Smoke stung my lungs as I crawled from the funeral pyre, my skin blistered, my name already erased from the records. They thought fire could silence me. They were wrong.

I remember his voice—calm, detached—as he read my sentence: 'For treason against the crown, Consort Yu shall be burned at dawn.' The same lips that once kissed my brow now sealed my tomb.

Now, rain pelts the graveyard where they left no marker. My fingers dig into the mud, clutching a broken phoenix pendant—the last relic of my true lineage. I survived. And I will make him regret the day he mistook mercy for weakness.

But footsteps crunch on wet gravel. A tall figure emerges from the fog—black armor, silver insignia of Marquis Wuyang. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t know.

Yet he kneels, offering a cloak. 'I saw the flames,' he says. 'And I saw you rise.'

My breath catches. Does he know who I am? Will he turn me in—or stand beside me?