The Coronation Nears, the Third Prince's Final Struggle

Chen Wuya lowered his head and looked at the patch of skin in his palm embedded with a shard of poison sac. The black blood had already dried, like a grain of scorched sand. He did not pick at it. He merely wound a strip of cloth tightly around his wrist, circle by circle, moving slowly, as though setting a mark for himself.

Wind swept in from beyond the hall, carrying the scent of rust and ash. In the distance came the clash of armor and weapons—scattered at first, then joining into a continuous roar like a rainstorm battering a bronze basin.

He knew the person he had been waiting for had arrived.

Bai Zhi stood to the right of the main hall's stone steps, her sword sheath resting at an angle against the ground, her left hand lightly on the hilt. She said nothing, but her gaze paused when it swept across Chen Wuya's wrist. He smiled at her, a shallow dimple appearing in his left cheek.

"It doesn't hurt," he said.

Before his words had faded, a crimson blade-light split the night sky and crashed down before the royal court's gates. The entire gatehouse shuddered, dust raining down in streams. Two stone lions were torn apart by the saber aura, their fragments spraying across the steps with a clattering ring.

Ten zhang away, a man approached at an unhurried pace.

He wore a dark-gold battle robe patterned with beasts, black iron light armor clinging to him like bone. With every step, the blue bricks beneath his feet cracked an inch deep. The saber scar on his left cheek ran from the end of his brow straight to the root of his ear, gleaming a waxy yellow in the firelight. A ruby was set into the hilt of the