‘Greetings, Your Majesty.’ Three knelt at the emperor’s feet.

  The other didn’t speak; she was left kneeling on the floor, her legs trembling.

  Weakness like this was an old but forgotten friend. She forced her ruined muscles, her freshly scar-den skin to keep her lifeforce and blood inside — her emotions and sensations, a mix of pain, foreign guilt and scrutiny leaked out her bleeding lips with her qi.

  ‘I wish you would die,’ the emperor said. ‘Yet I wish you could suffer more.’

  She didn’t doubt it.

  The emperor’s agony was far too deep for her to truly touch.

  Even if he poured it into her every night.

  He stood. The white hems of his mourning garb fluttered. ‘Follow me.’

  The path she walked was the same as the one from so long ago. The pilrs were still red, the vines still thick, the trees still pruned, and the sunlight still fshed from mirror-like ponds.

  But the person she followed was no longer the carefree yet powerful woman Xi Zixin; her steps were no longer as sure, as strong; her qi was no longer as plentiful, her face no longer unscarred and smooth; her lips wouldn’t rise, even as she clenched a handful of dried persimmons.

  ‘I heard you liked them,’ the emperor said. ‘But you don’t look happy, little guard.’

  ‘…I’m guilty,’ she said. She took a bite, but the powdered sugar just fell apart in her mouth like chalk. ‘I shouldn’t enjoy this.’

  Her fingers trembled. They were coated in a dusted, dry white.

  She whispered, ‘I’ve done too many bad things. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Then that makes us two,’ the emperor chuckled, and they walked into the Hall of Heavenly Harmony.

  It all seemed surreal. The hall was still the same — still the same jade chair, the rows of seats for the imperial heirs, the same table at the foot of the throne and chokingly thick heat open steel stoves.

  But the heirs were gone. The ministers were all new faces.

  And the only shadow guards waiting there at the steps were Seven and Eight.

  The emperor glided across the floor and came to the dragon throne. He sat down, crossing his legs like Xi Zixin had once done not so long ago. He beckoned to Three with curled fingers; she hurried after him, awkwardly taking her new pce beside the throne of white jade.

  The emperor didn’t address the court. He just called, ‘Bring it.’

  Low roars echoed from the front of the hall. Guards — weak footed, unskilled, all bark and no bite — dragged in a rge box draped over with bck silk. Opaque, just rge enough to fit a small horse, the thing rolled on wooden wheels that splintered from not the weight but long, roughened travels. It came all the way to the foot of the throne, where a waiting eunuch ripped off the blinds.

  And Three came face-to-face with a pair of glinting red eyes in a cage.

  ‘…Chicken Feet?’

  Her first thought:

  Why the hell was that your first response?

  Her second thought:

  Why the hell are you even here?

  ‘Today,’ the emperor decred, ‘the two traitors shall be punished according to their crime. As repentance for her foolishness, for falling prey to these treasonous vipers’ words, Shadow Guard Three shall execute them by lingchi, “death by a thousand cuts”.’

  Her third thought:

  What can I do anymore?

  And even more horrifyingly —

  The Third Princess Xi Qian’e, the daughter of the Blind Prince and the st master to hold her leash, did not look at her with fear.

  She looked at Three with pity, sadness, and a care thicker than the blood under their skin.

  Three wanted to scream.

  She stumbled back, away from the woman trapped in the cage, dressed in that blue skirt with shredded butterfly’s wings. She whipped to the emperor, desperation ced in her cry, ‘Your Majesty. I can’t, I can’t, don’t do this to me, please, I beg you!’

  Almost running, she smmed to the ground, her head knocking the ground in a kowtow. The stone floors splinted from the force — she didn’t hide her terror, her fear, her panic as it all leaked out her skin and lips in a cloud of thrashing qi. Eight choked; Seven let out a splutter of surprise.

  The emperor snapped, ‘Three —’

  ‘I’m begging you, Your Majesty, don’t do this to me, don’t give me this order! I can’t, I can’t, I really can’t!’ Her heart was beating both too loud and too cold, a frost that froze her on the insides and burned in her eyes and nose. She would choke on it — she would drown in it, in a hysterical mess of confusion.

  Was he going to force her to live his grief?

  Would she feel the agony he held her in every night?

  ‘Get up. GET UP!’ The emperor leapt down from his throne, a foot smming into her stomach. Xi Yu screamed behind her — was it a call, or was it a screech? Pain split her in half; of habit or anger the emperor pulled none of his blows, divine fury on full dispy. He seized her by the neck, lifting her into the air as he snarled, ‘You said you were guilty. You said you would bear the burden of my grief. But it’s not enough. It is far from enough.’

  She gasped, thrashing in the air. Eight yelled something, but she couldn’t catch it. People were screaming — they were running out of the hall’s doors, fleeing into the gardens —

  ‘Live it.’ He roared and threw her into the cage bars, ‘Take this grief and LIVE IT, SHADOW GUARD THREE!’

  She smmed into the steel, stabbing pain piercing her spine and back. Xi Yu’s hands reached out to pull her up, the princess shrieking in her ears. Her condition, long declined, had her colpsing to her knees.

  She was being strangled by fear itself.

  This fear, this unnatural terror — it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t right. As a shadow guard, she should’ve been happy; she was able to serve her master without dying, and even after learning that she’d killed his children the emperor was still willing to toss her dried persimmons.

  She should’ve been happy. She should’ve been overjoyed.

  So why? Why wasn’t this enough? Why, why, WHY?

  Why did she have to be so greedy, to want to keep Xi Yu by her side, to keep her alive, to kiss her and hug her even with bloody hands…?

  This should’ve made her happy.

  Shadow guards were destined to be happy.

  Speckled stains fell from her cheeks.

  They burned on her skin, worse than the harshest of poisons.

  She blinked.

  This water. Where did it… come from?

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ the emperor growled. ‘A fucking shadow guard like you could actually cry.’

  Crying?

  She was crying?

  She never knew that tears could burn. She never knew that someone could push her this far. That she would fall that far for someone. That someone could be so important to her. That her meaning of happiness could be redefined.

  She had never known —

  She stumbled to her feet, hands pushing off the bars. With a limp, back curled like a withering fern, she gasped, ‘I’m not going to kill Xi Yu.’

  A hand reached through the bars of the cage to hold her trembling palm.

  She spat, ‘I don’t want to be a shadow guard anymore.’

  She had never known that she could defy an order.