"Some collapses make no sound. Only water knows how to mourn what falls into it."
The morning air was thin and sharp.
Xu Feiran opened her eyes to a ceiling she barely recognized.
The soft gold pattern on the canopy above her bed swayed gently—cranes stitched in silk thread, rising toward clouds that never moved. She had seen them a thousand times since her marriage. She had memorized their wings. Their silence.
But today, they blurred.
Her head throbbed just behind her temples, as if something had sunk into the folds of her mind and refused to leave.
She blinked once. Twice.
Yue'er was beside her, fast asleep with her chin resting on the side of the bed. One hand still clasped loosely around Feiran's wrist, as if she'd fallen asleep in the act of taking her pulse.
Feiran moved slowly.
The weight in her chest remained, a bloom of pressure—dull, but insistent. The memory of the wine lingered on her tongue. Sweet. Slippery. Too easy to swallow.
She shifted her legs from the bed and stood.
The floor was cold, stone beneath silk, and the dizziness arrived in a wave—slow, rolling, like nausea with its teeth filed down.
She breathed through it.
Yue'er stirred slightly but did not wake.
Feiran pulled her winter cloak over her shoulders, the one with the high collar, and stepped quietly from her chamber into the courtyard beyond.
The sky was overcast, the morning pale and sallow. A hush had fallen over the palace—too early for the murmurs of politics, too late for true quiet. Somewhere in the distance, a temple bell rang once.
The plum trees stood motionless.
Feiran walked without reason.
Her feet carried her across the white flagstones, past the low garden bench, toward the shallow pond nestled between two sculpted pines.
She remembered this place.
She had walked here as a girl during a visit to the palace gardens—before she had a title, before her name was anything more than something whispered between relatives. She remembered laughing. Cold wind in her teeth. Running fingers across the surface of the water until her hands went numb.
Now, the water was frozen at the edges, dark and glassy in the center.
Still.
But beneath it, something moved.
She stepped closer.
A single plum blossom floated across the surface.
Impossible.
There had been no blooms.
Not yesterday. Not for weeks.
She leaned in.
The blossom drifted in a slow circle, caught on a barely visible current.
Her breath clouded against the cold.
And then—
The ground disappeared.
There was no sound.
No gasp.
Only the sudden thud of stone slipping beneath silk, the whip-crack of ice, and the splash of something falling.
Feiran hit the water like a whisper turned to stone.
Yue'er woke to the sound of running feet.
Shouts in the outer corridor.
Then the words pierced:
"The Crown Princess—!"
She was out the door before her shoes were on, sleeves flying behind her, heart already five paces ahead of her body.
She reached the pond as guards were arriving, confusion written across their faces.
And there—already kneeling at the water's edge, soaked to the skin, was Commander Wen.
He held Feiran in both arms, her body limp, hair streaming across his shoulder like wet ink.
His expression was unreadable.
Too still.
Yue'er dropped to her knees beside them. "Is she—?"
"She's breathing," he said hoarsely. "But cold. Too cold."
"Get her inside," Yue'er ordered. "Now."
Feiran drifted in and out.
Warmth. Then pain.
Voices. Then silence.
Someone stripped off her soaked robes. Someone else brought heated stones wrapped in cloth. The scent of ginger, sharp and cloying, filled her lungs. She coughed.
"Niangniang," Yue'er's voice cracked. "Stay with me."
Feiran opened her eyes.
The ceiling again.
But this time, the cranes did not sway.
She tried to speak. No sound came.
Yue'er took her hand.
"She slipped," someone said from across the room. "The stones along the pond were wet with frost."
"She doesn't slip," Yue'er snapped. "Not her."
Silence.
Then another voice. Quieter.
"I saw her walking before sunrise. Alone. Toward the pond."
Feiran's breath caught.
Yue'er leaned in. "What is it?"
Feiran swallowed hard. Her throat burned.
"There was a blossom," she whispered. "In the water."
Yue'er stared.
Feiran's fingers curled tightly into the sheets.
She slept again.
This time, when she woke, the sun had reached higher into the sky. The palace was alive with its usual murmur—layers of court activity just beyond her walls. But her chamber was still.
Yue'er had stepped away.
And someone else stood at the threshold.
Commander Wen.
His robe was clean now, but his boots were still damp. His hair hung loose over one shoulder, slightly disheveled. A bruise darkened one side of his temple—barely noticeable unless you knew where to look.
He bowed deeply.
She tried to sit up.
He crossed the room before she could.
"Don't," he said.
His voice was quiet. Roughened by something that didn't come from the cold.
"You nearly drowned."
"I fell."
"No," he said. "You were pushed."
Feiran froze.
He met her eyes. Steady. Heavy with knowledge.
"I went to review patrol reports by the south wall. I was late. If I had come sooner—"
"You couldn't have known," she said.
"I should have."
Feiran watched him.
His face was carved from guilt, not stone.
"Why were you near my courtyard?" she asked.
A pause.
"I received a note," he said. "Anonymous. It said: 'If you want to see how a petal dies, look before the sun rises.'"
Feiran blinked.
"You thought it meant me?"
He nodded.
"I didn't expect… water."
Feiran closed her eyes.
"A blossom was floating on the surface," she whispered. "It wasn't there yesterday. I saw it. Just one."
He didn't speak.
"I stepped forward," she continued. "To see if it was real."
Her hands trembled slightly. "And then—"
Commander Wen bowed his head.
"I believe someone left it there for you to follow."
Feiran exhaled, slow and uneven.
"And I did."
Outside, the palace resumed its rhythm.
Inside, she sat in silence, her hands curled in her lap, hair still damp at the ends. Commander Wen stood quietly across from her, unmoving.
Then, at last, he said:
"You're not safe, Niangniang. Not even in your own breath."
Feiran looked at him.
"What would you have me do?"
"Fight."
"How?"
"However you can."
She studied him.
"You swore to protect the Crown Prince," she said softly.
"I did."
"And now?"
He met her eyes.
"I protect what he left unguarded."
A servant entered with hot tea, ending the moment.
Commander Wen bowed and turned to leave.
But just before he crossed the threshold, Feiran spoke.
"Did anyone else see?"
He paused.
"The Empress Dowager knows."
"And the Crown Prince?"
Silence.
"He has not asked," Wen said.
And then he left.
Feiran reached for the tea with both hands.
Her fingers no longer trembled.
She drank slowly.
Outside, the sun touched the water again.
The plum trees remained bare.
But the pond rippled.
And somewhere, at the bottom, a single petal floated face down.