‘The Fourth Princess is dead,’ decred the emperor. The woman’s face was cold, hard like ice; it was in this unforgiving aspect that Three found traces of her master.

  This pair of niece and aunt were truly carved from the same stone.

  Once again in the Hall of Heavenly Harmony, the imperial heirs were all sitting at their tables with a smattering of heaters and handwarmers here and there. This time though, two tables were empty.

  The Fourth Princess.

  The Second Prince.

  Interesting.

  Squatting in the high beams of the hall, Three narrowed her eyes to squint down at the pair of emperor and empress below.

  Despite the cold in the emperor’s face, her chill came not from fury but rather a bone-deep indifference. It was something fascinating — the Fourth Princess was a child the emperor herself had birthed, yet the woman’s death merited nothing more than an official announcement.

  Even the empress seemed more grieved than his wife; at least his face held the shadow of fury, sealed deep between his lips and nestled in the corners of his round, yellow eyes. His long curly hair had even wilted.

  If this grief was fake, the empress was surely the best actor. It was a mourning portrayed just right — not too excessive, but not as so cking to give the emperor disrespect.

  ‘Firstly, children.’ The emperor brought her hands together.

  A smile.

  A cp.

  Then the emperor’s smile turned into a snarl.

  ‘We commend you, heirs, on your efforts to eliminate your rivals. However, We did hope for intellectual prowess rather than physical strength. This first death… was disappointing.’

  Three’s hands tightened on the wood below her.

  ‘Our nephew. First Prince, you killed Our daughter, didn’t you?’

  The First Prince’s orange form stood up. A pause. ‘Yes,’ he said. Then he sat down.

  ‘Well then, you are under house arrest for a week.’ The grinning woman looked up into the beams. ‘One!’

  A bck figure dropped down. A fsh — then, the kneeling man.

  One was towering and muscur; kneeling on the wooden floors made him out to be like a mountain, steady and strong in his bck robes. His hair was gathered into a dark bun on top of his head.

  But even from far away, Three didn’t miss the trembling of his hands.

  What happened, Brother?

  ‘Lovely, One. Well, you may not kill or harm for a week.’ The emperor smiled, ‘Understood? Don’t be like Three and pick out loopholes all the time, We won’t let you off.’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ One said. His voice was low and smooth, a strand of hair trailing down from his head to stick to his neck. Damp sweat. ‘I understand.’

  The First Prince spat, ‘Come here, One!’ He lifted his silk-cd arm and gestured to the guard. Irritation ced his words with a dripping viciousness. The weight of his anger was like a sealed jug of fermenting wine. It seemed that he could burst from the pressure at any moment. ‘Don’t make me say it again —’

  His order was cut off. ‘Stay,’ said the emperor, ‘Do not move.’ She leaned back to reline on her throne.

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ The kneel curled One’s gigantic form into a gigantic ball. His body, once missed by low-lying eyes, was now painfully obvious; he shifted uncomfortably, the fabric of his robes rippling over his muscles. Three pictured how his lips would ftten, how his eyes would crinkle under the weight of those prying gazes.

  He was like a huge bck owl trying to squeeze himself into his own shadow.

  Curled away. Buried his head in his arms.

  The anxiousness radiated off the bulky man in confused waves. The wanting was clearer than water on him — the wanting to leave and hide elsewhere, where no-one could see.

  But he was shackled in pce by an order.

  The thought had Three pressing herself into the shadows.

  Her eyes stung a little, perhaps from the trails of smoke from the incense burners and heating stoves below.

  She turned to watch the Third Princess — the woman had a cold, impassive look about her, in the rigidity of her spine and the ft lines of her lips.

  Her white robes were far too thin. After all, the autumn air would soon turn into winter, and the linen would hardly keep out the cold. She didn’t have Three’s stove-like body, either. Wasn’t she cold?

  The princess’s sleeping face fshed through her mind.

  …What a foolish master.

  The emperor cpped her hands together once to bring attention back. The golden dragon on her robes rippled. ‘But since a death did occur, We have decided to hold a celebration.’ She turned to the First Prince, ‘You must be so very grieved that your brother is scarred, are you not?’

  A smile.

  A cp.

  A shuddering not too far away, and a bck mass fell from the beams.

  Then there was a loud snap and a cloud of dust.

  Suspended in the air was a man. His head hung limp, a noose around his neck. The top of his head, all that Three could see, was bloodied and bck, wiry hair crusted with dried blood. The ends of a bck ribbon, one tied over his eyes, tangled with shredded robes. His skinny, bony shape gently rocked and spun, silently swinging as offal parts would at a butcher’s stand.

  He was hanging there, and he had smmed the air from Three’s lungs.

  Four…?

  Her eyes widened.

  What are you doing here?

  …Was she going deaf?

  Three blinked.

  She couldn’t quite hear. Everything was turning into a mush, a feverish muddle in her ears. Only her master’s voice rang clear — the emperor’s smiling tone, its rexed nature, and the creaking of Four’s noose on the high beams.

  ‘To appease your anger, Our dear nephew, We have decided to punish Shadow Guard Four posthumously by letting his corpse hang for nine days…’

  Those bck boots swayed. Their shadows cast a drooping, haunting light over the back of One’s head. He had cmped his teeth into the cloth of his sleeve. It wasn’t to stop himself from vomiting. It was to stop himself from screaming.

  Three knew.

  She knew because it was him who had taught her. Showed her how to occupy her tongue when even her eyes couldn’t cry.

  ‘Shadows. Come.’

  The moment the emperor’s chilling voice slid into her ears, Three leapt down from the pilr. She fshed into pce on the floor, standing in a well-rehearsed line. Her feet took her to One’s left, a void lurching where Two and Four should have been. Then Five came in all her snake-like gait, Six in his hurried swings, and Seven in his calcuted, measured steps.

  A hush.

  A drop of blood spttered onto the floor.

  ‘Our dear children,’ the emperor sighed, ‘We have recently noticed that some of you are forgetting why you have shadow guards serving you. Allow Us to educate.’

  A smile.

  ‘Shadows,’ said the woman on the throne, ‘Tell me this. What is a shadow guard, what do you do, and can you not?’

  Three fell into a kneel. Knees hit the tiled stones, the thuds ringing out short and sharp. She chanted, her voice lost amid that of her siblings, ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  Took in a breath. Tongue went numb, muscle memory seizing her lips.

  They chanted, ‘Shadow guards serve the throne and the throne alone. We serve with our lives and our being. We cannot harm our masters, we cannot harm the Head Shadow, we cannot disobey orders. We exist for the throne.’

  She couldn’t feel her knees or her hands.

  The emperor smiled. ‘Then, what happens if there is no emperor?’

  ‘Then there is no master.’

  ‘Children, these guards aren’t yours. Remember why you have the blessing to be served by them. Do keep that in mind — lest you all displease Us.’ Then, the woman turned to her male empress with a smile. ‘Don’t you agree, dear?’

  The empress shot her back a bitter smile, the wavy shadow of his hair nestled against the bridge of his nose. His face — arrogant, with sharp brows and sharper lips, softened only by the round curve of his eyes — tilted to catch the noon sunlight. ‘Of course, Your Majesty.’ He breathed a sigh. ‘How could I dare feel otherwise, my love?’

  The emperor ughed. ‘Everyone, you’re all dismissed.’

  ‘Wait, Your Majesty,’ a hoarse voice called out. ‘Can we… Can the shadow guards stay back for a while? To bid Four farewell.’

  The emperor let a breath of air through her nose. ‘Alright, Seven. Everyone else, out.’

  As the ministers, servants and heirs trailed out the doors, a burning gaze flitted past Three’s shoulders. Then it vanished as the doors clicked shut.

  The emperor whispered a few words to Eight, who stood beside her. Then, she and Eight left.

  The hall was silent but for the silent dripping of Four’s blood.