The moon had vanished from the heavens.
No cloud covered the sky, no storm raged over Yanliao. Yet when night fell, the stars trembled in their places and the moon itself seemed to have been plucked from the firmament, leaving only a yawning void. In the old texts, this was called a harbinger an omen of calamities yet unseen.
Within the high, cold walls of the palace, Prince Jian stood by the window of his private chamber, his brow furrowed, his hands clasped behind him. His reflection in the polished glass was a ghost of himself, pale and uncertain.
There had been rumors among the guards. Whispers, spoken only when they thought none listened of villages succumbing to strange sicknesses, of corpses that refused to rest. Jian had overheard them scraps of fear carried on the wind like smoke.
Yet the court carried on as if nothing had changed.
He turned, his silken robes whispering against the stone floor. Scrolls and missives littered his desk routine matters of trade, taxation, harvest yields. Not a single word of plague. Not a single cry for help.
It was wrong. It was all wrong.
Someone was silencing the voices before they could reach the capital. But who?
A knock sounded at the door.
Jian composed himself. "Enter."
A young servant girl slipped inside, her eyes downcast. In her hands, she bore a sealed scroll marked with the sigil of the Imperial Council. She bowed deeply as she approached.
"My lord," she whispered, "this was found among the lesser scribes' quarters. It... was not sent through proper channels."
Jian's heart quickened. He took the scroll, breaking the wax with careful fingers.
The letter within was hastily penned, the strokes uneven, desperate.
"...the sickness consumes entire villages... they rise again with mouths gaping and flesh rotting... we beg for aid before the Queendom falls into darkness..."
The letter ended abruptly, smeared as if the writer had been dragged away mid-sentence.
Jian's fingers tightened around the parchment.
"How long has this been hidden?" he demanded, though he already knew the answer.
The servant trembled. "Days, perhaps longer, my lord. There are others... missing."
Missing. Always the same word. Always spoken with a shiver.
Jian dismissed the girl with a curt nod. Once alone, he stared down at the missive, a heavy weight settling in his chest.
The sickness was real. The dead walked.
And yet, here within the marble heart of Yanliao, there was only laughter and music.
Was it ignorance or something far more deliberate?
Later that night, disguised in plain servant garb, Jian moved through the lesser halls of the palace. He avoided the grand corridors with their ornate guards, slipping instead through the old servants' passages, the forgotten arteries of the ancient palace.
He needed to see the truth for himself.
The lower quarters were strangely deserted. Oil lamps guttered in their brackets, casting long, shivering shadows against the cracked walls. Now and then, he heard soft scratching noises rats, he hoped and once, a low, wet coughing that made his blood run cold.
Finally, he reached the western archive.
The door was slightly ajar.
Pushing it open, Jian entered into a room that reeked of mold and dust. Here, beneath the sleeping Queendom, were stored the minor records the unpolished truths that history preferred to forget.
And it was here he found Councilor Ren.
The old man sat slumped over a desk, ink still wet on the parchment beneath his head. Jian's heart leapt but as he stepped closer, he saw the truth.
Ren was dead. His skin was waxy and pale, his mouth frozen in a silent scream.
On the desk, barely completed, was a document titled simply: Plague Response Protocol.
The ink ended mid-sentence.
A sound behind him the soft scrape of a footstep.
Jian whirled around, drawing the dagger hidden at his belt.
But it was only Minister Yao, his thin face pale as the moonless sky.
"My prince," Yao breathed, bowing low. "You should not be here."
"Neither should you," Jian countered, voice sharp.
For a long moment, neither spoke. Only the distant wail of wind filled the empty room.
Then Yao straightened, his hands trembling. "There are things, my prince," he said carefully, "that even blood and honor cannot shield you from."
"What do you mean?" Jian pressed.
Yao licked his dry lips. "The court has... agreed. Certain matters must not reach the people. Panic is a greater enemy than disease."
"Even if it costs thousands of lives?" Jian snapped.
Yao's eyes flickered fear, guilt, resignation before he bowed once more. "It is not my place to question."
Jian sheathed his dagger slowly.
He understood, then.
The sickness was known. It was acknowledged privately, secretly by the highest ranks. Yet nothing was done. No aid sent. No proclamations made.
And above them all, presiding with unshakable poise, was Queen Lian.
He dared not think it, not yet. To question the Queen was treason. To accuse her was death.
Still, a seed of doubt had been planted, and it took root with ferocious speed.
By dawn, the capital wore its usual mask of splendor. The market squares bustled, the temple bells sang, the river ferries glided like swans across mirrored waters.
But in the shadowed alleys and behind the curtained windows of the noble houses, fear whispered like a disease of its own.
Messengers rode in secret to unknown destinations. Physicians were summoned under pretense of private ailments. Priests burned incense until the sky itself wept with smoke.
And overhead, where once the silver moon had reigned, the sky remained empty and black.
Prince Jian stood atop the eastern tower, the cold wind tugging at his robes.
From here, he could see the city stretching outward a tapestry of life, vibrant yet fragile. How easily it could be unraveled.
He thought of Chengyuan. He thought of the dead Councilor. Of the silenced scribes. Of Minister Yao's trembling hands.
He thought of the Queen's serene smile.
And deep within his heart, a question festered:
What if the sickness was not a curse of the gods... but the will of the crown?
The thought was treason.
The thought was death.
But still, it grew.
And somewhere, unseen, a flower of blood began to bloom.