Sleep would not come, three nights after the tavern's grim discovery, and Yuan finally abandoned the effort entirely, slipping out to the walled courtyard where Han had first taught him to find the ember behind his ribs, hoping the familiar discipline of cultivation might settle what grief and frustration had left too raw for rest.
He sat cross legged beneath the same plum tree Princess Ming had once favored for her reading, working through the breathing cycles Han had drilled into him across months of patient training, reaching inward for the warmth that had grown steadier, more reliable, with every week of continued practice. Tonight, though, something felt different from the moment he settled into the first cycle, the ember responding not with its usual controlled, gathering heat, but with something sharper, more insistent, pressing against the edges of his awareness like a door straining against a lock that had already begun to fail.
