The ink on the victory edict hasn’t dried—and already my hand shakes.

I’m kneeling in the Hall of Whispering Scrolls, forehead pressed to cold black marble, reciting the Prince’s official commendation like a prayer. My tongue tastes copper. Behind me, the double doors groan open—not with ceremony, but with the scrape of clawed feet on jade.

She fills the doorway: Lan Mei, red skin gleaming under lantern-light, braids clinking like shattered chains, a fresh gash bleeding down her forearm. No bow. No title. Just that look—the one that unraveled my first battle plan three days ago, when she’d tossed a broken siege-engine schematic onto my desk and said, "Your third pivot is wrong. The ground here *breathes*."

"They know you altered the Fen Pass deployment," she says, voice low as grinding stone. "Shen’s hunters left the Eastern Gate an hour ago. They’ll check your quarters, then the archives… then they’ll come for *me*—because you looked at me twice."

My pulse hammers in my throat. The Prince’s seal glints on the edict beside me. My name—Wang Zeyu—is nowhere on it. It never is.

She steps forward, drops a small leather pouch at my knees. Inside: a shard of obsidian etched with ogre runes, a dried mountain pepper pod, and a single black feather.

"The Hollow Mountain opens at midnight," she says. "Or you stay. Sign the next edict. Let them carve your genius into their monuments—while they bury *you* alive."

The lanterns flicker. Somewhere, a bell tolls the third watch.

What do I do?