The maps stayed hidden in the lining of his second-best robe, folded flat against his ribs, for exactly two days before Yuan realized someone else had been in the storage hall.
Those two days passed in a strange, suspended kind of normalcy. Yuan attended his lessons, sparred badly with the training master, sat through an interminable court function where an elderly minister discussed irrigation policy for what felt like several geological ages. He smiled where smiling was expected. He said the right things at the right moments. And underneath all of it, the maps sat against his ribs like a second set of bones, a constant, quiet reminder that he was carrying something that could get people killed if it fell into the wrong hands — possibly including his own.
