Cao Yan’s smile did not move. It carried the patience of a man who had agreed to be called a hunting dog inside his own house because the hunting dog was the one being asked to do the killing.

Zhao rose. He inclined his head one degree to Mu, half a degree to Cao Yan, and turned for the door.

’Bastards,’ he thought as he crossed to the corridor. ’Sit beneath the Second Prince in the only way that counts. The dogs just need to follow the orders like good dogs, but the dogs do not know they are dogs. What a shame.’

He had three breaths’ worth of self-congratulation in him.

Then the pressure he had been pretending not to feel tightened a notch against his ribs, and he was through the door and into the corridor with the sweat finally allowed to come.

"I hope you deliver, Cao Yan," he managed over his shoulder. "You know what happens if you do not."

The door eased shut behind him.

—————————————————————

The salon held its breath for a count of four.

Cao Yan’s sprawl evaporated.

He came up onto his feet without the wine flask falling from his sternum — the flask was no longer on his sternum, it was on the table beside Mu’s elbow, neat. His robes fell straight. His mouth closed into a line that had nothing to do with the smile he had let Zhao carry into the corridor. The radiant ring around his pupils dimmed by half.

He crossed to the white silk screen in the far corner of the room and knelt. Forehead to the boards, the formal angle of a man kneeling to a master.

"Your orders Boss."

The screen had not moved during the whole of the previous conversation. It moved now — not the screen itself, but the silhouette behind it. A cup tipped. A long slow sip. The sound of porcelain returning to a saucer with the care of a man who had decided the saucer was the only thing in the room that deserved care this evening.

The voice that came through the silk was young, soft, almost too pleasant for the room. The voice the court knew well as the voice that rose from the upper floors of houses like this one on three nights of every seven, accompanying lute girls and complaining about the brandy. It carried a touch nearly feminine, but only nearly — a young man’s voice trained in the corner of a court to sound like something the court would not take seriously.

"The Second Prince has begun to move because his arrangements have not arranged themselves in his favour. I would have been disappointed if he had not. He is, frankly, on schedule."

Cao Yan did not raise his face from the boards.

"He is doing exactly what I planned for him to do. They believe they hold Blood Fang Sect by the throat — both of them. How useless people become when they confuse a leash with their own hand."

The cup behind the silk tipped. The voice came back lower, almost amused with itself.

"The board moves as it must. Do whatever he asks of you, Cao Yan. I want to see how this finishes. Not a single blade of mine rides with you. You will manage with what Tianlong has paid forward."

"Yes."

"The Skyedge piece is a pawn. Insignificant in the state it currently sits in. I am not in a hurry to spend more than a pawn on a pawn."

A small interjection from the table. Mu’s voice arrived at the angle of an operative who had earned the right to question once per audience and used the right with the precision of a man who knew exactly how often once was.

"But. They are the current champions of the east. They have only just lifted the Crown of Yuncheng."

The cup behind the silk paused at the lip.

"True, Mu. And what does the title change?"

"Your Highness?"

"They are still a sect in decline. A sect that mistakes a victory over a field of mediocrities for a turn in its fortune. The Pavilion came tired. The Thunder Lotus came over-rehearsed. The boy walked off a deathbed no physician in the regional guild can quite account for, and the east mistook the noise of his return for the sound of a comet."

The cup tilted again. Returned.

"With Cao Yan on the road, that comet will look a great deal smaller in some days. And the Second will go on convincing himself he holds another sect on the leash he believes is already in his hand."

Mu inclined his head a degree.

"Yes, my Prince."

The cup turned. The silhouette behind the silk shifted half a measure forward, the small movement of a man who had finished the part of the conversation that interested him and was preparing to release the part that was not for him to perform.

"Cao Yan."

"Yes?"

"Take this chance for your revenge. Go and enjoy yourself."

The smile climbed the empty centre of Cao Yan’s face one degree at a time, with the patience of a smile that had been folded inside a flask of wine for fifteen years and was finally being allowed out into the room.

"Thank you."

He rose. He crossed to the table without a glance at Mu, lifted the lacquer case Zhao had left, slid the order into his sleeve, and walked to the door.

At the door he paused. He turned. The radiant ring of his pupils caught the lamp and held it.

"May I keep the nose."

The voice behind the silk took half a breath. The half-breath a man took when he had not expected to be asked a question that small, and now found it funny.

"Take whatever you can carry, Cao Yan. The empire is not in the bookkeeping business."

Cao Yan smiled. The empty centre of his face moved with the smile in a way no other face in the empire moved.

"Yes."

He was gone.

Mu finally let his shoulders ease half a measure. The man behind the silk poured himself a second cup of tea from the small clay pot at his side. The cup tipped. The tea caught the lamp for the length of a slow breath, then let it go. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Through the silk, the silhouette began to hum.

A folk song from the southern provinces. Soft. Low. A melody no son of the imperial court should have had any reason to learn, let alone carry under his breath this cleanly.

The court would never see his face.

Somewhere on a road at the foot of the Skyedge mountains, a convoy was rolling toward weather it had not yet learned the name of.

In a brothel on the upper bend of the river, the man who had already named it took another sip of his tea.