ZE ZHI WEI (萴智危)

  Day 1, 5th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Taishan Province, Tian’an Sect

  The Imperial Guards began tightening their ranks.

  Their auras made the air feel twice as thick. Everyone who wasn’t a noble dropped to their knees immediately, and I followed, doing my best impression of a dutiful royal servant just arriving on time. My limbs trembled and sweat seemed to leak from every pore in my body, adding to the stuffiness of kneeling in a crowd.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Yu Haifei and my mother. Both were kneeling, both looking serene. But not my brother.

  Yijun…where are you?

  From the dais, Princess Changping glided into view and sat beside the Emperor. Her every movement was refined down to the weight of her sleeves, which didn’t so much as rustle the cushion beneath her. She moved like a brushstroke in a calligraphy scroll.

  Someone else stepped into my line of sight.

  No.

  I blinked. Then blinked again.

  That can’t be right.

  Yun Rongxian.

  He stood before the monarchs, offering a low bow, then turned and walked to his seat beside the Empress. She beamed at him. And he just nodded, as if receiving her love were a formality.

  But something was different.

  His hair was loose now, gathered only by a wooden hairpin that looked like a branch. His robes of navy blue were embroidered with silver flowers and dragons. His whole presence had changed. As if he’d walked through some invisible door and become someone else.

  Something had happened.

  Something had gone wrong.

  And suddenly, there it was again. A weight in my stomach as heavy as a stone. Not guilt. Not fear.

  Dread.

  “Now,” the Emperor said, turning ever so gently to the Empress, “what would you like to do?”

  His voice was sugar-dipped, the kind of tone that made my stomach curl inwards. Sweet, yes. But sweet like rotten fruit. Good for you, Yun Yanlin. Is that how you spoke to my mother too? Is that how you made her fall for you?

  The Empress turned toward him. Her face that was painted like a porcelain doll, settled into a practiced expression of grief. “fūjūn,” she murmured, “someone harmed my servant. You know I love my servants as I do my own children. They are my everything.”

  She dabbed delicately at her nose with an iron-pressed handkerchief, her tone the very image of heartbreak. But I could barely hear it over the pounding of alarm bells inside my skull.

  Yun Rongxian should be dead.

  Why did he change his clothes?

  Where is Yijun?

  I fought the urge to scoff or throw up because neither would’ve helped my case. Her words were fake. Her tears were faker. But no one else seemed to care.

  “I demand recompense,” she whispered, stretching her manicured hand toward the Emperor like a spoiled pet waiting for its master’s reassurance.

  The Emperor nodded as if she were a child asking for candy, gently patting her hand. Then he turned, this time to the Crown Prince. “Yun Hui. You were there. Tell me what happened.”

  The Crown Prince inclined his head, ready to speak, but his mother cut him off.

  “My personal maidservant,” she snapped, “was shot. With an arrow.”

  Gone was the grieving flower. In her place stood something sharp and honed. A predator in silk. If anyone was startled by the transformation, they didn’t show it.

  “A very, very special arrow.” She let the word hang in the air, heavy with implication. Her gaze swept the gathered crowd like a hawk circling above a nest of field mice.

  I didn’t need to look to know where her eyes would land.

  They found me.

  “Bring the arrow here,” she said, still staring. I didn’t blink. I didn’t dare.

  Something had gone wrong.

  No. No, calm down. It’s an Imperial Hunt. These things happen. Accidents. Stray arrows. Someone could’ve mistaken the servant for a small animal. Female servants small enough.

  It could happen. It happens all the time.

  A eunuch approached the dais with a bamboo tray, balanced and slow like he was presenting an offering to the heavens. On the tray, blood still clung to the arrow like wine-soaked silk.

  I pressed a hand to my abdomen. The knot of dread had formed a long time ago, but now it twisted, tightening like a noose.

  The Emperor reached for it.

  No, no—don’t touch it. If he gets pricked, if he’s poisoned, then they’ll know. They’ll know someone meant to kill. It won’t just be passed of as an accident. But murder. Someone stop him—

  I shifted forward, barely an inch, but it was enough for the Empress to tilt her head like a bird sensing a tremor in the earth.

  I froze.

  Gosh. You’re already suspicious, stop digging your grave.

  “Careful, Your Majesty. We believe it is poisoned,” the Crown Prince said.

  That ship has sailed. That ship is a speck on the horizon. That ship never existed, because it exploded the moment you loosed the arrow. Now they know it’s poisoned, they’re going to think you murdered them.

  Calm down. Calm down. What makes them think it’s you? They don’t know anything. Do they?

  She’s still staring at me like she wants to flay me alive and grind my bones into medicine.

  She always looks at you like that, Zhiwei. Get a grip.

  The Emperor picked up the arrow, completely unbothered by the bloodied tip. He turned it in his fingers, lightly brushing the feathers at the end, then bringing the head up to the light.

  I wish I cherished time more. Time moves too quickly when you’re about to die.

  He signalled to Eunuch Sun and whispered something.

  Eunuch Sun cleared his throat. “Captain Ze Zhiwei, come here.”

  For a moment, I couldn't move. My legs felt like they were part of the earth. But just as the eunuch stepped down to drag me forward, I scrambled to my feet.

  “Your Majesty,” I said. My voice cracked. I tried to stand tall; to pretend I had dignity. But I wasn’t sure where I'd left it.

  The Emperor didn’t even look at me as he handed the arrow to the eunuch.

  “Give it to him. Let him verify it.”

  “Captain Ze Zhiwei, please examine the arrow tail,” said Eunuch Sun.

  The whole conversation felt like we were actors pretending we weren’t standing two feet apart. Couldn’t you just say it to my face, Father? No. Of course not. That might make me real.

  I took the arrow with trembling fingers. No guilty man would ever willingly handle the murder weapon.

  Except, apparently, for me.

  I turned it once, twice, praying for anything that might save me. I didn’t know what I was supposed to see.

  Then I returned it.

  “Did you see it clearly?” the Emperor asked. His voice was low, almost kind. That scared me most of all.

  See what clearly?

  “Your Majesty, I—”

  “I believe what Captain Ze Zhiwei wishes to say,” the Empress cut in smoothly, “is that the emblem of Liantai Sect has been branded into the arrow tail.”

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  My mouth opened before my thoughts caught up. I stared at her, eyes wide, lips parted.

  She smirked.

  “You wouldn’t dare lie to His Majesty,” she cooed. “Would you?”

  I grabbed the arrow again—too quickly. The tray clattered off the dais. Blood smeared across the shaft. My eyes darted to the tail.

  And there it was.

  The blooming lotus wrapped by a phoenix.

  Liantai Sect.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  This was a trick. It had to be.

  “You—no. You did this!” I pointed at her. “You tampered with it! You—”

  She smiled.

  I pun around, searching the crowd.

  Where was my mother?

  Then I saw her. She was being dragged forward, robes torn, hair undone. Her soft white silks were shredded and dirt-streaked, flapping behind her like torn paper banners.

  “Stop this!” I shouted, fury pouring out of me. “We haven’t done anything! Don’t you get bored of this?”

  The Empress merely examined her nails, and her lashes lowered like a curtain.

  I drew my sword.

  The metal sang as I unsheathed it, and a storm of steel followed. Imperial Guards unsheathed their weapons in unison.

  “Protect His Majesty!”

  I tightened my grip, my arms shaking. That bastard.

  “Everyone stop.”

  The Crown Prince’s voice was soft, but it cleaved through the chaos. The weapons lowered. Just enough to notice.

  He stepped closer, calm despite the blade pointed at his chest. Two fingers reached out and gently nudged the tip aside.

  “Zhiwei.”

  It was my turn. He was giving me a chance. Perhaps, if I did lower my sword, everything would be forgiven. Perhaps, it really could be explained. We could be civilised.

  His Highness stepped closer to me, fearless of the sharpened sword I jabbed at him. His dark eyes were sure and penetrating, beckoning me, calling me. Put it down.

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  No.

  I slashed.

  Then repositioned it before me as I glared at the royal bastards who arrogantly lazed in their golden thrones. The guards flew into formation, charging at me in organised attacks. I batted them off, slicing and drawing blood, just as they stabbed and cut me.

  I want my mother.

  The Crown Prince met me with his sword. The metal whined as the blades scratched against each other in a stalemate. But it was all in the eyes which told me who was the true victor. My palms sweated and I pushed against his wall of a sword.

  “Zhiwei. Stop.” He spoke the words under his breath.

  “Why should I?” I retorted, before escaping the deadlock.

  I aggressively slashed my own sword against him. He held his stance defensively, refusing to parry my blows. Even now, he conceded. He thought I was weaker. He belittled me. I swung my sword wildly, clashing violently against his steel. I gripped the handle with two hands, twisting my blade into an upright position.

  Deadlock again.

  He lowered his voice even more, forcing me to lip-read. “You already released one arrow. Why did you shoot the second?”

  I gawked at him.

  A second arrow? I didn’t shoot a second arrow.

  My hesitation cost me. His kick landed cleanly in my side, and I crashed to the ground.

  Guards rushed forward. But then the Crown Prince lifted his hand, expressionless and patiently, and they stopped.

  He held out his other hand to me, a silent question about our brotherhood.

  But was it even possible to go back?

  “Stop now, or she dies.”

  The Empress stood behind my mother, placing her taloned hand against my mother’s white-skinned throat. In her other, dark fiery miasma flickered and danced—heihui (黑灰). The one she used to consume immortal cores. If she got my mother’s immortal core…

  I dropped my sword.

  “There’s a good boy,” the Empress crooned, her voice velvet-slick with mockery. She gripped my mother’s jaw and twisted her face upward, examining her as one might a blemished fruit. “Not so useless after all. It seems you’ve managed to raise a filial son.”

  I clenched my teeth so tightly my jaw ached. She said it like it was a joke. Like I was a trained pet. Like none of this had cost us anything.

  “Baolan, please—” the Emperor started, but his voice was tired, perfunctory. He wasn’t speaking for her. He wasn’t speaking for us. He was speaking for the image of a dynasty that had already begun to rot beneath its lacquered smile.

  He had long abandoned my mother. Long abandoned me.

  “Your Majesty,” the Empress snapped, not even glancing at him, “if you show mercy now, they’ll crawl back like dogs. And next time, you won’t be so lucky when they bite!”

  She thrust her palm into my mother’s chest. A terrible silence followed. One that stretched, breathless, across the dais.

  My mother convulsed.

  She writhed against the guard’s grip, and blood spurted from her lips like rust spilled across silk. Her face tilted toward me, all ashen with eyelids half-lowered. And for a brief moment, I thought she might call my name.

  But she said nothing. She simply swayed, as though she had forgotten how to stand.

  The blotches on her skin startled me. They were the kind you saw on political prisoners. Old bruises buried beneath fresh ones, yellow blooming over blue like mould spreading across paper.

  When had she started to look so haggard?

  I knew. I knew. And yet—

  I stepped forward.

  Immediately, arms closed in from all sides. I thrashed against them, but they held fast. Hands dragged me down, pressing me into the polished stone of the palace floor. Dust filled my mouth, my nostrils, my eyes. I coughed, twisted, and tried to look up to see their faces. I just wanted to see.

  The pressure on my back changed.

  It gave way with a strange thud, replaced by something limp and heavy against my shoulder. I shifted slightly, blinking through the haze.

  A guard’s body lay beside me. His lips trembled. His nostrils flared wildly. A black-feathered arrow jutted from his back.

  I turned my head just in time to see another arrow split through the air. It struck the second guard square in the ribs. He collapsed, his body writhing, a bubbling black foam spilling from his mouth. That reaction of twitching, choking, and frothing.

  That could only mean one thing.

  Poison.

  I wrenched myself away and covered my ears, bracing.

  The arrow exploded mid-air with a muffled pop. Smoke erupted in a thick, chalky plume, swallowing the light. Screams broke out all around the court. Not soldiers. Courtiers. Nobles. Witnesses. They ran, or tripped, or simply stood frozen, clutching their throats like they might tear them out.

  I could feel the itch in my own. A subtle prickling, a dryness just behind the tongue.

  Would I turn grey? Would I convulse like that?

  I’d read accounts of soldiers in the western campaigns poisoned by enemy gas. They said it felt like drowning in broken glass. Men had clawed their own skin raw trying to breathe. But…the itch in my throat remained a tickle. No spasms. No foam.

  It must react differently depending on the victim’s constitution. One of those poisons with selective effects. Probably something meant to target high yang individuals—commanders, perhaps.

  Not someone like me.

  Another arrow sailed through the smoke and felled one of my mother’s captors. Then another. They collapsed like puppets with their strings severed. She dropped to the ground in a graceless heap.

  Friend or foe, I didn't know. But I couldn’t waste the chance.

  I bolted towards her, half-stumbling, half-running through the chaos. Her head lolled as I caught her. Her eyes fluttered, unfocused. She murmured something I couldn’t understand and then sagged completely in my arms. She felt too light. Hollow.

  We had to go. We had to go—

  Pain erupted in my calf. Sharp, hot, blinding.

  I screamed. I fell.

  The stairs caught me. My left knee cracked against the edge, and I nearly lost my grip on her. But I held on, cradling her head just in time to keep it from smacking the floor.

  My calf throbbed and a wet warmth spread through the torn fabric of my trousers. I glanced down. An arrow. Short fletching. Not like the ones from before.

  Sniper? No...this was no coordinated rescue. Someone else was still aiming.

  I bit back another cry and pulled my dagger from the leather loop at my chest. The blade was standard-issue, mostly ceremonial, but it was still sharp. I cut through the arrow tail and left the rest buried. No time for hot and clean. No time for pretty bandages.

  I crawled to my mother again, ignoring the jolt of pain that shot up my spine with every movement.

  And then I saw him.

  A figure in the smoke.

  He emerged like a dream turned solid. The silhouette sharpened as the mist parted. I stopped moving. My breath caught.

  All sound faded.

  All I could see was him.

  The one I had been searching for today.

  The one whose face was a mirror of mine.

  Yijun.

  He stepped into the light, an arrow already nocked to his bowstring, pointed at me.

  “It wasn’t meant to be this way,” Yijun said. His voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of something long decided. “But it’s too late now.”

  I couldn’t find any words. I just stared. My lips parted uselessly, as though sound might eventually arrive if I waited long enough. But it never did.

  He inched forward, each step hesitant, like he didn’t trust the ground beneath him. His bow was still drawn, held in front of him like a makeshift shield, the tension in the string mirrored in his jaw and shoulders. The cords of his forearm pulsed with strain. He was shaking. “You should’ve just died,” he whispered. “Why couldn’t you just die?”

  My stomach knotted.

  “Why did mother choose you?” he asked, his voice barely containing his fury. “Or Yu Haifei? Or that sissy Crown Prince?” His steps grew faster. “Why does everyone choose you!?”

  The arrow tip hovered less than an arm’s length from my face.

  “What did you do, Yijun?” I demanded.

  He scoffed. “Look at you. Even now, you think you’re better than me.”

  “It’s not about that. Look at yourself. What have you done?”

  “No!” he snapped. His voice cracked like a whip. I flinched, actually remembering he was holding loaded bow in such close proximity to my face.

  “The real question is what you have done,” he snarled. “You tried to kill the Crown Prince. You plotted to murder him—”

  “That’s just not true.”

  “—and you dragged our mother into this mess—”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “—and still, you refuse to admit it! Gods, you’re still lying.” His eyes were red rimmed now, veins visible around the whites. “Brother, you must be truly dense if you think no one saw you hiding in that oak tree.”

  Time stopped. “I…” My tongue stumbled. “How did you know it was an oak tree?”

  His face flickered.

  “You were following me,” I said.

  He stiffened. “Don’t turn this on me. I’m not the one who—”

  “I knew it.”

  “I don’t need to follow my stupid brother to see him commit a dumb crime!”

  “Why,” I said. Just the one word. A small thing. But it cracked something in him.

  “Why?” He gave a bitter laugh. “Why!? I’ll tell you why, you—”

  He kept ranting, flailing the bow wildly as he did, the arrow still threatening my face like a guillotine waiting for the signal. But I had already stopped listening. My thoughts blurred.

  Somewhere in the fog of pain behind my eyes, the dull throb of my leg pulsed again. A reminder. An anchor. I had cut the tail of the arrow earlier so it wouldn’t rip the wound open any worse. I'd kept the severed end without thinking.

  Now I realised I was still holding it.

  I blinked down at it, then slowly uncurled my clenched fist.

  There it was.

  The faint glint of silver from the crest engraved on the shaft.

  Liantai Sect.

  My mouth went dry. I stared at it and wished, truly wished, that it wasn’t what it was. The second arrow.

  “You shot it,” I said, voice barely audible.

  Yijun’s fingers tightened on the bowstring. His throat bobbed with a swallow.

  “You shot it,” I repeated, louder now.

  He narrowed his eyes but didn’t deny it.

  In a surge of movement, I ripped my dagger free and struck, knocking the bow from his hand. It clattered to the ground. I pressed the blade to his throat.

  "You idiot!" I hissed. “You betrayed us all!”

  He laughed bitterly. “I just finished the job you dumbly started.”

  My grip found the collar of his robes, and I yanked him forward. “You shot that arrow! The one with the crest! You tried to kill the Crown Prince, and then you tried to pin it on me!” I was shouting now. “You shot me! You could have killed mother!”

  His expression didn’t change. If anything, he seemed almost pleased to see me like this.

  The smoke was beginning to lift now. What had once been a thick veil over the dais was thinning into drifting plumes, dissipating with the morning light.

  Our opportunity to escape was slipping away.

  But I couldn’t let him go. Not yet. I needed to know.

  “Why?” I whispered.

  His lips curled. “Why did An Lingqi have to choose you?”

  I let go. My hands fell slack.

  A sound broke through the ringing in my ears—There they are!

  The guards surged forward, spirit-imbued lassos unfurling in streams of golden thread. One wrapped around my chest, another around Yijun’s arms. The energy was sharp and searing. It burned where it touched my skin, as though the gods themselves had judged us already.

  I didn’t fight.

  Maybe I should have. Maybe I should’ve dropped my weapon earlier like the Crown Prince had said.

  Because now...now, it was too late.

  We had committed treason.

  Our mother would die for it.

  All because Yijun wanted a girl.