The envoy from Xilan arrived four days later, announced with considerably more formality than the situation seemed to warrant, and Yuan felt his stomach drop the moment the herald spoke the delegation's origin aloud in the receiving hall.
"An envoy," Jian murmured beside him, low enough that only Yuan could hear. "Unannounced, barely a week after the hearing concluded. That's not diplomatic courtesy. That's a message."
"A message saying what?"
"That's what we're about to find out."
The envoy himself was younger than Yuan expected, perhaps thirty, dressed in the pale blue of Xilan's formal court robes, his expression carefully pleasant in the particular way of a man well practiced at giving nothing away. He introduced himself as Wen Shu, a senior attaché to the crown prince's household, here on what he described, with careful diplomatic phrasing, as "a mission of continued goodwill" following Princess Ming's safe return home.
