The Empress Dowager's chamber was lit with the soft glow of gold-leaf lanterns, but the warmth was false. Shadows clung to the lacquered walls as if listening. Shizuka, veiled in pale blue silk and ambition, gestured for the wine to be poured. "The first trial has revealed more than we intended," she said coolly, voice laced with honey and threat. Seated across from her, Prince Naoya twirled the stem of his goblet, his handsome face unreadable.
"And yet," He said,
"No one has been culled."
His smile deepened, sharklike. "Strange, for a game built on elimination. At his side sat Minister Daisuke Kurosawa, eyes sharp behind gold-rimmed spectacles.
"The girl, Kiyomi no Tsukihara,"
he said.
She exposed a discrepancy only a temple archivist or court historian could have known. That isn't luck. It's a threat. Possibly a planted one." Beside him, Lord Hisashi Mori grunted in agreement.
"Ayaka Mori worked three years for her moment,"
He growled. "If this girl, this fallen noble with no backing—becomes a symbol, we lose control of the narrative. The public already whispers about her performance." The final figure in the circle, Lady Suzume Kanzaki, tilted her fan downward to reveal narrowed eyes.
"She didn't just answer correctly."
Suzume murmured. "She defied the King's gaze without trembling. That will be remembered. Especially by him."
Prince Naoya leaned forward.
"Then perhaps it's time to adjust the game,"
He said, soft and cutting. "Kiyomi may have survived the first trial, but she's not invincible. Her next mistake—real or fabricated—should be her last." Shizuka tapped her painted nail against the porcelain rim of her teacup. "Fabricated," she echoed. "An accusation of forged documents, perhaps. Or theft. Something that smells enough like truth to convince the undecided judges." She glanced at Daisuke.
"Can Reina bear the pressure?"
"She must,"
He replied. We've invested too much to hesitate now." Hisashi's fist clenched. "And Ayaka will shine in the next trial. We'll ensure it."
"The King isn't as distant as he seems," Shizuka murmured, her fingers tightening slightly around the carved stem of her teacup. "He watched her too long during the trial. And she didn't bow. She looked him in the eye like she had every right to."
There was a charged silence in the chamber, the kind that clings after a name is spoken too loudly, or a ghost passes too near. Prince Naoya leaned back into the embroidered cushions with the ease of someone who had never feared consequence, his fingers loosely curled around a lacquered cup he hadn't sipped from. Firelight played across his face, gilding the slight smirk at the corner of his mouth. Across from him, Lady Suzume's gaze flickered, sharp and questioning. She didn't speak—she didn't have to. She knew something had passed between the King and the girl, something unsaid, but heavy enough to tilt the air around them.
Naoya's laugh came low and bitter, the kind meant for closed rooms and sealed deals. "She dared tempt him," he said at last, his voice more amused than angry, but no less dangerous. "In front of the entire court, no less. It wasn't foolish—it was something worse." He set the cup down gently, precisely, like a blade being sheathed. "That alone sealed her fate. The King doesn't take well to games, especially not when he's the one being played." The words hung in the room, and neither of them dared breathe for a moment. Suzume's eyes narrowed, not in disbelief, but in thought. She'd suspected as much. But still—she hadn't expected that.
"What exactly did she do?" she asked finally, the words cool and deliberate. But Naoya only shook his head, a slow, knowing gesture laced with superiority. "Does it matter?" he replied. "Only a handful of people know. Fewer still understand the weight of it. But he hasn't forgotten. And he won't forgive." There was something satisfied in the way he said it, as if he relished how tightly the girl had wound the noose around her own neck without even knowing it.
He rose to his feet with quiet finality, adjusting the folds of his silk robe as he moved toward the window. Beyond the screen, the moon hung like a blade over the garden. "If she thinks the King will protect her," he said without turning, "she hasn't yet learned what happens to those who disappoint him." His voice dropped to a whisper, almost tender. "She may have caught his attention once. But that's not the same as mercy." Behind him, the fire crackled—but the chill in the room only deepened.
He rose, adjusting his embroidered sleeves with calculated elegance. "Kaito rewards loyalty, not defiance. He's a weapon, not a man. And if he strays for a moment..." His voice softened. We'd do well to remember," Naoya said as he stepped toward the balcony, the firelight catching in his eyes,
"That this King bleeds last—and makes others bleed first."
The flames behind him crackled, a sharp reminder that Kaito Tsukimura was no man's puppet. If they pushed too far, they might find the blade turned inward. The second trial begins soon. Let her enter thinking she's safe. Let her believe his silence means forgiveness." Beside him, Lady Suzume snapped her fan shut, the sound sharp and final. "Let her believe she's already won."
The air thickened, the fire hissed—and still, no one said aloud what they all knew: the girl called Kiyomi no Tsukihara had not simply answered a question. She had disrupted the order. And the court of knives would not let that go unpunished.
Outside, beneath the eaves, a servant girl with quick hands and sharper ears had heard more than she should have, and in this palace, knowledge was a dangerous thing. She had knelt too close to the door too long, pretending to trim a hedge that had already been pruned to perfection, but her hands had stilled when the voices rose. Names spoken with venom. Plots twisted with silk. Words that should have turned to ash on royal tongues were instead dropped like daggers onto the polished floor—and she had heard every one.
Her pulse thundered in her ears as she slipped into the narrow corridors of the eastern wing, where few nobles ventured and no one would question a girl with a rag in her hand. But each step felt heavier, as though the palace itself had turned against her.
She should have stayed silent. Should have swallowed the words and buried them deep like every other dangerous thing a servant was meant to forget. But the name Kiyomi echoed too loudly in her mind, tangled in something colder:
second trial... price of thrones...
King bleeds last.
Her breath hitched as she turned the corner and froze. A shadow detached itself from the wall. A tall figure blocked her path, robed in deep violet and silver. Not a guard. Worse. Prince Naoya Tsukimura stood with the easy grace of a man who never ran—but always arrived. His smile was almost kind.
"You were listening,"
he said softly, as if they were sharing a secret.
"That was very brave of you."
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She bowed, trembling. He touched her chin with two gloved fingers, lifting her gaze. "But bravery in the wrong place," he whispered,
"Is a kind of treason."
By the time the morning bell rang, her body was gone—vanished into the dark hush of the inner palace. No blood stained the tiles. No whisper was spoken. Only a single silk rag lay forgotten near the servants' quarters, damp with dew and something far heavier.
Those who noticed said nothing. In Tsukimura Palace, the walls had ears, the floors had memories, and the silence—always the silence—was loyal to the crown. And as the second trial crept closer, Kiyomi would wake that morning not knowing that a girl had died with her name on her lips.
Beneath the whispering canopy of plum trees, Kiyomi sat motionless, her hands folded with the composure of nobility, but her stillness was a brittle mask. Beneath it churned a storm she couldn't name. Shadows tugged at her memory—half-formed visions, snatches of conversations, the scent of old incense, the feel of silk robes that did not belong to her.
They came unbidden, like oil rising through water, too precise to be dreams and too old to be hers. Who was the real Lady Kiyomi no Tsukihara? What had she known, what had she done, and—most terrifying of all—what had she nearly uncovered before she died?
Across the courtyard, clusters of silk-clad maidens whispered behind open fans and polite smiles. Their laughter was quiet, too measured, and their eyes always seemed to slide back to her, sharp with suspicion and something colder. Kiyomi no longer needed to guess: she was a threat, whether she understood why or not. Her name carried weight, but not the kind that earned respect. The kind that drew daggers and whispered warnings in candlelit halls.
The second trial loomed like a blade above her neck, and it would not be as forgiving as the first. She needed to learn everything she could about the life she had stepped into—the secrets the old Kiyomi kept, the enemies she made, the traps she'd either escaped or fallen into. If she didn't uncover the full truth before the next trial struck, she might not live long enough to see a third.
And somewhere, deep in the folds of her new mind, she could feel it: the former Kiyomi had not been innocent.
She had been dangerous. And perhaps... still was!