Frost clung to the orchard roots, but the real chill came from south of Tian's Watch — a coil of rumor sharper than any blade Li Shen could swing.
The spy's last message burned behind Li Shen's eyes as he sat with Master Tian by the hearth. Yue Lan perched by the doorframe, spirit threads brushing the clay floor like drifting smoke.
---
Master Tian hacked a cough that rattled the rafters. He spat into the embers. "A crowned serpent doesn't hiss twice," he rasped. "Next comes the fang."
Li Shen's fingers drummed on the table edge. The hoard of rusted blades lay stacked in the far corner, cleaned but not enough. The orchard's drills gave the people hands for steel — but no steel for poison.
---
Yue Lan's threads flicked around his wrist. "It won't be soldiers first," she said. "It'll be a cleaner cut. One strike. One whisper. No siege. No war drums."
Li Shen's jaw tensed. He knew. The Nine Heavens didn't bleed rumor in the open — they bled it quiet, a single kill in the dark.
---
By dusk, word came. A trader's boy, barefoot, breathless, eyes wild from the ridge path.
He collapsed at Li Shen's boots outside the orchard fence, hands raw from gripping frost.
"North slope," the boy gasped. "A man — a blade with no sheath — he asks for the chain-breaker. Says your head buys ten heads' worth of mercy."
Li Shen's grin showed no mirth. "Did he say a name?"
The boy's teeth chattered. "No name. Just—" He mimed a flick of two fingers across his own throat. A sign Li Shen knew well.
---
The Serpent's Fang — the Nine Heavens' oldest rumor. An assassin bred in the salt pits, trained where iron melts rumor to silence. A hunter who killed kingdoms with a single cut and vanished before dawn.
Li Shen rose. His blade was already in his hand before the boy stumbled back from his grin.
---
"Stay here," Li Shen told Yue Lan.
She bristled. Her threads flickered, weaving frost shapes in the dusk.
"No."
He stared at her — a heartbeat where old ghosts looked at each other through frost and scarred silk.
Finally he nodded once.
"Then stay close."
---
They climbed the ridge path under a dusk sky bruised purple by the last sun. Pines bent over the trail, branches heavy with hoarfrost that wept when brushed. Their boots sank silent. Yue Lan's threads drifted ahead, brushing bark and moss for signs of steel.
At the north slope's crest, the trail split — one way to the crown's border forts, the other to the salt pits no map dared mark.
And there, by a lone boulder slick with frost, he waited.
---
A figure draped in gray silk over padded leathers — so thin he seemed part shadow, part rumor made flesh. No visible blade. No sigils. Just two eyes like cracked glass, one flicker of breath in the cold.
Li Shen stepped into the clearing. Yue Lan drifted to his side — her threads coiling like frost snakes ready to bite.
The Fang spoke first. His voice was calm, gentle as temple wind chimes.
"Chain-breaker," he said. "Your head or your chain."
Li Shen's blade whispered out, point catching moonlight.
"You'll have neither," he said. "You'll feed the orchard roots instead."
---
The Fang tilted his head, birdlike. His fingers flexed — no blade yet, but the hush snapped tight like a noose.
Then Yue Lan's threads flicked forward, lashing for the Fang's throat.
But the Fang was gone.
---
A flicker — frost hissed where boots should have landed. A shape behind Li Shen's right shoulder — too fast for rumor, too real for prayer.
Li Shen pivoted. Steel hissed. Sparks cracked frost.
The Fang's dagger met Li Shen's edge mid-turn — a kiss of iron so clean it sang in the dusk. A grin cracked the Fang's cracked lips, teeth yellow under moonlight.
---
One heartbeat.
Two.
Yue Lan's threads spun frost nets, slicing pine needles midair.
The Fang laughed — a sound like iron sliding over bone.
"Roots rot," he murmured, blade vanishing into his sleeve. "Rumor burns."
Then he lunged again — faster than any orchard whisper could catch.
---
Steel screamed. Frost cracked. Yue Lan's threads bound a wrist — almost. Almost.
Li Shen's blade snapped down — a shallow cut across silk armor. Red misted frost. The Fang hissed — not pain, but promise.
---
Then he vanished — back into the hush, boots silent on pine roots. No chase. No corpse. Just a coil of rumor slithering back to the crown's coils.
---
Li Shen stood panting in the clearing, blade dripping frost and blood.
Yue Lan's threads hovered around him like ghostlight — ready for another cut that never came.
---
Below the ridge, Tian's Watch still burned rice for rumor's spine.
Above it, the crowned serpent coiled tighter — its Fang wet with frost and oaths yet unbroken.
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⚡ End of Chapter Twenty-Three — The Serpent's Fang
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