YUN RONG XIAN (雲榮羡)
Day 5, 5th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Taishan Province, Tian’an Sect
Wetness traced a slow line down my face, pooling at the curve of my chin before soaking into the cracks of my lips. I pinched the bridge of my nose, swiping a palm across my mouth.
Still bleeding.
Pain radiated through every limb, dull in some places and sharp in others. But kept a measured pace as I walked through the palace.
I could manage pain. I’d done it before.
I could pretend.
No one had ever known what I felt like in the past.
There was no reason for that to change now.
I rounded the next corner but immediately fell, slamming shoulder-first into a stone pillar. I clutched at my chest. The sensation of an explosion pounded at my ribcage. The impact reverberated through bone, but I stayed upright.
Hold the pain.
I surveyed the vicinity. Empty corridor. No eyes. Safe for now.
I pressed my back to the stone and forced air into my lungs through clenched teeth.
Then, I turned my palm upward and called my primordial spirit forth. It responded, pooling into my hand like mist condensing into form. A dull glow spiralled upward from my skin until five dragon scales emerged, suspended above my palm in a neat, unmoving ring.
Three of the scales shimmered faintly. Dim, but whole.
But the remaining two were unrecognisable. Blackened. Splintered at the edges. Fractured beyond repair.
Fragments of a spirit that would no longer regenerate.
Those shards would not recover.
Was it worth it? I didn’t know.
As I waited for the pain to subside, I used the time to thoroughly assess my surroundings.
The corridor was completely barren. Silent. Too silent for this time of day. The colonnade that wrapped around the pavilions usually bustled with maidservants, eunuchs, guards.
But today, there was nothing.
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Unplanned silence was not a good sign.
I needed to get back before the Empress arrived. Or rather, before she confirmed what she already suspected. Because the Empress was sure to come. Suspecting the very child she supposedly loved.
Just one more wall. One more wall.
I wiped the blood from my face, careful to clear the corners of my mouth, then leapt over the retaining wall into the gardens of my estate. I landed in a patch of shrubbery and the impact twisted my already unstable ankle. Agony flared, then dulled as threads of magic twisted through my primordial spirit and stitched it back into place.
They said the White Dragon gave true immortality.
They said the body of the White Dragon cannot break.
And I believed it, because my body never scarred.
Pain started in my chest again.
But I was starting to see that the supposed unbreakable body of the White Dragon was not all that it claimed to be: first, bīnghuǒdú; now, the punishment of Heavenly Lightning.
Interesting that both of those evils were born during the Lian Dynasty. No wonder my father eradicated them.
I swallowed. There is no time for pain.
I brushed leaves from my robes and walked with the etiquette expected of an idle prince, towards the main quarters. The key to deception was never in the acting. It was in the stillness. Stillness unsettled people. It left them guessing.
I pushed open the lacquered doors.
“Good day, Your Highness,” chorused the line of servants, heads bowed from the threshold to the far end of the room.
The winter wind surged in behind me, catching the loose ends of our clothes and scattering papers from desks. I walked forward through the tunnel of deference, each footstep deliberate, controlled.
I stopped halfway through the hall and bowed.
“Your Majesty.”
She was seated at my study desk. My desk. Her arms rested casually on the wood and her sleeves pushed to her elbows. Her silk skirts pooled around her, giving the impression of a reflective, frosted lake. She held a rolled bamboo scroll before her face.
“Ah, my son,” she said, peeking over it. “There you are.”
Her voice carried no accusation. Just that lilting warmth she used when she wanted something. But I noted the bruises on the cheeks of her handmaidens poorly concealed under powder. And the cracks along her fingernails. She'd taken out her anger already.
She rose and circled the desk, fingertips trailing along its edge. “I was wondering where you might have gone?”
I bowed again. “I was in the courtyard, Your Majesty.”
Given her position, I suspected she had only just arrived. Likely she’d checked the standard locations: my bedroom, the west study, the covered walkway. But there would not be enough time to survey the outer grounds, the gardens, or my courtyard.
She tapped the desk with one finger.
A subtle test. Pressure to speak more.
To embellish.
That’s what liars do. They add unnecessary detail, believing it makes their stories more convincing.
But it doesn’t. It exposes them.
And I knew how to withstand her pressure.
A sigh. “My son, you are unwell. You shouldn’t be wandering about in the winter wind.”
She didn’t believe me. But she couldn’t prove it.
I inclined my head. “I thank Your Majesty for your concern.”
She wasn’t finished.
“It’s a good thing I replaced that useless bodyguard of yours,” she said, her voice smooth.
She reached into her sleeve and pulled something out.
Jiang Feng’s crossbow.
“He was sighted at the execution grounds, rather than at your side,” she continued. She placed the crossbow on my desk with a casual grace, as if it weren’t a threat. As if it weren’t a message.
Then she turned and walked back through the corridor of servants, skirts brushing the floor.
“This is for the best, my good son,” she said over her shoulder.
I didn’t reply.
There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t fall into her trap.
He will be fine. I planned for this.
He will be fine. I knew this might happen.
He will be fine.
Because I always know what’s right. I always do. That’s who I was. That’s who I am.
Isn’t it?
