I can feel them rearranging the city around me.
Not the walls.
Not the streets.
The decisions.
They settle differently now—like dust after something heavy has passed through a room. When I walk, conversations stop a breath too early. When I speak, answers arrive polished, rehearsed, incomplete.
The Presence does not warn me.
It does not advise.
It tightens.
That is how I know I am no longer aligned with mercy.
I stand in the lower courtyard where the Black Tigers assemble. They are exhausted—mud-stained, smoke-bitten, eyes too sharp for men who have slept. These are my soldiers. The ones who followed me when no one else would. The ones who still meet my gaze without looking away.
Or used to.
Commander Qiu kneels before me, helmet placed on the stone between his hands. He does not beg. He does not protest. He is too disciplined for that.
The charge against him is clean.
Unauthorized movement of troops.
Delayed response to an order.
Possible coordination failure during the Zhou incursion.
Possible.
That word matters less to me than it should.
Liao Yun stands to my left, rigid, eyes flicking once toward Qiu and then away. Shen Yue is not here. She has been absent more often than not lately—busy, she says, moving people, securing routes, arranging contingencies that no one explains to me anymore.
I feel the gap where her voice used to be.
"Commander Qiu," I say. My voice sounds distant, even to me. "Did you delay the order?"
"No," he answers immediately. "I followed it as received."
"As received," I repeat.
"Yes, my lord."
I close my eyes.
The Presence presses closer—not urging, not commanding—weighting the moment. It makes hesitation feel inefficient. It makes doubt feel like decay.
I open my eyes.
"You are lying," I say.
Qiu stiffens. His confusion is genuine. I can see it in the microsecond before discipline takes over.
"My lord, I swear—"
I draw my blade.
The sound cuts through the courtyard like a held breath snapping.
No one moves.
I do not ask again.
The strike is precise. Clean. His head falls without drama, rolling once before stopping against the edge of the stone channel that carries rainwater away.
Blood spreads.
It always spreads more than you expect.
For a heartbeat, the world waits for something—uproar, resistance, outrage.
Nothing comes.
The Black Tigers kneel as one.
I feel it then: not satisfaction, not relief.
Clarity.
The Presence loosens slightly, approving in the only way it knows how—by ceasing to press.
I turn away from the body without another word.
Behind me, Liao Yun swallows hard.
He does not speak.
He will not challenge this. He will absorb it, contextualize it, rationalize it. That is what loyalty looks like when fear becomes policy.
I walk alone through the inner corridors of the tower, stone whispering beneath my boots. The Presence hums low and distant, like something massive breathing through walls too thin to contain it.
I know something is coming.
Not an attack.
A decision.
I cannot see it. I cannot name it. But the city's alignment has shifted in a way that tells me I am being prepared for removal.
Not violently.
Administratively.
That night, Shen Yue meets Wu Jin again.
She does not wear armor. She does not bring guards. She does not bow deeply this time. She looks tired in a way that cannot be slept away.
"I heard about Qiu," Wu Jin says quietly.
She does not react.
"He was innocent," Wu Jin continues.
"Yes," she says.
Wu Jin closes his eyes. "Then why?"
"Because An needed to prove something," she replies. "To himself. To the city. To his father."
"And what did it prove?"
"That he's already being pushed where they want him."
Wu Jin studies her. "You're still going through with it."
"Yes."
"You're still planning to kill him."
Shen Yue's hands tighten in her sleeves.
"I'm planning to stop him," she says. "If that requires killing him, then—"
"Then you'll do it," Wu Jin finishes.
She nods once.
"After the crisis," she adds. "After Zhou commits. After the South reveals itself. Not before."
Wu Jin exhales slowly. "And if I refuse?"
"You won't," she says softly. "Because you're still trying to save people."
That lands.
Wu Jin looks away.
"Prepare," he says finally. "Quietly."
Shen Yue bows.
As she leaves, her face remains composed.
Only once she is alone does she press her hand to her mouth and shake.
The Lord Protector watches all of this unfold without moving a single piece himself.
He does not need to.
Wu An is doing it for him.
The execution travels through the city faster than any decree. It is retold with precision, stripped of context, polished into lesson.
The Black Tigers are no longer just feared.
They are unpredictable.
Which is exactly what Zhou notes in their reports.
Which is exactly what the Southern Kingdom whispers into their ceremonial plans.
Which is exactly what the Lord Protector wanted.
I stand again beneath the tower, staring at the stone where the Presence sits unseen, feeling the distance between who I was and who I am widen into something permanent.
I tell myself Qiu's death was necessary.
I tell myself innocence is a luxury.
I tell myself this is what leadership costs.
The Presence does not disagree.
And that is the worst part.
Because somewhere deep inside me—beneath the calculations, beneath the cold, beneath the growing silence—I know the truth:
I am becoming easier to justify killing.
And everyone around me is starting to prepare for it.