Night had fallen over the imperial palace.
The day had been filled with ordinary sounds—officials leaving the court, servants carrying lanterns through the corridors, guards changing their posts, and distant bells marking the passing hours.
But inside the Emperor's private study, everything was quiet.
Too quiet.
The Emperor sat alone behind a broad sandalwood desk.
A single lamp burned beside him.
Its flame trembled whenever the night wind slipped through the narrow gap in the window.
Before him lay several ledgers.
He had been reading them for nearly an hour.
Taxes.
Grain shipments.
Military expenses.
Reports from distant provinces.
Normally, numbers and accounts were enough to occupy his mind.
Tonight, however, he found himself repeatedly losing focus.
His eyes would move across a line of figures, yet his thoughts would return to the same matter.
The Empress.
Her strange illness.
The lake.
The black altar.
The talismans.
