For the propriety of status, Quan Caihe kept to her private gardens until all the guests had arrived. A messenger informed her of this; with two guards at her back, she made her way toward the great palace hall where the dinner was to take place. She was not one for grand gestures—the excess of pomp, she believed, was an indicator of insecurities—but she respected the formalities that must take place for a woman to enforce her status. So the inaugural event for the noble houses was only a simple meal, which would be preceded by a simple speech. From the port of Yincheng to the far west plateaus of Mosanguo, the nobility of the continent would bear witness to her dynastic rebirth in all its unembellished elegance.

Her heart sped beneath the golden dragon of her emblemed robes. These coming moments would be written into history as the second rising of her family name. To have absolute control over the script of that history—it was as intoxicating as the strongest liquor. The thrill laced her nerves. Absorbed her thoughts, revising for the thousandth time the words that would come from her lips tonight.

She almost didn’t notice the shadow at the end of the open walkway.

“General Jun?”

The man was leaning against the corridor rail. Not quite facing the open gardens—his head hung in his hands, his body hunched. A rare sight, and oddly stirring.

Jun Musheng righted himself at her voice. He lowered his head. “Your Grace.”

Caihe gestured for her guards to wait. Alone, she approached her general in the dim-lit walkway.

“What brings you out here, General?”

She had a faint idea.

Musheng slipped his hands into his pockets. “I needed to breathe, Your Grace.”

“Well, are you finished breathing? You have an appearance to make tonight.”

“It might be wiser if I didn’t. I’m not feeling very well, and I would hate to—”

Irritated, Caihe stepped into his intimate space. She could smell the wine and sweat, and a sweet heat like a fever. She slid a hand beneath his jacket, over his heart. The pulse was still thunderous.

She murmured, “That frightening, is he?”

Musheng turned his face away. “It’s been a while, Your Grace.”

Her fingers curled around fabric. She pulled him forcefully down until she could speak over his lips.

“Why have you anything to be afraid of, Jun Musheng? You are in my court. You stand behind me now. You survived him when you were alone, Musheng. And now that you are not, it’s he who must try to survive you.”

When Musheng did not respond, Caihe narrowed her eyes.

“Unless it isn’t fear.”

He shook his head, a smooth motion. “Your Grace, you’ll be meeting him for the first time tonight. But I was with him for six years. You can’t simplify what I feel to a word.”

Caihe released the general. “So it isn’t fear?”

“It’s nothing pleasant,” said Musheng. “I don’t want to be near him.”

She sighed and crossed her arms. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. You’re a part of the game, Musheng. You can’t expect me to play with a missing piece—a general, no less.”

“Your general might cost you more—”

“Enough. Compose yourself, Quan Musheng. You enter the hall with me.”

She turned around before he could protest again. After a pause, his footsteps followed.

Upon reaching the great hall, the guard declared her entrance with three forceful strikes of his staff.

“Announcing the Imperial Quan Caihe, Regent of the New Empire!”

The audience fell hush. Caihe entered from the dais end, her eyes sweeping the hall graciously. A thousand carefully selected nobles were in attendance tonight, their faces accentuated by the atmospheric lights. She maintained a tactful assessment, giving the higher ranked tables their due of her eyeshare. But it was that one by the front which lured her burning curiosity.

No images existed of the guardians of Guilin. Only spoken legends of ghosts, gods, and the great Red Crane.

He was easy to distinguish from the two at the table. Both of them were poised, suited, wearing no trace of excessive age on deeply matured faces. But he possessed an air, the iron-glass air that came with being deified. Iron because it was daunting—glass because it was fragile, as all inhuman expectations were when they were laid upon humans. And Quan Caihe believed that no matter what science, the man who gazed back at her with was human.

His metallic eyes lidded softly. For a man—no, for a human—he was beautiful. The kind of beautiful that rugged artists would dream to lay onto their parchment.

Perhaps, she thought suddenly, it wasn’t fear at all.

Caihe glanced back at Musheng. That man had entered the hall with her, as instructed. His singular eye met hers briefly before he went to retake his seat with the other generals. He did not look leftward where the Guilin guardians sat.

Caihe turned back at the Lord Guan, who was no longer looking at her. She would have liked to dissect that expression, but she had reached the center of this dais, and an audience waited. A dynasty did.

Spreading her arms, the new empress said, “Welcome, my lords and ladies, to the Imperial Capital.”

----------------------------------------

They had pierced Anjie’s lungs before with hooked steel, and it had felt something like this.

The speech of the empress did not reach his ears, smothered by the drumming of his heart. This was a curious condition—that he, looking upon the face of Jun Musheng, still retained a heart to beat. Had this man not ripped it out, left a gaping hole in its place nine years ago? Was he not finished torturing Anjie? Why was he here?

But he was here. He was here, that same bold profile, the rough stubble and wild hair, the calluses along his fingers, the little crook in his nose. The hollow in his eye, old now and dry. The white scar tissue dragged along the left side of his face, a ghostly horror. Anjie felt so much pain in his chest that his vision flickered.

Ziyuan touched his arm. Anjie pulled away. He forced his eyes to Quan Caihe.

But nothing about the woman processed. Nothing when she looked his way and said the honored attendance. Nothing when she named her generals, declared the new regents of Beiguo and Xijia.

Nothing, until she gestured toward Musheng.

“...and it could not have been possible without this man. Arise, Quan Musheng.”

Anjie looked at the dais floor.

“You came to me five years ago and gave me your unreserved faith. Your dedication has been matchless, and your skill deserves the highest recognition. Quan Musheng, it is with honor that I hereby name you the Third Quan Imperial Chief.”

Your unreserved faith.

Anjie lifted his eyes. He looked at Musheng. Quan Musheng. The Quans scripted their family title with the traditional character for power. Truly a fitting name for a man whose heart had always been coated with ambition. Ziyuan had warned him of it, and Anjie had believed the two of them had changed, together. Believed those sweet promises murmured between the kisses. How wrong he had been. This man finally stood atop the peak, an imperial chief, and aloof, he gazed down at Anjie.

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But not merely Anjie—Guan Anjie. He shared that name with precious others.

Jinyue. Wenzhan. Wenbo.

Be well, First Guardian.

Anjie lifted his chin. He lifted his hands and clapped with the rest of the hall.

Musheng looked away.

The empress resumed her speech. Her new chief took his seat. Anjie picked up the wineglass on the table and sipped. He did not feel the liquid in his throat, but he did not feel any tremble in his fingers either. It was a decent compromise.

Quan Caihe declared upon the end of her speech that the coming meal was to be the forge of new friendships. She had invited houses from across the continent, and it was a hall of tamed enemies. Friendship was an appropriate sentiment to close on. An ironic sentiment when she came to sit across from Anjie. With a peripheral gesture of her fingers, a shadow followed her beckon. Musheng.

Because Anjie took deliberate care to see only the empress, he noted that the rumors of the city were well-founded. She carried herself in the manner of a born ruler, and her eyes belied sharpness and clarity not unlike that of her new imperial chief. Anjie had expected as much, that her drive and her confidence would make any peace difficult to bargain. But he had come to the capital believing he had a chance. Now, with Musheng among her court, this hope was dashed away.

Musheng, who knew the secrets of Guilin. Musheng who had been invited to sit with them like old friends, who had surely informed Quan Caihe of his past connection to the valley. With his knowledge, Quan Caihe would believe herself infallible. And perhaps she truly was, for House Guan had barely survived the weaker Yulai.

Musheng took the seat to Anjie’s left. The cologned scent of the city, so foreign, threaded through a soft, familiar musk. Odd that smell could dredge up this feeling of betrayal.

“My lord Guan,” said Quan Caihe, addressing Anjie first. “And…”

“You may address me as Guardian, Your Grace,” said Ziyuan. Their tone was tenser than usual, but that tension was not all for the empress.

“I must admit, I’m quite surprised you came.”

No ease of it, then. Anjie’s appearance would be interpreted as weakness. A compromise he had been willing to make, but with circumstances as they were, he could no longer afford to appear weak. But how was he to remedy this? How was he to protect his sword-bound younger brothers against this situation?

Anjie lifted an eyebrow and spoke.

“And I am quite surprised you dine with us. For the new regent of an empire, it would seem quite declarative to spend your inaugural with a foreign lord.”

The dining carts rolled up. A manservant bowed and laid out the dishes around a flowered vase, silent so as to not interrupt Caihe’s response.

“Well, House Guan is deserving of such honor, no? I do believe the masses will be talking just as much of your appearance as they will be talking of my inaugural. And at least this allows us to keep the conversation cordial and brief. But first—I believe you’ve met my new chief?”

Anjie looked at Musheng. Said simply, “You believe correctly.”

A loose smile entered Musheng’s expression. It seemed tentative at first, but perhaps that had merely been Anjie’s imagination: once the curve settled, the entire posture of this man’s body relaxed, his core now as hard to grasp as the wind itself.

“Old faces, new fortunes,” said Musheng.

Anjie looked at Caihe. “You want a cordial and brief conversation. I will oblige, but let us tend toward the latter. State your piece and I will state mine.”

“My piece? Lord Guan, I believe you are mistaken. I merely wished to invite you to dinner. And, of course, to settle some old debts.”

Anjie paused. “Old debts?”

“An important man of my household has been aggrieved by House Guan.” She plucked a meat roll from the central platter on the table. “He lost an eye. I want to give him justice.”

For a moment, the only sound from their table was the crunching between the empress’s teeth. Then Anjie lifted the cutting knife by his plate. The crunching stopped. The others froze.

“Justice?”

He wiped the knife on his napkin. The blade glistened with his reflection, his heartache, his fury, his duty, and his turbulent desperation to protect his family. Persuade Quan Caihe? It was not possible if she believed she had no need to compromise. He knew exactly where this line of conversation led, and he had long lost interest in the politics of step-by-step.

He stood up. The crowd stirred.

With a breath, a quick calculation, and a steeling, he plunged the knife into his left eye socket. Flicked, carving with a twist. Before there was a full reaction from anybody, before his own body could truly process the damage, Anjie stabbed the knife before Musheng’s plate. His copper eye trembled with loose flesh, speared on the gored blade.

Anjie looked at Caihe with his one eye. He did not allow himself to react to the searing pain, nor to see the reaction of that figure in his blindspot. By only will and the thought of his Guilin dinner table, he kept his voice steady.

“Regent,” he said as the room hissed, “if it’s an eye you want, he has it. Do not think we fear the paltry losses of men. If it is justice you want, line up his family and burn up their hearts. But we both know you care for neither. So let us get to the point. If it is Guilin you want, dig up the mountains and make graves for your army.”

He leaned over the table, gripping the flower vase at its center. The blood from his eye socket poured out, splattering the petals, the meal, the fine golden cloth.

“I did not give the men of Yulai this warning because they did not have the courtesy to invite me to dinner. As a gesture of gratitude for this fine meal, know this: if you touch my land, I will kill every last soldier who bears the Quan emblem. Your golden dragon shall be red from Yincheng to Mosanguo.”

The empress’s hands flickered over the dragon on her chest.

Anjie turned to Ziyuan, who was already rising.

He turned back to the empress. “Enjoy your dinner, Your Grace. And may the heavens bless your rule.”

Without a look for the silent Musheng, Anjie made his exit from the imperial palace. Not a soul dared to stand in his way.

----------------------------------------

The crane left, but the blood stayed.

Hours later, Caihe placed her hand over her heart, over the golden emblem of the Quan.

It was late night. That dinner had concluded, the horrific disruption a whisper for the masses come morning. Caihe stood on a garden pavilion of her palace, hoisted over a pond of autumn lotus blossoms. Her only company were her silent guards and the man she had ordered to keep her company. She’d taken his gifted eye, of course, sent it to their scientists to deconstruct. That copper was a rare thing to land indeed.

The newly named Quan Musheng did not seem happy about it. Of course, if it was revenge he desired, he would naturally lust for a more brutal taking—screams, a gasp, a tremor—any hint of pain at all. But the Lord Guan had removed his eye on his own terms, appearing as if he had merely severed a lock of hair.

Terrifying.

“I imagine he’s not permanently maimed,” said Caihe.

Behind, Musheng stirred. He leaned his back against the pavilion pillar, a lax posture. For a while his signature smile had eluded him, but it was back now, crooked and easy. “No. His body is not like ours.”

“Oh?” Caihe turned to better see her chief. “And just how well do you know his body?”

Musheng scratched the side of his jaw. “As well as I needed to to get the job done.”

“So professional,” said Caihe, walking to his side. She slid her hand along his arm, sank it down over his chest. A steady pulse. “You miss it?”

Musheng shifted. Caihe couldn’t quite tell if his heart rate picked up or not. But it didn’t matter—his words surprised her enough that she dropped her hand.

“I suppose.”

Caihe lifted an eyebrow.

Musheng cocked his head, his lips curving slightly once more. “You did promise me you would bring him to my feet and let me do whatever I wanted, Your Grace. Is it a problem now?”

She stared. Then chuckled.

“I see. I didn’t take you for that kind of man, Musheng.”

“We all have our own skeletons.”

“Some more disturbing than others.”

Musheng shrugged. “He frightens me. It’s true. And I was on the beaten end of our history. But, Your Grace, if a man ever conquered you like that, wouldn’t you want to break him properly too? I don’t find it disturbing.”

“I’d want to break him, not fuck him. But to each their own.” She filed away these thoughts for later and returned to the pavilion balustrade once more, gazing over the night pond. “We may have to exercise patience, however.”

It was the trick with the eye, stirring up old doubts. Guilin had been named the Ghost Forest because of their cranes—back then, in the first Quan invasion three and half centuries ago, those defending warriors simply would not die. Again and again, the legend went, they would return to life like the vicious undead.

“How do you kill a crane, Musheng?”

A pause.

“You cut off their head,” he said. “Which can be quite difficult, since their spine is encased in a titanium variant.”

“I had a feeling,” she said. “A man does not cut out his own eye to make light threats. If we invade Guilin, the Lord Guan would have to die in the first battle. If he survives even one, I imagine he will come to me. Much like how one kills a crane, you kill a new empire by severing its head. And it’s true, Musheng, that we have no men in our ranks who can face him?”

“It is.”

“Very well,” said Caihe.

“Very well?”

“Guilin will have its peace yet.”

Musheng shifted off the pillar. “You mean…”

How curious. He didn’t nearly sound damned enough to have vengeance stolen. Caihe smiled regardless, moving to pat the man’s shoulder. “Don’t fret, Musheng. You’ll have what I promised you.”

He paused.

“What are you planning?”

She arched an eyebrow at him.

“You tell me, Chief Quan. You know him, no?”

He didn’t say anything, so Caihe continued.

“The Lord Guan is afraid of a war,” she said. “In fact, one might even say that he’s desperately afraid. A man does not cut out his own eye to make light threats, and a man does not cut out his own eye to make unnecessary ones. He may be formidable, but there are people in Guilin who are not. So let us see just how far he is willing to go to protect them.”

She smiled, recalling the vivid blood of the crane pour onto the dinner table. Lush, beautiful, luring a thrill within her chest that her palm could barely contain.

“An eye is lovely. But perhaps next time, he will be amenable to giving us his head instead.”