Princess Lian's absence was noticed first by her maid, who arrived at dawn to find the bed unslept in and no sign of the princess anywhere within her chambers.
The alarm reached Jian within the hour, and Yuan felt the familiar cold dread of the past several months settle over him fresh, sharper somehow for the fact that this time it had reached someone he genuinely cared for, someone who had grown, gradually, from an overwhelming romantic complication into something closer to a friend he'd come to respect.
"Nothing's disturbed," Lei reported, having conducted a careful sweep of Lian's chambers alongside two of the palace's most trusted guards. "No sign of a struggle. Her window remains latched from the inside. Whoever took her either had her full cooperation, which seems unlikely given no note or explanation was left behind, or possessed skill enough to remove her without triggering any of the usual signs of forced entry."
