WHEN DAWN LEARNS WHO RULESDawn did not arrive gently.It bled into the capital like a wound reopening, pale light spilling over rooftops and towers that had not slept. Smoke lingered low over the inner districts, thin enough to deny open rebellion yet thick enough to stain the morning. Bells rang late and without rhythm, rung by uncertain hands that did not know whether to announce a new day or a new order.Inside the palace, the night’s violence had already been buried under discipline.Bodies were gone. Blood scrubbed from stone. Broken doors replaced. Only the soldiers remained, positioned differently now, standing where they had not stood before, facing directions they once ignored. The palace breathed again, but its breath was controlled, measured, owned.Su Yu stood at the highest eastern balcony overlooking the capital. The child slept in the adjoining chamber under constant guard, watched by men and women who did not speak and did not look away. Linxue had chosen them hersel

Morning arrived without ceremony, yet the Empire felt it like a blade drawn slowly across the skin.The capital woke to messengers instead of bells. They rode through the streets at a controlled pace, stopping at magistrate halls, guild centers, military offices, and ancestral houses whose doors had not been opened so early in years. Scrolls were delivered without speeches, sealed with the authority of the throne rather than the flourish of a faction. No proclamations were shouted. No crowds were summoned.That silence was deliberate.People trusted silence more than spectacle.By the time the sun cleared the eastern roofs, the records were already spreading.Names first. Then transactions. Then patterns that could no longer be dismissed as coincidence. Contracts written years apart that pointed toward the same hidden hand. Appointments that made sense only when viewed together. Orders delayed at the border. Funds rerouted through charities and trade houses that existed only on paper.

The Hall of Records did not empty when night deepened. Lamps were replaced. Ink was refreshed. Voices lowered but did not fade. Scholars remained at their tables, arguing with tired precision, while scribes continued to copy fragments of the past into the present. Outside the hall, soldiers stood without shifting, ordered to protect thought instead of authority.That alone unsettled the capital.Su Yu observed the hall from the upper gallery, unseen by most. He did not interfere. He had already decided that truth, once released, must be allowed to struggle. A guided truth became propaganda. An unchallenged one became myth. He needed neither.Linxue joined him quietly.They are restless, she said. Not rebellious. Restless.That means they are thinking.She glanced down at the scholars. Some of them are starting to draw lines. Parallels between old regents and you.Yes.That does not bother you.It would bother me if they did not.She nodded slowly. Then the Serpents will move tonight.

Night did not fall quietly.It pressed down on the capital like a held breath, heavy and deliberate, as if the sky itself were waiting for something to break. Inside the palace, torches burned lower than usual, their flames carefully trimmed to avoid casting long shadows. Shadows had become dangerous. Anything that could hide intent was now suspect.Linxue stood at the outer corridor of the inner sanctum, her back straight, her senses stretched thin. The guards posted there were not ceremonial men. They were veterans. Soldiers who had bled under Su Yu’s command and survived long enough to understand what loyalty truly cost.Inside the chamber beyond the jade doors, the child slept.The heir did not cry. Had not since dusk. It unsettled Linxue more than any scream would have. Children sensed fear even when adults masked it well, yet this one slept as if wrapped in certainty, as if some instinct deeper than memory told him the world would not end tonight.She hoped that instinct was rig

The capital never slept. It only shifted, turning the night into a mirror of the unrest that had begun the moment the child had been revealed. Lanterns flickered against the cold stone streets, casting shadows that were too long, too deliberate, as if the city itself were holding its breath, watching, waiting for the next strike. Su Yu stood atop the eastern wall, the wind cutting through his cloak, and watched the streets below. Every alley, every rooftop, every closed door was a potential battlefield. The Serpents moved faster than rumor, and rumor had already poisoned half the capital before dawn.Linxue appeared beside him silently, her dark robes blending with the shadows. She carried no weapon she never needed to when her presence alone could command attention but her eyes were sharp, calculating, scanning the horizon for signs of movement.“They are everywhere,” she said, her voice low. “Not openly, but the whispers have teeth now. They’re naming families, drawing lines where n