They move faster now.
I feel it in the gaps between sounds, in the way footsteps echo too long after the person has passed. Decisions arrive already shaped, already approved, as if I am being informed of my own future rather than choosing it.
The execution did not quiet the city.
It instructed it.
By morning, Zhou's proclamations were circulating through the northern wards—written in immaculate calligraphy, stamped with seals that meant order. They did not accuse me of tyranny. They did not call me a butcher.
They called me unstable.
They cited Commander Qiu by name. They listed his service record. They noted his absence of prior misconduct. They framed his death not as cruelty, but as evidence of "unpredictable governance under supernatural strain."
They spoke gently.
That was worse.
People read the notices and nodded, as if they had already reached the conclusion and Zhou had merely articulated it for them. Merchants whispered that trade would be safer under oversight. Clerks murmured that emergency authority had lasted too long. Soldiers looked at me differently—not afraid, not loyal.
Evaluating.
The Presence presses closer when I notice this.
Not to comfort me.
To sharpen me.
I walk through the inner districts without escort. No one stops me. No one dares. But I feel the city's attention follow my steps like a held breath waiting to be released.
I sense the attempt before it happens.
Not because I see it—but because the air thins.
The being inside me tightens, not alarmed, but attentive, like a blade that has learned the sound of its sheath being disturbed.
The arrow comes from above.
I turn just enough.
It skims my shoulder instead of my throat, shattering against the stone behind me. The second one does not miss—but it never reaches me. The space between us buckles, and the shaft folds inward, snapping like wet wood.
I look up.
A Black Tiger is already moving, blade out, climbing the roofline. Another shadow flees. I do not order pursuit.
I already know who sent them.
I walk toward the palace.
The guards tense as I approach, hands tightening on weapons they know will not save them if I decide otherwise. Inside, Wu Jin waits, pale, eyes ringed with exhaustion.
He does not ask if I am injured.
"You should not be walking alone," he says.
"Neither should you," I reply.
Silence stretches.
"The attempt failed," Wu Jin says finally.
"Yes."
"It was… unauthorized," he continues carefully. "Not sanctioned."
I laugh once.
"Don't lie to me," I say. "You didn't stop it."
Wu Jin flinches.
"I couldn't," he admits. "If I had, Zhou would have—"
"—called you complicit," I finish. "Or weak. Or irrelevant."
He looks away.
That is confirmation enough.
"You are losing the city," Wu Jin says quietly. "Zhou is turning fear into policy. The South is waiting for legitimacy to collapse entirely. And you—"
I lean forward.
"And I am making it easier," I say.
He does not deny it.
I leave before he can speak again.
Shen Yue does not come to me afterward.
That absence screams louder than accusation.
I retreat instead to the lowest level of the tower, where the Presence presses closest to the world and the world presses back. The stone here hums with layered sutras, Daoist seals woven into Buddhist negation, all of it bent around something that refuses naming.
I kneel.
Not in prayer.
In calculation.
They want me isolated.
They want me desperate.
They want me cruel enough that killing me feels like mercy.
The Presence does not answer.
But it does not object when I act.
That night, I summon the Black Tigers again.
Not all of them.
Only the captains.
They arrive wary now, eyes flicking to the place where Qiu died. I let the silence stretch.
"There is a leak," I say finally. "Information is moving through my command structure faster than through the city."
No one speaks.
"I do not care who it is," I continue. "I care that it stops."
One captain steps forward. "My lord… if you mean to investigate—"
I raise my hand.
"No," I say. "I mean to end the question."
I select three names.
None of them are guilty.
I know that.
The Presence knows that too.
They are symbols. Nodes. Points where fear will propagate cleanly.
The executions are public.
Not brutal.
Ceremonial.
Each death is quick, precise, accompanied by a statement of necessity rather than accusation. The city watches. Zhou records. The South whispers.
By dawn, the Black Tigers are no longer a fighting force.
They are a warning.
Shen Yue finds me afterward.
Her face is composed. Her eyes are not.
"This isn't containment," she says. "This is erosion."
"They tried to kill me," I reply.
"And now you're proving them right," she snaps.
The words land harder than any blade.
She exhales, steadying herself.
"The plan is moving," she says quietly. "Faster than I wanted."
I study her.
"What plan?"
She does not answer.
That silence tells me everything.
"You're still going through with it," I say.
Her jaw tightens.
"Yes."
"For him?" I ask. "For the throne?"
"For the city," she replies. "For whatever survives this."
I step closer.
"And me?"
She hesitates.
Just a fraction.
I nod.
That is enough.
Beyond the walls, Zhou's banners lift again—not in challenge, but in approval. Their messengers carry new proclamations: Emergency Stabilization Required. Danger of Singular Authority. Protect the Population.
The South announces its procession will arrive sooner than planned.
And beneath the tower, the Presence hums, indifferent to innocence, unmoved by justification, vast enough to swallow every reason I give myself.
I understand now.
They are not preparing to defeat me.
They are preparing to replace me.
And if I continue down this path—if I keep letting the Presence harden me into something colder, cleaner, easier to condemn—
Then when the blade finally comes, the city will thank whoever holds it.
The realization does not stop me.
It steadies me.
Because if they are going to kill me for becoming a monster—
Then I will decide exactly what kind of monster they have to face first.