A message arrived with no seal.
Just a single line, written in northern script.
"Come to the Ice Lantern Garden at moonrise. Come alone."
Shen didn't hesitate.
By now, he knew the palace well — every patrol path, every blind corner. He walked like a whisper, passing guards and noble courtyards unseen.
The Ice Lantern Garden was rarely visited. A northern-styled pavilion surrounded by white-stone cranes and frozen lotus ponds, gifted by a forgotten dynasty.
He arrived just as the moon crested the sky.
The envoy was already there.
Still cloaked in wolf-fur, but alone now, with no guards, no fanfare.
"You came," the envoy said in the ancient dialect.
Shen answered in the same tongue. "You left the scroll for me."
A pause.
"You are not what they think you are," the envoy said. "You are not what you think you are."
He opened a satchel and pulled out a thin bundle wrapped in barkcloth.Inside: an old bone tablet, carved with foreign symbols and a dragon's eye.
"This was found beside the Vanished Prince's remains," he said. "It bears your blood."
Shen's eyes narrowed. "Impossible. He died two centuries ago."
"Did he?" the envoy whispered. "Or did his soul… wait?"
The bone tablet pulsed faintly in the envoy's hand — and Shen felt it.
Something inside him responded.
Not with pain. Not with fear.
With recognition.
For a split second, his vision blurred.
He saw a battlefield of white snow and blue fire.A man — cloaked in obsidian robes — holding twin blades.Two children in his arms, crying.A ring falling into the snow.
And then darkness.
He staggered back. "What was that?"
"A memory sealed in the bloodline," the envoy said. "Passed through spirit veins. A gift… or a curse."
Shen's breath came slow.
"What are you saying?"
The envoy knelt before him.
Not dramatically.
But with ancient reverence.
"You are not the shadow of the Emperor's son," he said softly.
"You are the echo of the Vanished Prince."
A gust of wind swept through the garden, scattering frost.
And somewhere in the capital, a mirror cracked in the Empress's chamber — without anyone touching it.
In the north, the Sovereign of Aoqin sat on a throne of froststeel, reading a blood-soaked scroll.
"She has awakened?" he asked his advisors.
They bowed.
"No," the lead priest said. "Not she. The boy."
The Sovereign smiled.
"Then we watch. And when the dragon sheds its mask… we strike."
Back in the servant quarters, Shen stood in the dark, staring at his reflection in a bronze basin.
Not his disguise.Not his robes.
Just his eyes.
And for the first time, he whispered:
"Who… am I really?"