General Wei Xian sat beneath a waning moon, polishing the edge of his sword until it gleamed like a silver fang. His camp was quiet—soldiers fast asleep, the fires low, and only the distant howl of a mountain wind whispering between tents.
He wasn't one to dwell on the past.
But tonight, the past had arrived in the form of a wax-sealed letter bearing a feather—not the mark of any noble house, but something far older. A symbol from another life.
He'd known it the moment his aide placed it into his hands. His fingers had trembled, just once.
Now, in the quiet, he read it again.
> General Wei,
There is a rot at the heart of the Golden Court. You know it. I know it.
Let us speak plainly.
The Emperor delayed reinforcements to your brother's unit because he feared that victory would make you too powerful. He did not want you loved by the people, only useful to the throne.
He feared loyalty that wasn't his.
Your brother died because of a coward's pride and an emperor's envy.
The Empress Dowager knows. She advised him.
They both drank to your loss.
I was there.
I remember the taste of that wine.
—Q
Wei Xian's hands clenched around the letter until the parchment crinkled.
He had always suspected it.
But suspicion and truth were different beasts.
The weight of the paper now pressed on his chest like iron.
Two years ago, he had nearly lost himself to grief. His younger brother, Wei Jian, was more than blood—he had been the moral compass, the steady soul. And he had died in an ambush that should never have happened, because the promised reinforcements never came.
Wei Xian had questioned. Protested. Demanded inquiry.
And what had the court done?
They had thrown him silver, praised his valor, and buried the matter in silence.
He never forgot. But Lin Qiyue… she had vanished. Rumor said she'd fallen from favor, a quiet disgrace.
He never expected her to return to court, let alone send him this.
He read the final lines again, eyes narrowed.
"I remember the taste of that wine."
She had been close, then. Closer than he'd known.
The memory of her stung like smoke in his lungs.
They had been promised once, long ago. Before her family's fall, before she was offered up as a concubine to appease the throne.
He had raged when they took her. Sworn to burn the palace down.
But she had written him a single letter.
> "Live," it had said. "Live long enough to bury them all."
And he had obeyed.
Now, she was asking him to remember. To choose vengeance.
And he would.
But carefully.
---
Two days later, in the capital, Lin Qiyue received a single plum blossom folded in silk.
No message. No signature.
Just the flower.
It was enough.
Wei Xian remembered.
And he was ready.
---
That same day, Qiyue received another unexpected summons—not from the Emperor, nor the Dowager.
But from Consort Jin, the quiet one. The only concubine who rarely courted favor, but who had stayed in the palace for five years without scandal or disgrace.
Consort Jin's chambers were tucked behind a weeping willow garden, secluded and modest—clearly by design. She received Qiyue in a tea room filled with hand-painted screens and the scent of chrysanthemum.
"I had to see you," Jin said after pouring them both tea. "I heard what happened in the Hall of Serene Grace."
Qiyue raised an eyebrow. "The walls here must have very sharp ears."
Jin didn't smile. "There are no secrets in this palace. Only debts waiting to be called in."
Qiyue sipped her tea cautiously. Unsweetened. Safe.
"What is it you want, Consort Jin?"
The other woman's eyes glinted with steel beneath long lashes. "I want to live. And I want the ones who killed my sister to rot for it."
Qiyue tilted her head. "Who was your sister?"
"Concubine Mei," Jin said softly. "Poisoned three years ago. They claimed it was illness. But her body was cold before the physician even arrived. And the Empress Dowager ordered her cremated by dawn."
Qiyue remembered. Mei had been gentle, naive, and too pretty for her own good. She'd caught the Emperor's eye briefly—too briefly.
"What do you want from me?" Qiyue asked.
Jin reached into her robe and placed a folded parchment on the table. "A list. Names of the Dowager's loyalists. Spies. Servants. I've been collecting them for years."
Qiyue studied it. "And you offer this freely?"
"I offer it because I'm tired of waiting for the wheel to crush me. I'd rather help turn it."
Qiyue took the list and tucked it into her sleeve.
"Then we begin."
---
That night, Qiyue sat at her mirror and spoke aloud:
"One whisper becomes two. Two become four. Soon the wind will howl with names and secrets."
Her reflection didn't smile.
But her eyes burned with purpose.
She began writing again—this time not a letter, but a map. A web of names, positions, alliances, vulnerabilities.
At the center of it all: Zhou Wenli.
The Dog Emperor.
He had called her back.
Now he would regret it.