Chapter 28: The Truth She Demanded

Vermilion Palace — Moonlit Pavilion

The night had the weight of unsaid things.

In the quiet Moonlit Pavilion, stars were swallowed by the haze of encroaching stormclouds. The lanterns hanging from dragon-carved beams flickered softly, casting their dim glow across polished blackwood floors and the silent man who stood beside the window.

Li Tianming didn't move as Mei Xueyan entered. Her footsteps made no sound, but her presence carried weight—the kind that only someone used to walking alongside daggers and decisions could bring.

"You asked to see me," she said.

Tianming's gaze remained fixed on the eastern sky, where the faint silhouette of the Tiger Basin's mountains loomed like a sleeping beast.

"I didn't ask," he replied. "But I knew you'd come."

Her amber eyes narrowed. "A strange kind of honesty."

He finally turned. "Stranger things walk this world than honesty."

She stepped closer, her robes catching the lanternlight, violet silk whispering against the floor. "You've moved with too much precision, Li Tianming. More than any young king should. You knew about the hidden infiltrators before even our elders. You see things no one reports. So I'll ask plainly: what is it that you're hiding?"

He didn't answer at first. Instead, he reached into his sleeve and withdrew something small—flat, cold, and impossibly black. A shard of obsidian, jagged on one side, smooth on the other, its surface humming faintly with a low resonance that set her teeth on edge.

He set it down on the lacquered table between them.

"Touch it," he said.

Mei didn't move. "I'm not a fool."

"Didn't say you were."

She studied it. "That's not of this world."

"No," Tianming said. "It's from a place most wouldn't believe exists. But it's real enough. It's part of something that speaks to me—only to me. And it answers... when it deems the need great enough."

Her voice lowered. "Answers how?"

"By offering a choice."

Mei's eyes lingered on the shard. "What kind of choice?"

"The kind that takes part of me when I accept."

He walked to the edge of the pavilion, staring out into the night. His tone grew heavier.

"I've paid before. In blood. In time. And in things far more permanent."

She tilted her head. "Such as?"

He turned back to her, his expression unreadable. "Memories. One day, I woke up and could no longer remember the sound of my sister's laugh. I know I had one... but the sound is gone. Erased. The cost was exacted without mercy."

Her breath hitched, but she disguised it quickly.

"You still have that shard," she said. "Which means you intend to use it again."

Tianming's voice was quiet. "The world is shifting. The Tiger Basin stirs, and behind them are others. Deeper hands. I don't intend to call upon that path again… but I may have no choice."

She studied him. "And what waits behind it this time?"

He hesitated, then moved his hand over the shard without touching it.

"There's something there," he said softly. "Not a weapon. Not a man. A force. A storm wearing the shape of someone who once delighted in carnage."

"Describe it."

He looked at her, and in his eyes was a cold kind of reverence.

"He doesn't serve. He doesn't reason. He fights. He exists to challenge anything that dares to stand upright. If I bring him through, he won't walk into battle. He'll become the battle."

"Is he controllable?" Mei asked.

"No," Tianming said. "He's a tide. I can direct the shore he breaks on. But once he's here... there is no leash."

She stared at the shard again. "And the price this time?"

"A soul from the battlefield," Tianming replied. "Years I'll never live. A memory I'll never recover."

Mei's voice softened. "You carry this burden alone?"

He nodded.

"No one else can hold it. No one else should."

She was quiet for a moment. Then, "Do you trust yourself to pay the price again?"

Tianming turned toward her, stepping close enough that only a few breaths separated them.

"I trust that when the world is burning, I'd rather unleash a storm that scars the land than let my people die quietly."

"And what of you?" she asked. "What will be left of you after you use this path again?"

His eyes didn't waver. "Whatever remains. As long as the kingdom stands."

They stood in silence, the weight of his secret between them like a sword suspended in midair.

Finally, she nodded.

"If you bring this… thing," she said, "then do it with your eyes open. Don't flinch. Don't regret. And when the ground shakes under his feet… make sure your people still see you as their king, and not the monster in his shadow."

"I'm counting on you to remind them," he replied.

A gust of wind blew through the pavilion. One of the lanterns guttered and went out.

Mei stepped back into the dark, her silhouette now half-shadow.

"I'll be ready when the storm breaks," she said, then turned and left without another word.

Tianming stood alone again, his hand hovering above the obsidian shard.

Outside, the night grew colder.

And somewhere—beyond the veil of this world—a warrior grinned, sensing the faintest ripple of an invitation.