The rain came at dusk, not as a gentle drizzle but as a howling torrent that battered the palace walls and turned the gardens into fields of black mud.
Jian watched it from a narrow window slit in his chamber, the sky beyond churning with sickly shades of violet and green. Thunder rolled like distant drums of war.
The city would not survive this storm unscathed but neither, he feared, would those within the palace.
A sharp knock shattered his thoughts.
He turned, muscles taut, his mind racing through the possibilities. No one should be seeking him at this hour.
Another knock three short raps, then silence.
A code.
Heart pounding, Jian crossed the room and lifted the latch. The door creaked open to reveal a figure swathed in a heavy cloak, rain dripping from the hem.
Without a word, the figure slipped inside.
Only when the door was bolted again did the visitor pull back their hood, revealing a pale face framed by dark hair Wei, a clerk from the Queen's own council chambers.
Jian's stomach tightened. He knew Wei by reputation: loyal, sharp, and dangerously observant.
"You're a difficult man to find," Wei said, voice low. "And even harder to approach."
"What do you want?" Jian asked warily.
Wei smiled thinly.
"To survive. Same as you."
He produced a bundle from within his cloak and tossed it onto the cot. Jian unwrapped it carefully inside were two items: a torn ledger page marked with strange black sigils, and a small glass vial containing a viscous, dark red liquid.
"What is this?" Jian demanded.
"Proof," Wei said grimly. "The council knows more than they admit. Some of them... assist willingly. Others, unknowingly."
"And you?"
Wei's mouth twisted into a bitter smirk.
"I'm not foolish enough to believe we are still ruled by mere mortals."
The words sent a chill through Jian's bones.
He looked down at the ledger page. The symbols were ancient, predating even the First Dynasty remnants of a time when kings bargained with demons to bind empires together.
"You risk much bringing this to me," Jian said, meeting Wei's gaze.
Wei shrugged.
"Risk is the currency of survival now. Choose wrongly, and you drown. Choose wisely... and perhaps you live to see another season."
Jian nodded slowly, feeling the weight of the choice settle upon him.
Outside, the rain pounded harder against the stones, as if the heavens themselves raged at what was unfolding within the Queen's gilded prison.
They moved swiftly through the palace that night, using the service tunnels beneath the kitchens damp, narrow passages known only to a few.
Wei led the way, torch held low.
"The Queen holds council tonight," Wei whispered over his shoulder. "In the Crimson Hall."
Jian stiffened.
The Crimson Hall was reserved for war councils, for declarations of succession, for moments that reshaped the empire itself.
That the Queen convened her closest advisors there under the cover of storm and darkness spoke volumes.
They reached a grating at the end of the tunnel. Beyond it, voices rose muffled but distinct.
Jian crouched, straining to listen.
"...accelerated beyond expectation," said a man's voice rough, like gravel.
"It matters not," came a woman's reply smooth, commanding. "The sickness will cleanse the weak. Only the worthy shall remain."
There was a pause, broken only by the crackle of a brazier.
"And the city?" another voice asked.
"Let it suffer," the woman said. "Let them wail and beg. Their despair will feed the bloom."
Bloom.
The word struck Jian like a hammer blow.
It was not the first time he had heard it whispered in the shadowed corridors. The Silent Bloom, some called it a sickness of both body and spirit, a plague that did not merely kill but transformed.
Wei touched his arm lightly, nodding toward a narrow stairway leading up.
No more words were needed.
They withdrew, silent as wraiths.
Back in his chamber, Jian poured over the ledger page by lamplight, Wei watching silently from the corner.
The symbols were unmistakable now that he had context invocations meant to sever the soul from the flesh, to harvest vitality for... something else.
Something older.
Something hungry.
"How far has it spread?" Jian asked at last, voice hoarse.
Wei hesitated.
"Too far," he said. "The noble houses are compromised. The guard captains obey without question. Even some of the healers..."
He trailed off, but Jian understood.
The palace was a fortress not against invasion, but against escape.
Hope flickered and guttered in his chest.
Yet some ember still remained.
"We have to find others," Jian said, standing. "Those not yet touched by this madness."
Wei arched a brow.
"And if there are none?"
"Then we fall alone," Jian said grimly. "But not quietly."
A grim smile touched Wei's lips.
"Then we had better move quickly."
The storm raged for three nights.
On the fourth morning, when the sun finally broke through the clouds, it cast a pale, sickly light over the ruined gardens and flooded courtyards.
Within the palace, a new decree was issued: a grand celebration to honor the Queen's benevolence.
It was a lie so brazen, so grotesque, that Jian nearly laughed when he heard it.
But he understood.
The Queen or whatever now wore her face intended to root out the last pockets of resistance under the guise of revelry.
And the people would dance their way to the slaughter.
Jian and Wei gathered what few allies they could a kitchen maid whose brother had vanished in the night; a young guard who found black veins creeping beneath his captain's skin; an old scribe who remembered older, darker times.
They met in secret, speaking in riddles, moving through the palace like shadows.
They had no great weapons, no armies.
Only fear, and the desperate will to live.
It would have to be enough.
The night of the celebration arrived like the hush before a blade falls.
The Crimson Hall was transformed into a garden of death vast arrangements of black lotuses and crimson lilies filled the air with a heavy, cloying scent.
Silk banners fluttered from the rafters, bearing the Queen's sigil: a golden crown entwined with thorned vines.
The courtiers arrived in droves, draped in finery, faces painted in sickly hues. They laughed too loudly, moved too stiffly, their eyes glittering with a manic light.
At the head of it all sat Queen Lian herself, radiant in a gown of midnight blue, a smile like a blade curving her lips.
Jian watched from the shadows, heart hammering against his ribs.
He had seen enough.
The storm had broken.
The true battle had yet to begin.