The city breathed; the city remembered. With each inhalation, Ling An drew its streets closer around the palace like a fist, and with each exhalation, the tunnels below filled with a low, tidal hum.
Wu An walked where the ground forgot to be ground. The not-light ahead of him was a vertical wound in the dark, a column of absence that gave off the scent of snowmelt and old ink. When he lifted his hand toward it, the scars across his chest flickered, red brightening to white before cooling to ash. His shadow rose and fell behind him like a net cast upon black water, catching the names of men it had once been.
Shen Yue kept her distance. The echo of her whisper lagged behind her by three heartbeats, then came back as if someone else had spoken. "What is it asking of you?"
"Not what," he said, listening to a bell that had not rung yet. "Who."
He stepped closer. The wound widened by a finger's width and the cavern filled with a vision that did not arrive from memory so much as force memory to kneel. Torches hissed. Armor clinked. A circle of soldiers in the Lord Protector's colors stood at attention, faces held in the disciplined blankness of men who obey to avoid thinking. The man at their center—younger, broader in the shoulder, beard black—cut his palm over an empty basin carved like a shut lotus. Beside him, an officiant in travel-stained robes chanted from a sutra whose lines refused to keep still.
"Unity for winter," the officiant intoned. "Bread from bone. Banners that do not break."
The Lord Protector did not kneel. His shadow did. He let the blood fall; it hissed without smoke. His head turned, a fractional tilt, as if answering a voice in a corner the torches never reached.
The vision sealed itself back into stone. Shen Yue's breath shook. "He knew."
"He thought he was paying copper for a bridge," Wu An murmured. "He did not ask where the bridge led."
He touched the wound again, and the not-light drew back a fraction, as though the world were willing to open if asked in the correct grammar of blood. Somewhere overhead, faint and patient, the court bells began to toll—once, and once again, and then a long note that bent at the middle the way a knee bends when forced.
"Let them come," he said, turning from the wound. "They have, for years."
In the Lotus Hall, harmony had been arranged with ruthless care. The banners of the He Lian Dynasty hung in perfect intervals. The throne of melted bells held its shine like a mouth holds a secret. Even the air smelled of proper incense, courtly, pearled, a reminder that civilization could be extracted from rot if one had enough will and a knife.
Wu Jin sat like a sword sheathed in his own spine. If his right hand trembled on the arm of the throne, he did not still it so much as require the tremor to become part of the pose. Ministers stood in ranks. Their faces were composed. Their shadows were not.
An usher entered and knelt until forehead touched stone. "Your Majesty, an envoy of the Great Zhou begs audience."
"Admit him," Wu Jin said.
The envoy came as men come who know geography favors them: unarmed, in layered white and indigo, eyes lowered to the proper degree. His robe was clean in the way snow is clean: to better show stains. He bowed, unrolled a scroll sealed in vermilion, and held it with both hands.
"Under Heaven," he said in a voice trained to respect and count, "the Emperor of Zhou congratulates the newly risen He Lian court and recognizes His Majesty Wu Jin, Nan He Wang (南和王)—King of the Peaceful South—for restoring harmony to his divided lands."
A ripple of breath passed the hall. The word Emperor had not been granted. King had, and in the south besides. Recognition without legitimacy; a coronation hemmed in courtesy.
Wu Jin's smile showed no teeth. "The Emperor of Zhou is generous."
The envoy continued with gentle precision, as if reading the weather: "The Great Zhou, in its concern for order, will dispatch an escort to safeguard vulnerable borders and assist in pacifying elements yet loyal to fallen claims. In these unsettled days, neighbors must practice benevolence."
Aid. An army in white silk. A hand on the wrist that could become a shackle when convenient.
Wu Jin inclined his head. "Tell your Emperor that benevolence is a gift we will remember."
The envoy's eyes flicked, no higher than a man's chin. "Zhou remembers, always." He bowed to the degree prescribed for kings and not for emperors, replaced the scroll in its case, and withdrew with the faint scent of cold trailing him.
The hall emptied on the second bell. Wu Shuang remained at the foot of the dais, her hair braided into a loop that caught breath from the room. She watched her brother as if he were a written decree she could not translate. "You will receive them?"
"Of course," he said.
"You'll let them cross the passes?"
"As far as the passes," he said, letting the sentence sit until it learned to be a trap. "Let them come far enough to bleed. We will be grateful; they will be careful. Careful men do not see the knife until they require it for themselves."
"Father still holds the Hei," she said. "The Southern Kingdom keeps the Liang Emperor like a puppet at an altar and calls it a crusade to liberate us from your theft. Zhou offers help. Everything converges on our throat."
Wu Jin rose, not quickly. His shadow stayed where it was a beat too long, then followed. "Then we will learn to breathe with hands around our neck," he said lightly. "And make them believe it was their idea to squeeze."
For the first time, some minister brave enough to live to old age might have admitted to himself that Wu Jin's recklessness had learned a new grammar. Strategy had entered his bones. He smiled as he counted distances.
He gestured, and a chamberlain scurried close. "Prepare a banquet," Wu Jin said. "Not lavish. The kind that offends no one and pleases nothing. Post our best riders in the northern gullies. If Zhou's columns descend, they will find the mountain generous with stones."
"Your Majesty, the messenger from the Hei—"
"Feed him. Bind his tongue to rest with wine." He added, quieter, "Have the dispatch copied—twice. If its ink runs, keep the paper."
When the chamberlain fled, Wu Jin let the smile fall as a man puts down a cup. He looked toward the window where the false sun sagged like a tired lantern. "The South will preach righteousness while sharpening knives. Zhou will bless us while counting doorways. Father will die believing he held a line. And we," he said, almost to himself, "will inherit a silence loud enough to keep gods awake."