercing the grey winter sky—I expected relief.
Adulation. Parades. Trumpets and incense. The kind of welcome a victorious commander might receive after slaughtering the empire's enemies.
But I felt nothing.
No pride. No triumph.
Only dread.
The city's golden banners fluttered like funeral shrouds. The cheers of the people rang hollow in my ears, each cry of "Chosen by Heaven!" curdling into a whisper beneath my skin.
As the imperial palace came into view—its vermilion gates yawning wide like the mouth of some slumbering beast—I felt my chest tighten.
A eunuch approached with his painted face and practiced smile. He bowed low and spoke in a voice oiled with tradition:
"His Excellency, the Lord Protector, requests your presence in court. Immediately."
Of course.
No rest. No breath. No moment to remember who I used to be.
I entered the throne hall dressed in ceremonial black and silver, the armor still flecked with dried blood beneath the silks. My steps were steady. My eyes cold. I moved like a man returning from glory—but every inch of me knew I had just walked into a den of wolves.
The courtiers bowed.
The drums thundered once, then twice.
I passed beneath the great dragon beam and through the carved golden screen that shielded the inner hall—and found them waiting.
My brothers.
Wu Kang, arms folded, jaw clenched, draped in martial red, still fuming from my ascendancy.
Wu Jin, silent in scholar's grey, eyes flicking over me like a hawk measuring distance to strike.
Wu Taian, lounging as always, a smile curled on his lips, venom tucked behind charm.
But it was the fourth figure that made my breath catch.
A figure I had not expected.
My sister.
Wu Ling.
She stood to the side, half-shrouded in veils of white and crimson, her hands folded delicately before her. A gold chain ran from her brow to her ear, glittering softly in the lamplight. Her eyes—almond-shaped, dark, and distant—watched me with a calm that made my skin crawl.
Wife of the puppet emperor. Daughter of the same father. A woman dressed in light, but always standing in shadow.
I bowed slightly, masking the unease clawing up my spine.
She inclined her head in return—but said nothing.
Her presence filled the room like incense smoke—cloying, sweet, and stifling. I remembered the whispers: that she had studied under the monastics of the Eastern mountain temple, that she fasted on black lotus petals, that she never cast a shadow in the morning sun.
And behind her, just barely visible behind a silk curtain—stood a figure cloaked in saffron robes.
A monk. Old. Still. Unmoving.
I could not see his face. Only the dull glint of a bone bead rosary hanging from one wrist—each bead carved in spirals, familiar, wrong.
My fingers twitched involuntarily. The same patterns I had seen in Cao Wen.
The same shape etched into the vault, into dreams.
The air grew thick.
Does she know?
Has she seen what I've seen?
Her lips curled—slightly. Almost imperceptibly. A smile that spoke of knowledge never shared aloud.
I opened my mouth to speak—
And then the doors behind me boomed open with the sound of iron and storm.
The scent of sandalwood and steel flooded the hall.
The Lord Protector had arrived.
My father's presence swallowed the tension in an instant, as it always did. The siblings straightened. The monk vanished behind the curtain. And Wu Ling, serene as always, stepped back into her veil of mystery.
But her eyes did not leave mine.
And even as my father's voice echoed like a blade through the chamber—
—I could still feel her watching me.
Like something beneath the surface had recognized something inside me.
And smiled.