I am no longer at the center.
That is the truth my body learns before my mind accepts it.
When I reach for the Presence now, the response comes late—like an echo that has to travel too far before it remembers what it is meant to answer. The weight beneath the tower still exists. It still bends the city, still presses obedience into the streets like a thumb into clay.
But it does not turn for me anymore.
I stagger against the stone as the last of Zhou's talisman towers collapse inward, their ash lines sucked into the seams they tried to define. The bells have stopped ringing. That silence is worse. It feels final, like a verdict already delivered.
The being inside me tightens—not in alarm, not in rage.
In constraint.
I taste blood and realize I am biting down hard enough to draw it.
Above me, the tower breathes.
I did not notice when the Lord Protector stepped forward until the air around him changed. Not heavier—cleaner. The kind of clarity that follows a command that cannot be refused.
He raises one hand.
The Presence responds.
Not to me.
To structure.
The chaos Zhou introduced does not vanish. It is sorted. The warped districts stop collapsing. The seams stop spreading. The god beneath the city settles into a narrower profile, its outline sharpened, its reach folded back inward like a blade sheathed just enough to be carried safely.
I feel the leash snap into place.
Not on it.
On Wu Shuang.
She cries out once—not in pain, but in outrage—as the sigils in the tower flare and realign. The drifting sutras lock into a new sequence. Her shadow jerks, snaps back into alignment with her feet.
She stumbles.
The Lord Protector does not touch her.
He does not need to.
"You overextended," he says calmly. "Both of you did."
Wu Shuang's breathing is ragged. Her eyes burn, but she does not resist as the tower's geometry tightens around her, pinning her position relative to the Presence. She is still a key.
But no longer the hand that turns the lock.
I push myself upright, fury and desperation clawing through me.
"You let Zhou touch it," I snarl. "You nearly lost everything."
The Lord Protector looks at me then, truly looks at me, and I see something I have never seen before.
Relief.
"Loss implies uncertainty," he replies. "This was correction."
The Presence settles further, its halo of absence smoothing into a more disciplined curve. The pressure in the air evens out. People below stop screaming. Fires die down. The city exhales.
Control has returned.
Just not to me.
"You think you've won," I say.
He inclines his head slightly. "I think the board has stopped flipping."
Wu Shuang does not look at me.
That hurts more than her earlier defiance.
I feel something inside my chest cave inward—not fear, not rage.
Panic.
For the first time since this began, I am behind events instead of ahead of them.
I turn away before he can see it.
Shen Yue waits until night.
She does not go to me.
She goes to the palace.
Wu Jin receives her alone, seated not on the throne but at the small table where documents are signed and histories are rewritten. He looks older in the lamplight, shoulders drawn in, crown set aside like an object that has failed its purpose.
She bows.
Not deeply.
Respectfully.
"I won't waste your time," she says.
Wu Jin gestures for her to sit.
She does not.
"He's unstable," she continues. "And he's losing his leverage."
Wu Jin closes his eyes.
"I know."
"He will not stop," Shen Yue says. "Even if it destroys the city."
Wu Jin opens his eyes again, studying her carefully. "You're asking me to move against my brother."
"I'm asking you to survive him."
Silence stretches.
Finally, Wu Jin speaks. "If I do nothing, Zhou will eventually finish what they started. Or the South will restore the Emperor and erase us both."
"Yes."
"And if I act?" he asks.
Shen Yue's jaw tightens.
"Then Wu An dies," she says.
The words fall cleanly between them.
Wu Jin exhales shakily. "You love him."
"Yes."
"Then why are you here?"
She meets his gaze, eyes steady, voice quiet.
"Because if he continues like this, there will be nothing left for him to love."
Wu Jin looks away.
"I don't want his blood on my hands," he says.
"Then don't stain them," she replies. "Let me do it."
The lamp flickers.
Wu Jin stiffens. "You're asking me to sanction murder."
"I'm asking you to authorize removal," Shen Yue says. "Quiet. Surgical. After the crisis is resolved."
"And after?" Wu Jin asks.
Shen Yue does not hesitate.
"You stay on the throne."
Wu Jin's fingers curl into the table.
"And you?"
"I disappear," she says. "Or I stay long enough to make sure he's remembered as a protector, not a monster."
Wu Jin stares at her.
The woman before him does not look like a traitor.
She looks like someone who has already decided to carry the blame.
"I will not order his death," Wu Jin says slowly.
Shen Yue nods. "Then don't. Just don't stop it."
That is enough.
Wu Jin understands the shape of consent when he hears it.
He closes his eyes and whispers, "Not yet."
Shen Yue bows.
This time, deeply.
I feel it before I hear it.
A shift in the city's alignment—not supernatural, not ritual.
Political.
Something has been decided without me.
I stand beneath the tower again, staring at the stone, trying to remember when desperation began to feel like hunger.
The Presence does not answer.
Wu Shuang remains bound in her place, silent now, watching the city through eyes that no longer flicker.
The Lord Protector stands calm, composed, victorious—for now.
And somewhere in the palace, my wife is speaking my death into the future as if it were mercy.
I do not know that yet.
But I feel the distance widening.
And for the first time since all this began, I am afraid—
not of the god beneath the city,
but of the people who believe killing me might save it.