Chapter 62 - The March of Shadows

Bù Zhèng settled into an uneasy quiet. The markets creaked open again under the watchful eyes of my Black Tigers. Grain carts rolled through streets still dark with old blood. Peasants swept thresholds clean, but their eyes stayed hollow. They had learned whom to fear — and whom to obey.

The fortress itself seemed to breathe at night. Its stones felt almost warm under my boots, as if they remembered the screams that had recently soaked into them. Sometimes I couldn't tell if it was real, or only the cold thing under my ribs whispering to me in the dark.

General Zheng Yùhao had not fled far. He gathered the scraps of his army in the northern swamps, drawing desperate peasants and stubborn local lords under his battered banners. Scouts reported they rebuilt causeways, laid sharpened stakes hidden beneath dark water, and dug new trenches masked by reeds.

"He's weaving a trap," Han Qing said, stabbing his knife into the map so hard it nearly split. "He wants us to drown in mud and arrows. Let us spend ourselves on ground that eats cavalry alive, then pick apart whoever crawls free."

"He's clever," Shen Yue agreed, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword. Her eyes cut to me. "Too clever to face you in open field again. He knows fear now. It makes him patient."

But not all enemies lay beyond the marsh. Two generals sent by the First Prince, Wu Kang, still served under me — nominally my advisors.

General Liang was a broad man whose laughter was always forced, eyes too quick to dart away. General Dou perched beside him, lean and sharp-faced, fingers endlessly smoothing his sleeves. They spoke in gentle tones meant to sound wise.

"It would be reckless to pursue Zheng," Liang said, wiping sweat from his brow with a silk cloth. "Better to consolidate here. Starve him out. Or wait — he must stretch himself thin eventually."

Dou added, voice smooth as oiled stone, "Besides, it preserves the First Prince's strength. Surely you don't mean to gamble so many fine men on your personal ambition, Your Highness. When caution would let time cripple Zheng for us."

Their words slid around the table like cold eels. They wanted Zheng to breathe longer. They wanted Wu Kang to have time to gather more fleets, more excuses to interfere. Every careful suggestion was another blade angled at my throat.

But across from them sat two generals sent by Wu Jin — dispatched not from loyalty to me, but as watchers after Cao Wen. They had never fought beside me. They didn't trust me. Their plum insignias marked them as men who answered to the Minister first, and perhaps only.

Commander Hu tapped the map with a thick scarred finger. "Zheng's trap is plain enough. But so is the risk of doing nothing. If he rebuilds his strength, Wu Kang will see these lands ripe for his fleets. Then it's his standards here, not yours — or the Minister's."

Captain Zhao nodded, his eyes dark and hard. "Better we break Zheng now. Even if we must drag half our soldiers through marsh water. For the Minister, this is still a northern war. Not a gift on the First Prince's plate."

Their loyalty was to balance. To denying Wu Kang a new jewel. Not to me. But for now, it served my ends. Even as the cold inside me stirred at their careful tones, tasting how they calculated — how they thought they could still hold me in check.

That night I stood on the fortress ramparts, watching the patrol torches below. Beyond them, the marsh lay silver and silent under the moon, deceptive in its calm. Somewhere out there, Zheng waited. Lianhua would be with him, whispering secrets, calculating her own hour.

Shen Yue joined me. She no longer announced herself. Her hand settled on the parapet, close to mine but never quite touching.

"You're slipping," she said finally.

"Am I?"

She searched my face. "Your skin is cold. Your eyes… when you look at them, it's like you're hunting something none of us can see."

I almost laughed. "Maybe I am."

Her jaw tightened. "Don't forget what it's costing you. What victories like Bù Zhèng take — not from your enemies. From you."

I didn't answer. Because the thing under my ribs already was. It pulsed with dark delight whenever my thoughts turned to fear, to the thousand small betrayals that coiled through this war.

At dawn, reports reached me. One of Wu Kang's generals had rerouted a baggage train, starving my forward camps of grain. Another quietly urged soldiers to save their strength — whispering I would lead them all into ruin for my own vanity.

I summoned them. Said nothing of treason. Only gave them new orders, sharp and cold.

March. Or join the flayed skins on Bù Zhèng's gate.

They bowed, wooden-faced, hiding anger or dread behind thin court smiles. They still feared Wu Kang more than me. For now. That would change.

It was Wu Jin's men who shored the line. Commander Hu laid out rough reed sketches. "If we strike the left hard enough, Zheng will be forced to pivot. He can't retreat deeper without leaving his wounded and half his stores to rot. The gamble is yours — but it's one we'll stand by."

Captain Zhao flicked his eyes toward me. "Better your banner remains here than the First Prince's. We'll hold the outer flank. Even if we choke on your shadow to do it."

I offered them a smile that didn't quite reach my eyes. "So long as we break Zheng, choke all you wish."

That night I stood alone in my tent, lantern guttering. The maps beneath my palms smelled of pine soot and sweat. The cold under my ribs grew sharper. It tapped like claws against bone, almost playful. Almost impatient.

Outside, Shen Yue argued with Han Qing. Her voice was raw with strain. She thought I couldn't hear. Thought I didn't know how her hand hovered near her blade these days when she spoke to me.

But I did.

And still — she remained.

At first light, I walked the lines. Soldiers glanced up from checking bowstrings, from feeding weary horses. Their gazes skittered off mine. Some muttered old charms against ill spirits after I passed.

I stopped before a boy no older than seventeen. His spear trembled. His mouth worked at words that wouldn't come.

"You afraid?" I asked.

He swallowed hard. Managed a nod.

"Good," I said. "Fear will keep your hands tight on that haft. Remember that."

I left him shaking — but standing straighter.

By the time we filed from Bù Zhèng's gates, the sun was a bruised wound on the horizon. Ahead waited marshes that would drink blood as eagerly as wine. Zheng's stakes and bowmen. Wu Kang's hidden daggers in the ranks. Even Wu Jin's watchers whose cold nods promised only so much support.

But I felt the thing inside me coil, ready — delighted at the smell of plots layered atop plots. Because for all Zheng's cunning, for all Wu Kang's sabotage and Wu Jin's wary bargains, this field was mine to ruin or crown.

When it broke, they would remember not how many died here. Only whose banner still stood when night fell again.