"The blade that never dulls is the one sharpened by sorrow."
The Lotus Pavilion sat just beyond the inner palace walls, hidden by frost-covered willows and a curtain of falling snow. It wasn't grand like the Empress's court or steeped in blood-stained politics like the Hall of Nine Princes.
It was quiet.
It was where Ying Yue lived.
Once a daughter of a fallen general, now a court poet with no official title, she was a woman who wore scars like jewelry and laughter like armor. Her words were sharper than most blades in the capital, and yet, she was one of the few souls Yuè Yuán visited without invitation.
And tonight, he came without a word.
She poured tea in silence, her delicate hands moving with the elegance of someone who had learned to speak through gestures rather than scrolls.
"You're late," Ying Yue said with a smirk. "You usually come before the moon gets tired of watching the palace."
Yuè Yuán sat across from her, his long sleeves whispering against the lacquered wood as he poured himself a cup.
"I was speaking with a boy who sees too much and says too little."
Ying Yue arched a brow. "The Seventh?"
He nodded once.
Her voice lost its humor. "How long before he stops watching and starts burning?"
Yuè Yuán paused. The steam curled gently between them. "He's already begun. Just not where anyone can see it yet."
"Except you," she said.
"I don't know what I see," Yuè Yuán admitted quietly.
Ying Yue's gaze softened. "You don't say that often."
He looked down into his cup, as if the dark reflection held answers the heavens wouldn't give.
"I've lived a long time, Yue'er," he said. "Long enough to know what becomes of broken children when the world teaches them to bite before they speak."
"And still, you offer him kindness."
Yuè Yuán smiled faintly. "That's the only thing I have that isn't a weapon."
Ying Yue sipped her tea, eyes half-lidded. "Be careful. He might use even that against you."
The snow outside thickened. A servant girl entered the pavilion quietly, bowing low. Xiao Mei, barely seventeen, had been serving Ying Yue since her days in exile.
"There was another letter today," Xiao Mei murmured. "Slipped under the door. No seal."
Ying Yue glanced at Yuè Yuán before unfolding the parchment. Her expression turned to ice.
He leaned forward. "What is it?"
She passed him the letter. Only one line had been written, in a hand neither of them recognized:
> 'The Immortal smiles. Let's see if he bleeds.'
Yuè Yuán read it once. Then once more. And said nothing.
Later that night, as he walked through the silent palace halls—his reflection following him across polished stone—he stopped near a cold window and looked toward the north tower.
A figure stood there.
Watching.
Jie-Zhou.
He wasn't hiding.
He wasn't smiling.
And in that one instant, beneath the snow and silence and golden lanterns, Yuè Yuán realized something chilling:
That boy wasn't waiting for power.
He was practicing how to hold it.