The Shadow Gambit
The wind howled through the palace corridors like a restless ghost, carrying with it the scent of ink and impending doom. I knelt before the Crown Prince's desk, the weight of Xiao Jing's letter burning against my inner sleeve like a brand.
"Your Majesty summoned this lowly one?" My voice emerged perfectly calibrated—the obedient eunuch, the harmless scribe.
The Prince's fingers steepled beneath his chin. Moonlight caught the silver threads in his robe, turning him into a sculpture of living mercury. "We have a problem only you can solve."
A chessboard sat between us, its pieces frozen in mid-battle. With one slender finger, he toppled the black queen. It fell with a clatter that echoed through the chamber.
Xiao Jing emerged from the shadows then, her scarlet armor muted in the dim light. The Wolf General moved like liquid night, coming to stand behind the Prince's shoulder. Her eyes—golden as a predator's—never left my face.
"She won't refuse," Xiao Jing said, her voice the whisper of a blade being drawn.
The Prince smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "The question isn't whether you'll play. It's which side you'll betray first."
I kept my breathing even as my mind raced. The letter in my sleeve seemed to grow heavier—Xiao Jing's coded message, my brother's seal, the truth about my mother's death all tangled together in one damning scroll.
Xiao Jing's fingernail tapped the fallen queen. "Every piece has two faces. Even pawns can become queens...if they survive long enough."
The Prince lifted a white knight, holding it up to the moonlight. "The Frostblade Division reports a missing assassin. A certain blind scholar was seen boarding a ship to Liangzhou." His eyes locked onto mine. "How careless of Ye Wuyin to lose track of her weapons."
Ice flooded my veins. They knew about Liu Zhou. They knew everything.
Xiao Jing's hand came to rest on my shoulder, her grip deceptively gentle. "The game has changed, little fox. Now you choose—will you be the knife in the dark?" Her lips brushed my ear. "Or the hand that wields it?"
Outside, the wind rose to a shriek. Somewhere in the palace, a crow cried three times.
I reached out and moved a white pawn forward.
"Checkmate," I said softly, "is just the beginning."
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