The Imperial Palace Ballroom was a cage of gold and jade.
I stood in the deepest shadows of the vermillion pillars, my heart a rhythmic, muffled drum. The plum-colored silk of my gown felt like a shroud. It was too light; it made me feel naked. Every time I moved, the high collar rubbed against the jagged scar on my collarbone—the permanent mark of the night he ended my life.
I wore a porcelain half-mask. It left only my mouth and my eyes visible. To the drunken nobles, I was a curiosity. To myself, I was a weapon waiting to be drawn.
Then, the music died. The Great Doors groaned open.
Zhenkai entered.
He was carved from obsidian and moonlight. He wore robes of midnight black, embroidered with silver dragons that seemed to writhe as he walked. His face was a mask of bored cruelty. He didn't walk; he conquered the air he moved through.
As he reached the dais, his gaze swept the room and snagged on mine.
He paused. The entire hall seemed to lose its breath. He stepped off the royal path, moving toward the pillar where I stood. He leaned in, the scent of sandalwood and mountain rain hitting me like a tidal wave. It was the same smell from five years ago.
"You," he murmured. His voice had deepened—a low, dangerous vibration. "The Ravens send me a girl this time? I asked for a Shadow, not a flower."
"The Ravens send you a shield, Your Majesty," I replied. I pitched my voice lower, the porcelain mask giving it a metallic, hollow quality.
Zhenkai's eyes searched mine. For a second, a flicker of something—pain? doubt?—crossed his face before it was replaced by a smirk.
"A shield is only as good as the arm that holds it. Don't disappoint me, Shadow."
— Zhenkai —
The room was full of ghosts, but only one had amber eyes.
I stood on the dais, the weight of the crown a dull ache. I had spent five years memorizing the faces of my enemies, but I hadn't expected to find one that made my pulse stumble.
The girl by the pillar was too still. Too focused. She wore plum silk, but she carried it like armor. When I approached her, the air between us turned electric, a wire pulled until it hummed.
"The Ravens send you a shield, Your Majesty," she said.
Her voice was wrong—distorted by the mask—but the way she stood, her weight shifted slightly to her back foot, was a ghost of a style I had seen once, in a burning room. I wanted to reach out and rip the porcelain from her face. I wanted to know if I was finally going mad.
An hour later, the test came.
A servant tripped, a tray of wine tilting toward my face. It was a clumsy attempt, a distraction.
The Shadow moved before the glass hit the floor.
She caught the tray with a blur of plum silk and threw her arm across my chest, shielding me. Her body was a physical barrier—firm, warm, and trembling with a tension I recognized.
I didn't look at the mess. I looked at her wrist.
Her sleeve had slipped back, revealing a white, puckered scar. An arrow wound. My arrow wound.
"Your reflexes are... familiar," I whispered. My voice was so soft only she could hear it. I reached up, my fingers ghosting near the edge of her mask. "Have we met in another life, Shadow? Or are you just another ghost sent to haunt my halls?"
Before I could pull the mask, a whistle pierced the air.
Thwack.
An arrow thudded into the wood of my throne, exactly where my head had been a second before she moved me.
"Assassin!" she screamed.
She drew a hidden blade from her sleeve, her movement a dance of lethal grace. I didn't panic. I stepped closer to her, my hand gripping her waist to pull her back against my chest as I drew my own sword.
"If you're a ghost," I hissed in her ear, hissing against her skin, "try not to die a second time tonight. I have too many questions for the dead."