"Miss," Ah-Ying whispered as she slipped into the room, her voice thick with urgency. "I have news."
Yueshuang's heart leaped into her throat, a frantic bird beating against a cage of bone. "Tell me," she demanded, her own voice barely a breath.
"The junior healer, Mei, sent another message." Ah-Ying produced a small, folded cloth from her sleeve, this one marked with more than a single, devastating word.
With fingers that trembled so violently she could barely manage the task, Yueshuang unfolded the cloth. The message, scrawled in hasty charcoal, was a death sentence in miniature: "Poisoned. Spreading. Duke refused Crimson Howl's aid. He has days to live at most."
The world tilted on its axis, the solid floor beneath her feet turning to shifting sand. Days. The word echoed in the sudden, hollow silence of her mind. He had only days.
Her hands clenched around the cloth, the fragile fabric crumpling in her grip as her knuckles stretched white and taut against her skin.
