Chapter 202: The Bell Rings
Yan Wuji found the words at last.
"The Emperor is dead."
The bells climbed through the mountain below them until the whole Pavilion rang. Disciples spilled from halls and training courts, grey robes gathering beneath white roofs as signal flags were hauled down.
Xuan looked at the jade slip in Yan Wuji’s hand. "When?"
"Before dawn in Tianzhao." Yan Wuji read from it again. "The imperial physicians confirmed it at first light. The palace released the notice less than an hour ago through the provincial relay formations."
Qingyue’s fingers closed around her untouched cup. The porcelain gave a quiet complaint beneath the pressure. "Less than an hour," she said. "And the message has already reached this mountain."
"The Pavilion pays well to hear when the world changes."
Xuan watched the cloud beyond the terrace and felt the road behind them grow longer by the breath. "I didn’t expect it to catch us this far from home."
[ Yeah. Same. ] Mira’s voice had gone low inside his head, all the earlier play stripped away. [ Damn. We knew he had days, maybe weeks, but this is lousy timing even by our standards. We’re two weeks from Skyedge, sitting on a mountain that just told every prince it wants nothing to do with them. ]
’And our sect told the Third Princess the opposite.’
[ Yup. Loudly. With witnesses. We picked a side, packed our bags, and rode out of reach of every fast decision that side might need from us. Brilliant travel planning, host. Five stars. ]
’We left before the Emperor died.’
[ I know. I’m blaming fate. You’re merely nearby and convenient. ]
"The Pavilion will close its lower gates until the elders decide otherwise. No merchant caravans, no wandering cultivators, no visitors without named invitations. You came through before the order, which is fortunate."
"Fortunate," Qingyue repeated. "Our fathers may be receiving declarations of war while we drink tea above the clouds."
Yan Wuji’s expression tightened. "No army crosses half the empire in an hour."
"No," she said. "But orders do."
Yan Wuji looked toward the stairs where the messenger had disappeared. "You are safe here. Both of you. Whatever happens below this mountain, no faction will touch guests under Pavilion protection. When you choose to leave, we will send a convoy with you. Senior disciples, elders if the roads demand it, and fresh mounts at every station we control. You will reach Skyedge."
Xuan studied him. No rehearsed speech now. Yan Wuji gave the promise as himself, with the same blunt pride he had carried onto the Yuncheng stone. "We appreciate it," Xuan said. "Truly."
Qingyue inclined her head. "Frostmoon will remember the courtesy."
"Good. I would rather not explain to your father how I allowed his daughter to vanish between my gate and his. Or explain to yours why the man he raised was stabbed on a road after I promised him tea."
"Father would make the explanation brief," Xuan said.
"That is exactly what worries me."
A second disciple appeared at the terrace entrance. The Pavilion Master had called the inner council.
Yan Wuji nodded. "Tell them I am coming."
"You should go," Xuan said.
"I should." Yan Wuji’s gaze travelled between them. "Guest quarters have been prepared on the third tier. Stay there until we know whether the roads are nervous or already stupid. I’ll send word when the council breaks."
"How long?"
"Until old men run out of ways to say the same thing."
"That could take weeks."
"Now you understand my suffering."
The humor survived for one breath. Yan Wuji left them on the terrace, robes snapping behind him as he took the stairs two at a time.
Qingyue waited until he was beyond hearing. "Everything we arranged may already be useless."
"Not useless."
"The Princess planned to be in position before he died. We do not know whether she reached Tianzhao, whether the Second Prince closed the northern roads, whether the palace admitted her, or whether her brothers moved before the notice left the capital."
"She expected this."
"Expectation is not control." Qingyue rose and crossed to the open edge of the terrace. Wind caught the loose ends of her blue sash and dragged them toward the cloud. "My father committed Frostmoon because I told him she was our best path. Yours put Skyedge beside her. If she is trapped outside the capital, arrested, or dead before nightfall, our sects are exposed with nothing above them."
Fear sat beneath the arithmetic. She had carried her father’s decision into Lin Zhen’s hall as certainty. Now the bridge beneath it had washed out.
Xuan joined her by the edge. "She’s not dead."
"You cannot know that."
"No. But I met her. A woman who crosses a province while her father is dying does not arrive late to the only day she has planned her adult life around."
Qingyue looked at him from the corner of her eye. "That is faith."
"Judgment. Faith asks for less evidence."
[ Also, yeah, she probably made it, ] Mira said. [ Xinhua knew the clock better than anyone. She wasn’t sightseeing on the way back. If she had to burn horses down to bone and carry the last one, she’d be near the capital. ]
’Near isn’t inside.’
[ No. And inside could be worse. Palaces could be one of the worst traps. ]
Xuan rested his forearms against the pale stone rail. ’Run it for me.’
[ All right. First Prince first. Legally, he has the best hand. Eldest son, recognized heir by tradition, palace officials already know his face, and the household probably defaults to him until someone says otherwise. Problem: he has no cultivation. None. In this world that’s like applying to captain a ship while afraid of water. ]
’He could still claim the throne.’
[ Yep. For an hour, a day, maybe longer if the civil court and palace guard close ranks. He doesn’t need to win a duel to sit down. He needs the seal, a succession decree, and enough doors locked before his brother’s army arrives. ]
Qingyue had begun working through the same pieces aloud. "The First Prince will invoke birthright immediately. If the palace bureaucracy backs him, he can issue orders under the imperial seal before anyone challenges the succession."
"The Second Prince won’t recognize them," Xuan said.
"No. He commands the armies. He may already be marching."
[ Almost certainly, ] Mira agreed. [ Tianlong has spent years collecting generals like other men collect infinity stones. He doesn’t wait politely for the eldest to finish the funeral. The ugly question is whether his troops were moving before the death notice. ]
’If they were, he knew.’
[ Or guessed. Either way, bad. ]
Qingyue’s voice lowered. "The Second Prince can call his advance a security measure. Protect the capital, preserve order, defend the imperial family. By the time anyone names it a coup, his banners may be outside Tianzhao."
"And the Third Princess has court support, public favor, and cultivation enough that people can imagine her surviving the crown."
"She lacks soldiers."
"For now." Xuan continued. "Skyedge and Frostmoon cannot be the only sects she approached. She came to us because the East was weak on her board. She will have others nearer the capital."
[ Probably. Hopefully. ] Mira made a dissatisfied sound. [ Damn, I hate plans built around words like probably. ]
’The Fourth.’
Mira took longer with that one.
’You hated not understanding him before. Has death improved the view?’
[ Nope. If anything, it made him worse. Everyone agrees he’s a drunk, a disgrace, a prince who has spent his life staining the family name. That agreement is the problem. Courts don’t agree on the color of daylight unless somebody paid for the paint. ]
Qingyue turned from the rail. "The Fourth Prince may do nothing."
"Maybe."
Despite himself, Xuan’s mouth twitched. Qingyue noticed.
"You think the Fourth Prince is dangerous."
"I think a man who survives that long in the imperial family while convincing everyone he’s useless deserves more attention than the ones waving armies around."
She considered it, eyes narrowing slightly. "So his reputation may be a shield."
"Or bait."
[ Yup. Exactly. ] Mira sounded grimly pleased. [ My professional assessment of the Fourth Prince remains: no. Don’t trust him, don’t drink with him, and if he starts acting harmless, check whether your knife is still where you left it. ]
’Very scholarly.’
[ Damn right. ]
The bells cut off. Their absence struck harder than the noise. Across the tiers, thousands of disciples waited for their elders to tell them what the dead Emperor now required.
Formation light raced through the Pavilion. One gate closed. Another followed, each seal climbing the mountain in pale bands until the white bridge below them vanished behind a wall of translucent qi.
[ Well, ] Mira said. [ The world has officially become inconvenient. ]
Xuan pushed away from the rail. "We stay long enough to learn who moved first. Riding blind helps no one. Once the Pavilion has reliable news, we leave with the convoy."
Qingyue nodded. "And send messages to both sects before we move."
"If the relay formations remain open."
"They’ll find a way. Great sects always do when enough people are frightened."
Footsteps approached from below. Yan Wuji returned far sooner than either of them expected, the color not yet back in his face. He carried a second jade slip.
"The council has its first report from Tianzhao," he said.
Xuan read the trouble in the way Yan Wuji gripped the jade. "The Second Prince?"
"No."
"The Third Princess?"
Yan Wuji shook his head and held the slip out between them. "The palace gates were sealed before the Emperor’s death was announced. The imperial seal is in the First Prince’s hands, and he has invoked the succession law."
Qingyue took the jade. Her eyes moved across the glowing script and stopped near the bottom. Xuan saw the tension gather in her fingers.
"What?"
She passed him the slip.
Beneath the declaration of succession, one final line had been carved into the report.
By order of the new Emperor, the Second Prince, the Third Princess, and the Fourth Prince were commanded to enter the palace before sunset and kneel.
[ Oh, ] Mira whispered. [ Damn. The man with no cultivation just moved first. ]