WENRANG
Wenrang stared at the lifeless body, first noting the wound before the man himself. One strike, exactly where the heart should be — precise, narrow, efficient. The cut of a professional enforcer, not a man driven by passion.
The blade had entered cleanly between ribs, angled upward, severing life in the same quiet motion that defined his prince. No mess beyond necessity. Only one answer delivered in steel.
Blood spread outward, pooling low and dark on the floorboards.
Then Wenrang's eyes lifted to his master — Prince Jian, wiping his dagger clean with a calm that never cracked.
He had not seen the killing itself, but he had seen enough of his work to know a death delivered by intent. His master was never cruel but he knows how to enforce pain and suffering for a purpose.
His master, whom he had served and protected since childhood had been with him from the day he was honorably chosen as his personal guard, before they were dispatched to the borders together.
The Emperor trained his sons to fight the moment they could walk. He blooded his children young, barely twelve when lessons of consequence began.
By fourteen the princes were already in the baytlefields and in just a few short years, Prince Jian had proven himself and earned the Emperor's trust to do what the crown prince could not do openly.
Hence, the name whispered first as a warning, then as truth:
The Shadow Prince.
A year after their return from the borders, the Emperor had entrusted the then seventeen year old Prince Jian with deeds suited only for darkness — the unseen half of empire's rule.
Many had assumed that because he was the laid-back prince—he was frivolous one, the "useless" one—whilst the crown prince was dubbed as the perfect one.
But no. Their perceived difference was intentional.
Prince Jian was his brother's sword.
And the Crown Prince was Prince Jian's shield.
The Emperor had designed it so: two princes, two domains — one robed in light, one robed in shadow. Together, the empire endured.
Prince Jian rose and looked at Wenrang
"Is everything in order? There should be no delays."
"Yes, my prince. It's already done." Wenrang answered.
Jian crossed to the desk, retrieved a document, and placed it in Wenrang's hands.
"Arrange a meeting."
Then he left.
The bloodied cloth hit the floor behind him like discarded hesitation.
Wenrang bowed to the empty doorway, the motion habitual, reverent, and layered with a loyalty the west would never understand.
Then, as always, he began to clean.
........
PRINCE XIAN
Prince Xian placed another black stone, cleanly severing his father's assault line. It was their third Go game. He had lost twice already. The silence between father and son was thick, stretching long enough to feel intentional.
A eunuch entered, robes pale as winter dawn. He carried a sealed missive, which he passed to the head eunuch standing by the Emperor's side.
"See with your ears," the Emperor said, voice low, ceremonial, his gaze fixed on the Go board. It was a stern lesson reminder to be aware of the board and outside it, even with the distraction.
The head eunuch cracked the white wax seal and leaned in. His whisper brushed the Emperor's ear like wind over tall grass. The Emperor did not nod, did not blink. He simply absorbed the words, letting silence expand again — an unspoken moat between sentiment and empire.
At last, the Emperor spoke.
"Ruyan is injured."
Xian's hand stilled above his stones. He looked up, the motion small but sharp. He wanted to ask more, but discipline held his tongue. His father was Emperor first, husband second, and a parent last by design. Even now, Xian knew, the Emperor was weighing him again.
A crown prince could not afford visible cracks. Not emotional ones. Not when the world watched the bloodline that carried the empire's future.
Xian forced his eyes back to the board. His worry for Ruyan came unbidden, unwelcome, but contained behind posture and strategy. Stone placement followed thought placement — controlled, calculating, inevitable.
Then he made the move that defeated the Emperor.
Xian exhaled — not a sigh, only a breath released inward, invisible to court, loud to the reader.
The Emperor lifted two fingers. The signal needed no comfort.
The head eunuch bowed and delivered the report:
"According to the last correspondence, Princess Ruyan was injured. Her body mends well. Yet she has not woken as of the time the message was sent. Lady Lihua carries out her final standing commands."
Xian finally looked up again, letting the words settle.
"And if Ruyan does not rise?"
The Emperor dropped a stone back into the bowl, the click soft, final.
"The alliance dies." The emperor pauses. "Your brother carries leave to act....within the interests of YiTi"
Xian bowed — acknowledgment, of course empire first before family.
........
GOLDEN COMPANY —
The war tent smelled of salt, leather, and damp wool drying too slow. The generals had gathered before dawn turned the sea silver — a council of exiles who knew contracts better than crowns.
The contract lay open at the center of the table. Beside it, a second parchment — Tywin's offer.
Captain Lysono Maar read first, voice low but carrying:
"Lord Tywin Lannister offers lordships and lands in the West. A sanctioned end to exile. A path home, if we take his contract now."
A murmur rumbled across the table. Men shifting in seats. The scrape of boots. No applause, only recognition of the gravity.
General Lysono leaned forward, expression severe.
"Taking it now means breaking the current bond. We do not break contracts."
Harry Strickland finally opened his eyes, raising his head from a long silence.
"We don't," he agreed, voice rough with seasons of command. "But the question isn't code. It's cost."
Lysono frowned. "Cost is coin. We are well-paid."
"Not coin," Lysono Maar countered, voice sharper now. "Legacy cost. Exile cost. The cost of turning our name to ash if we break the bond."
Another general grunted. "And if we delay until the war ends?"
"A contract isn't a market stall," Lysono snapped. "It doesn't bend because the world shakes."
Harry finally spoke, calm but cutting.
"The world is shaking. That's why the offer exists. Tywin needs us now, not later. And if we finish our term but the war concludes without us, we lose our chance to return West."
Silence pressed. The weight of truth settling in stages.
Lysono crossed his arms. "If the war ends without us, it means the West didn't need us enough."
"No," Harry said, leaning back in his chair, tone dry. "It means the West needed us, but we were too slow to decide if land was worth betraying our own code."
Another captain slammed a fist once on the table. Not rage — emphasis.
"We swore to the bond. We serve the bond. Even if the West needs us, our code is iron."
"Aye," another said, nodding, "but iron rusts if it sits unused."
Harry cut in immediately.
"We don't rust. We march. We fight. That is what the bond demands. But it demands service, not suicide into a losing war."
Lysono laughed once, humorless.
"So now we're debating battlefield odds instead of bonds?"
"We are debating future, because the offer promises a future," another general said. "A hall, a surname, land for sons. No exile. No contract ending early because some lord gets impatient."
Lysono stood, pacing now, cape brushing the tent wall.
"And yet impatience is why the West wants us. Because the war is impatient. Because survival is impatient."
Haldon Halfmaester spoke next, calm, measured, eyes on the ink.
"We can't break the contract. But we can weigh if exile is worth losing permanence. And permanence is worth more than gold, even to mercenaries."
Harry nodded at him, agreeing.
"Which is why we finish our term. We do not break it early. We refuse Tywin not because land isn't worth it, but because breaking bonds makes land meaningless."
Lysono stopped pacing and looked at Harry directly.
"And if the West offers again after the war is done?"
Harry smirked faintly.
"It won't. Because the offer exists because the war exists. And wars don't repeat opportunities twice."
Another general leaned back, voice contemplative.
"So the contract holds. But temptation holds too."
Lysono nodded slowly, absorbing.
"And we are bound to one, but haunted by the other."
Harry stood at last, voice low but final:
"We finish the year. Then we march West if the offer still lives. But we do not snap bonds before they conclude themselves. That is the difference between mercenaries and opportunists."
The generals nodded. The contract remained intact.
But the offer remained heavy.
That was the nature of exile.
That was the nature of choice.
And that was the nature of a chapter that begins again after a long silence — not with answers, but with temptation and code colliding in the dark, while war waits outside.
THREE WEEKS LATER
The generals gathered again, three weeks deeper into preparation. Crates had shifted to wagons, elephants had shifted to routine. The campaign had moved from negotiation to mobilization, and now the tent carried the atmosphere of an army that already knew it was leaving.
The logistics officer spoke to Harry Strickland first, unscrolling a smaller ledger of supply rather than contract.
"The elephants are thriving," he reported. "The sea-sailing drills agree with them. It was wise to practice embarking them along the coastlines. The men have grown steady in handling them at sea."
A few generals nodded. They remembered the uneasy first crossings — the way an exile remembers its first winter.
Another captain scratched his beard. "Aye. We are not a naval force. The coast training saved us time and beasts alike."
Then came the real question, voiced by a younger but confident captain:
"And where are we to make land when the time comes?"
All eyes turned to Harry.
He stood, crossed to the pinned map, and studied it like a man who had memorized continents through campaigns rather than classrooms.
"Maidenpool," he said at last, placing a finger over the coastal town.
"We aren't a naval force. We can't risk meeting King Stannis at sea."
Another general smirked faintly. "Straight to the Riverlands' mouth."
"So we are to finally go home," another said, hope tugging his voice upward before he could catch it.
Harry did not look away from the map when he answered.
"We go home when we win," he said, voice level, weighted like a contract but not bound by one anymore. "Not before."
A younger captain frowned. "Then home is earned by victory, not signature."
Harry finally turned, a thin smile touching his lips — not for sentiment, but approval of the understanding.
"Exactly," he said. "Victory concludes exile. Not ink. Not longing. Only victory."
The tent reclaimed its silence again, but this time it was different.
It was the silence of an army already marching in its mind.