Lu Tianyang leaned against the edge of the bronze doorway and let the room come to him.
The hall was alive in the way that courts always were, not with honest noise but with the subtler energy of people performing composure. Whispered alliances disguised as idle murmurs. Carefully neutral expressions that shifted the moment someone looked away. Men who had spent decades learning to want things without appearing to want them, all gathered in one room and pointed at each other like blades.
He looked around without hurrying.
Minister Zhou was sweating through his ceremonial collar, clutching a scroll with both hands as though it might try to escape. Elder Feng's fingers moved to his jade pendant, adjusted it, moved away, returned. A small habit, probably unconscious. The Second Prince sat in perfect cross-legged posture across the hall, wearing the private smirk of a man replaying his own future victories in his head.
Lu Tianyang filed all three away and walked forward.
He kept his pace unhurried because urgency was the first mistake a man could make in a room like this. It told people what you needed, and the moment they knew what you needed, they had leverage. He stopped just short of his seat, glanced around the hall with mild curiosity, and said, to no one in particular and everyone within earshot, "Court looks lively today."
Not an insult. Not a compliment. Just an observation, dropped lightly into the room and left there to do whatever it wanted.
In the gallery above, the Cold Sword Princess leaned forward almost imperceptibly. Her gaze was sharp and assessing, the look of someone who had spent a long time watching people and had grown particular about what she found interesting.
Nearby, a young woman with ink-stained fingers and a half-finished notebook looked up from her frantic scribbling. She stared at him with a slightly baffled expression, as though working through a problem that wasn't adding up. He's not even doing anything, her face said, and everyone is nervous.
He crouched to adjust a tassel on his sleeve, using the angle to watch the ministers shuffle papers with more energy than the task required.
A young official cleared his throat. "Your Highness. We were discussing the allocation of troops along the northern border."
Lu Tianyang let the words settle. Then he looked up at the man with the slow, considering expression of someone who had heard the question and was deciding how seriously it deserved to be taken.
"The northern border," he repeated. He let the pause stretch just long enough to become uncomfortable. "Sounds important. And tedious. Please continue."
The minister stared at him. Did he just say tedious. In front of the Emperor.
Minister Zhou opened his mouth and then thought better of it. He turned to Elder Feng, who responded by pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose and looking at the ceiling.
Lu Tianyang settled back and folded his arms, letting his gaze move through the room at its own pace. He watched the alliances forming in murmurs along the left wall. He watched the young masters near the back trying to outmaneuver each other through posture alone. He watched the ministers who refused to look in his direction at all, the ones running quiet calculations about how to make it to noon without attracting anyone's attention.
Then he found the Cold Sword Princess again.
She had not looked away. Most people, when caught watching, manufactured something else to do with their eyes. She didn't bother. Her gaze was direct and entirely without apology, carrying the particular quality of someone who feared very little and found most things mildly disappointing by comparison.
She did not look like she found him disappointing.
He allowed a faint smile, small enough that it communicated nothing definite. She might be useful eventually. She might simply be trouble. Either way, she was the most interesting thing in the room, and he had been in the room for less than five minutes, which was either a promising sign or a worrying one.
His father's voice cut cleanly through the noise.
"Lu Tianyang. Sit."
He sat. Not quickly. Not with the stiffness of a man obeying. He settled into the chair the way water settles into a container, finding its shape without effort, as though the idea had been his to begin with.
"Of course, Father. I'll take my post at the observation seat."
The Emperor's gaze held on him for a moment, unreadable in the particular way that meant something was being measured. Then it moved on.
Lu Tianyang rested one hand on the armrest and turned the jade wine cup slowly between his fingers. He did not speak again. He did not need to. He was not here to perform, and he was not here to start anything, not yet. He was here because the only way to understand rot was to stand inside the structure and let it show you where it had gone soft. Every flinch, every glance held half a second too long, every careful neutrality that cracked around the edges told him something. He collected all of it quietly and stored it away.
The court had no idea that the lazy prince spinning a cup in the corner had spent the last ten minutes learning more about them than they had learned about each other in years.
Let them keep their illusions a little longer.
When the time came, he would only need one move. The right one.