Veil of Silence

The fog that cloaked the capital did not lift with the morning sun. It thickened instead, seeping into cracks in stone and creeping beneath the eaves of homes. It dulled the clang of market bells and muffled the usual chatter of morning vendors. By midmorning, the city felt like it was holding its breath.

In the royal gardens, where koi once glided peacefully in still waters, a low humming buzzed beneath the surface. The gardeners refused to enter the lower courtyards. Something was wrong. Even the animals sensed it birds had flown away days before, and the palace cats refused to go near the Queen's eastern wing.

Deep within the palace, Jian moved like a shadow. Wei had disappeared.

She had left only a single parchment at their meeting point near the ancestral crypts a hastily drawn map marked with several burial grounds encircling the capital. A crimson line had been scrawled around the palace itself. A ring. A warning.

Jian stared at it under dim lantern light. His mind raced. Each marked burial site had reported disappearances in the past week. Villagers had vanished. Some returned—changed. Others were never found at all.

The truth pressed against his skull like a growing migraine.

He slid the parchment inside his tunic and stepped into the Queen's Hall.

At the center of the vast chamber, the throne sat empty.

But Ratu Lian was not gone.

She stood near the towering window, her back to him, framed by the pale gray light. Her robe was embroidered with twisting vines and blooming chrysanthemums symbols of imperial grace, but also of mourning.

"You enter without summons, Commander," she said softly, her voice as smooth as still water.

"I bring urgent news," Jian replied. "It concerns the disturbances in the provinces."

Lian did not turn.

"Another report of dead men walking?" she asked, her tone laced with quiet amusement. "Or perhaps another village lost in the mist?"

Jian's silence stretched too long.

Lian finally turned, her face carved in calm. "You fear what you cannot explain. That is understandable. The living always fear what cannot be caged."

Jian stepped forward. "My Queen, I have reason to believe this is no ordinary plague. There is evidence—rituals, ancient writings, repeated patterns. The deaths, the disappearances, the fog they are all connected."

Lian tilted her head slightly, as if considering a particularly puzzling painting.

"And what conclusion have you drawn, Commander? That something unnatural has awakened?" She stepped toward him, eyes narrowing. "That our kingdom stands on the edge of ruin, brought forth by forgotten sins?"

Jian hesitated. "Yes."

Lian's smile was small. "Then perhaps the kingdom deserves to fall."

The words hit Jian like a slap.

But before he could respond, the door behind him swung open. Minister Zhao entered, his robes askew, breath labored.

"My Queen," he gasped, "the northern gate something is wrong. The guards—some are missing. Others are—unwell."

He swallowed. "One tried to bite a physician."

Ratu Lian's expression didn't change. "Seal the gate. Burn any who do not comply. No exceptions."

Zhao stared. "But—those are our own soldiers—"

"Then let them die like soldiers," she said coldly. "What spreads in the dark does not discriminate. Mercy will only feed it."

Jian clenched his fists. "This isn't a battle of steel and arrows. We're facing something else."

"Yes," Lian whispered. "And that is why hesitation is fatal."

She swept past them both, robes trailing like smoke.

Outside, the fog grew denser.

In the village near the northern gate, a mother sobbed over her son's body only to find the child's eyes snapping open in the night, pupils rimmed in silver, jaw unhinging in silence.

Screams erupted minutes later, but the fog swallowed them whole.

Back in the palace, Jian moved through secret passages. He needed to find Wei. Or someone. Anyone.

He ducked into a side hall and collided with a figure draped in priestly garb. The man fell back, dropping a scroll.

Jian picked it up before the priest could recover.

The scroll bore a sigil—a spiral of blood-red ink, ancient and crude. It was the same symbol Wei had traced in her notes. He looked up at the priest, who now trembled before him.

"Where did you get this?" Jian demanded.

The priest whispered, "From the Queen's private shrine. The one beneath the foundation. She prays there... not to the gods. To something older."

Jian's blood turned to ice.

That night, the fog touched the palace walls.

Lanterns flickered and hissed out as unseen things moved through the outer courtyards. The guards fell one by one not to blades, but to silence. The kind that crawls into the ears and speaks madness.

Inside the Queen's private chambers, Ratu Lian kneeled before a brazier filled with strange herbs. The smoke was thick and sweet, like flowers decaying.

She whispered to the flames.

"My kingdom does not need to be saved. It needs to be reborn."

The fog seeped under the door.

And her eyes glowed faintly in the dark.