Rain did not fall that morning, but the clouds clung to the sky like smoke refusing to rise. The palace seemed quieter than usual not because fewer feet walked its stone paths, but because mouths held their words back. A thick stillness wrapped around the courtyards, too fragile to be called peace, too heavy to be called silence.
Lu stood before the bronze mirror in her chamber, tracing the edge of her cheek with two fingers. The mark was still there, soft and curved like a sleeping moon, the shape everyone had now seen. But that wasn't what she was focused on.
Her fingers moved lower, pressing gently against her skin, as if trying to reach through to something beneath. She wasn't looking at her reflection anymore.
She was remembering a voice she didn't know but couldn't forget her own voice, whispering into the ruins the night before but the words had been wrong.
She clenched her jaw. That wasn't who she was anymore. The truth was bitter and simple. Her mother had left her. Her father had not come looking. They had thrown her away like something broken before it even had a chance to live. Not because they couldn't care for her, but because of fear.
Because of a mark, because of what she represented, not a daughter, not a blessing. A burden, a curse. She turned away from the mirror. The woman in the glass was gone.
Now, there was only the girl who had survived fire without flame, ice without winter. Lu, the girl who would never forgive those who left her behind.
Xiao Zhen entered with careful steps, bowing her head and clutching a folded letter.
"A message, my lady."
"Who delivered it?"
"No one. It was… it was already resting on the altar when I lit the morning incense."
Lu held out her hand.
The paper was thick and pale, the ink darker than usual. It bled slightly at the edges, as if the words had been written in haste or blood. She unfolded it.
"Not all ghosts are dead. Some are hidden among the living. They wear smiles and speak with silk, but their hearts still burn with the old fire. The Black Crane was never gone. You carry what they fear."
No name and no seal. Only a single feather sketched into the bottom right corner. Lu crushed the paper in her hand, but the image of the words stayed in her mind like a song too dangerous to hum. The Black Crane again.
Not as a memory, not as a threat from the past. But as something here now. She sat down at her writing desk, pulled out one of the old scrolls she'd copied in the Ink Hall weeks before, and spread it across the wood.
In the margins, she had written three names. One of them had belonged to a former court astrologer who disappeared mysteriously during the reign of the last emperor. Si Yun.
A man who had once spoken of stars being burned from the sky not by fire, but by names spoken in the wrong places. Lu traced his name with her brush, adding a small dot beside it.
"I need to find him," she said aloud.
Xiao Zhen hesitated. "But… he's been gone for years."
"Then I'll find the next person who saw him last."
That person turned out to be Eunuch Ru, an old scribe who worked deep in the records hall near the southern wing. His face was a folded map of years, and his voice scratched like wind through dry reeds. But when Lu asked about Si Yun, something flickered behind his tired eyes.
"He spoke of you before," the eunuch whispered. "Not you by name but a girl. A child of the moon, born with a mark, meant to open what was closed."
"Open what?"
"A box," the eunuch said.
"What kind of box?"
He leaned in. "A living one, sealed inside flesh and guarded by dreams."
Lu said nothing, but her blood felt colder.
"Where did he go?" she asked.
"He said he was going north to the House of Echoes."
She had never heard of such a place but she would find it. If it existed, it would hold answers. If it didn't… it meant someone didn't want it found.
She returned to her chamber just after sunset. A box waited on her table. Small, dark wood. No design. No seal. Just like before.
Lu stared at it, then opened the lid without blinking. Inside was a bracelet of braided horsehair and bone. Black bone. She did not touch it. She only stared. Shu Yan, It had to be.
No one else in the court would know what such an object meant. It was a northern charm. Forbidden and worn by sorcerers before battle to steal the strength of their enemies.
She was being marked, Cursed and mocked.
"Xiao Zhen," she called softly.
"Yes, my lady?"
"Send word to Liang. Tell him we meet in the Bamboo Gallery tonight."
Liang arrived cloaked, his footsteps silent against the stone. He said nothing as he sat beside Lu in the quiet gallery where long stalks of bamboo swayed in the wind like dancers too tired to move.
She handed him the charm. "Do you know what this is?"
He nodded. "Death bait."
"Shu Yan."
"Most likely. But she's not working alone anymore. You know that."
"I do."
Liang paused. "She's not trying to beat you with gossip or beauty anymore."
"She's trying to bury me with my past."
Lu looked out at the bamboo.
"Do you believe in curses?" she asked.
"No," he said. "But I believe in fear and I believe in people who know how to turn it into power."
She was quiet for a long time.
Then she said, "I want the names of the guards posted outside the eastern chamber. The ones who change shifts at midnight."
"You plan to enter?"
"No," Lu said. "I plan to be waiting when someone else does."
That night, she waited beneath the steps outside Shu Yan's residence, hidden beneath a discarded servant's cloak. The moon rose, fat and red, the air heavy with the scent of burning herbs.
At midnight, the guard left his post to relieve himself. Just as she'd been told. A hooded figure moved into the chamber. Lu followed.
The room inside smelled like salt and ash. Shu Yan was not there, but the hooded figure was lighting candles in a circle.
Lu stepped out from the shadow.
"Looking for something?" she asked.
The figure turned. It wasn't Shu Yan. It was a girl she had never seen before, young, pale, with a scar on her neck.
"Who are you?" Lu asked.
The girl smiled. "One of the forgotten."
Then she vanished. Like smoke pulled into a jar. Lu stood frozen for a moment, then walked to the circle and looked down. In the center was a scroll. It read:
"The fire you seek burns in your blood. And those who gave you life once feared its light."
Lu stared. Then she laughed once and quietly but not with joy. It was with rage.
"Then let them fear me again."