The jade was so cold it felt like it was burning her skin.
The first of many ghosts.
The words echoed in the sudden, roaring silence of her room. This wasn't a threat. It was a promise. It was a declaration of war, fought not on the battlefield or in the throne room, but in the most intimate, sacred space she had: her own bed. Someone had been here. While she was facing the Empress, while she was walking back with Li Xun, an unseen enemy had slithered into her home and left this… this trophy on her pillow.
Her first instinct was to scream, to shatter the suffocating quiet with her terror. But the scream died in her throat, strangled by a cold, hard rage that was hotter and brighter than any fear. They thought they could scare her. They thought they could break her with ghosts and trinkets.
They were wrong.
Her eyes, now accustomed to the dim moonlight, scanned every shadow in the room. The wardrobe, slightly ajar. The heavy velvet curtains, stirring with a breeze that shouldn't exist. The screen painted with cranes, its silhouette too still, too solid.
She didn't move. She stood perfectly still, the jade pendant clutched in her fist, and listened. She listened past the frantic thumping of her own heart, past the distant chirping of crickets. And she heard it. A soft, almost inaudible scrape. The sound of a leather sole on a wooden floorboard, coming from behind the screen.
He was still here.
Her blood turned to ice, then to fire. Her training, the hours of painful, repetitive practice, took over. Her mind, once a chaotic storm of fear and anger, became a still, clear pool. She didn't have a bow. She didn't have a sword. All she had was the small, sharp dagger tucked in her sash and the element of surprise.
Slowly, deliberately, she placed the jade pendant on her dressing table, making a soft clink. A deliberate sound. A signal that she knew. Then, she moved. Not towards the door, but towards the window, her steps silent on the thick rugs. She made it look like she was trying to escape, to lure him out.
It worked.
A dark shape detached itself from behind the screen, moving with a liquid speed that was terrifying. He was a blur of black, a wraith with a blade that glinted in the moonlight. He didn't make a sound as he closed the distance between them.
But Yingluo was expecting it. She dropped to the floor, sweeping her leg out in a move Commander Bao had drilled into her until her muscles screamed. The assassin, expecting a cowering girl, was caught off balance. He stumbled, his blade whistling through the air where her neck had been a second before.
She didn't hesitate. She scrambled up, grabbing the heavy bronze incense burner from her table. It was dead weight in her hands, but she swung it with all her might. It connected with a sickening crunch against the assassin's arm. He grunted in pain and surprise, his blade clattering to the floor.
He was fast, recovering instantly. He kicked her legs out from under her, and she fell hard, the air knocked from her lungs. He was on her in a flash, his hands wrapping around her throat. His face was hidden by a black mask, but his eyes were visible—cold, professional, and utterly devoid of emotion. This wasn't personal. This was a job.
Her vision started to tunnel, the pressure on her throat immense. She clawed at his hands, her nails digging into his skin, but it was like clawing at stone. She was going to die here, in her own room, and no one would even know until morning.
No.
With the last of her strength, she remembered the dagger. Her hand fumbled at her sash, her fingers closing around the hilt. She didn't have the strength for a powerful thrust. So she did the only thing she could. She drove the dagger sideways, not into his body, but into his thigh, twisting it with all her might.
He roared, a guttural sound of pain and fury, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second. It was all she needed. She bucked her hips, throwing him off balance, and scrambled away, gasping for air, her throat on fire.
The assassin pulled the dagger from his leg with a grimace of pain, his eyes now burning with a cold anger. He was done playing. He picked up his sword and advanced.
Yingluo's back hit the wall. She was trapped. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for a weapon, anything. Her gaze fell on the bow standing in the corner. Her bow. But there were no arrows.
Think. Think.
The assassin lunged. She dropped to the floor again, but this time, she grabbed the bow itself. As he swung his sword down, she thrust the bow up, using the sturdy yew wood to block the blade. The impact jarred her to the bone, the sword biting deep into the wood, inches from her face. He was too strong. The bow was splintering.
And then, a new sound. The sharp, distinctive thwang of a bowstring from outside the window.
The assassin's body jerked violently, a black-fletched arrow suddenly sprouting from his back. He looked down at it in disbelief, then his eyes went wide, and he crumpled to the floor, a dead weight of black cloth and cold steel.
Yingluo lay there, panting, her body trembling uncontrollably, the splintered bow still clutched in her hands. The door to her room burst open. It was her father, his sword drawn, followed by Commander Bao and a squad of guards.
"Yingluo!" the Duke roared, his face a mask of terror and rage.
But she wasn't looking at them. Her eyes were fixed on the arrow in the assassin's back. It was a perfect shot, fired through her window from the darkness of the garden. A shot that had saved her life.
She scrambled over to the body, her hands shaking as she examined the arrow. The fletching was made from the feathers of a night hawk. The shaft was marked with a small, almost invisible symbol—a crescent moon.
It was the symbol of the Crown Prince's personal guard.
Li Xun. He had been watching. He had saved her.
But as she pulled the arrow free, her fingers brushed against something tucked into the assassin's belt. It was a small, folded piece of paper. With a sense of dread, she opened it.
It wasn't a message from the Empress or Li Jian. It was a simple list of names. Her name was at the top. Below it were the names of her father, her brothers, and Commander Bao. It was a kill list.
But at the very bottom of the list, there was one more name. A name that made her blood run cold and shattered everything she thought she knew.
It was the name of the "Crippled" Crown Prince.
Li Xun.