The Palace of Weiyang.

Li Chi stood looking at the dragon robe spread before him, and for a moment felt strangely lost.

He seemed to have seen this garment countless times. And yet it felt entirely unfamiliar.

He stood there, his thoughts drifting somewhere beyond the room. The officials holding up the robe had been standing long enough that their arms were beginning to ache, but none of them knew quite what to say.

“It’s beautiful.”

Gao Xining stepped up beside him and gave him a quiet knock on the back. Li Chi came back to himself.

It wasn’t the robe, exactly, that had pulled him away. It was everything the robe had summoned — all of it flooding in at once. The years behind him. All that wandering, all that struggle, and here, now, the eve of ascending the throne.

Where had all that time gone?

Li Chi looked at the robe again. It all went here.

But was it really just a piece of clothing?

Li Chi had never cared for the Chu emperor’s deep yellow robes, so he had designed his own — black as the dominant color, with pale apricot gold as the accent.

Gao Xining gestured for the officials to withdraw, and once the room was empty she looked at him gently. “Thinking about the old days?”

Li Chi made a sound of assent and reached out to tousle her hair lightly.

Only her. She could always tell.

“I think I may have forgotten where I started,” he said quietly.

“I went out of the palace last night.”

“I know,” she said.

“I walked around Chang’an for a long time. I found a woodpile that looked like it would be perfect — good and solid — and crawled inside to try it out. But I couldn’t find the old feeling.”

“When shifu and I were wandering, a good solid woodpile was everything. Find one with a gap to squeeze into, and it would block the wind, hold in the warmth — that was peace. Last night I found the best woodpile in the city, and I didn’t feel peaceful at all.”

He looked at Gao Xining. “I thought about why. And that’s when I thought maybe I’ve forgotten my roots.”

She shook her head. “That’s not it. The reason the woodpile didn’t feel right isn’t because you’ve forgotten where you came from. It’s because someone is missing from beside you.”

Li Chi looked at her. “Are we going to be that kind of couple?”

She flicked him on the forehead. “I meant shifu. Shifu!”

Li Chi burst out laughing.

—

He was no stranger to imperial palaces — he had been inside the Chu palace at Daxing City before, and it had meant little to him. But here, in the Palace of Weiyang in Chang’an, he had begun to feel something like awe. The daze that had just come over him looking at the dragon robe — that was part of it too.

When he’d followed his shifu across the land, he had quietly sworn to take care of the old man. When he’d led his brothers into battle, he had quietly sworn to honor the bond between them. But now he was about to become an emperor. He would have to take care of the people across the entire realm. He would have to be worthy of this land.

The Chu dynasty had flourished for a hundred years, held steady for another hundred, and then spent two or three centuries sliding slowly downward.

That was what he feared.

“From today onward, I need you to remind me of something.” He spoke to Gao Xining with full seriousness. “If there is a day when I say the wrong thing, write it down — which part was wrong. If I make a mistake in judgment, write that down too. And if I forget, remind me.”

“I am going to record every mistake I make as emperor, and leave it for my children and descendants to read. The emperors who came before tried with everything they had to cover up their errors — that will not do. I want them laid out in plain sight for those who come after.”

He turned to look out through the great hall doors, and for a long moment his eyes went distant.

“This land must go on thriving…”

He fell quiet. His gaze blurred.

There was something he hadn’t told anyone — not even Gao Xining. He was afraid she might worry, though in truth he didn’t think there was anything frightening about it.

The night before — why had he left the palace?

He had fallen asleep and dreamed, or perhaps it was not a dream, because it had felt so utterly real.

In the night, he heard a sound from outside the hall. He rose, stepped out, and found that all of the guards around him had vanished.

His first thought was Gao Xining — he spun around to grab a weapon and go to her. But as he turned, someone called to him from behind.

“Your Majesty, Emperor of Great Ning.”

The voice was unfamiliar. But it carried no threat, no menace, even coming from somewhere very close.

Li Chi turned.

In the moonlight, a figure gradually emerged — wearing ancient armor of a kind he didn’t recognize. Not the Chu dynasty’s style, not even the Zhou dynasty’s. Something older. Far older. The armor was incomplete, pitted and scarred, dark with the stain of long-dried blood and marked all over with the wounds of countless weapons.

“Who are you?”

“I was a general of Yan’s northern border army. These are my brothers.”

The man turned, and behind him, one by one, more figures took shape — all of them in that same ancient battle-worn armor.

“Yan?” Li Chi was stunned.

Yan — was this the Yan of the fractured age before the great Zhou dynasty unified the land?

“What brings you to me?”

The general raised his hands in salute. “I wish to ask a favor of Your Majesty. In the future, if there are men like us — men who choose to go to the northern border — please do not let every battle they fight be a battle of pure defense. The world calls such defense honorable and worthy of admiration. But it is also agony. It is humiliation.”

Before he finished, another figure began to materialize beside him. This one wore Zhou dynasty armor. He saluted Li Chi.

“I pay my respects to Your Majesty, Emperor of Great Ning. I was a military officer of Zhou’s northern border army. I ask Your Majesty — if our calling as soldiers is to fight, then please, Your Majesty, let us fight beyond our borders. Not only inside them.”

He had barely spoken when another man appeared in the distance. This one felt different — the moment he materialized, he radiated something solitary and towering. A presence that filled the air.

“Xu Qülu, general of the Chu dynasty’s border forces. I pay my respects to Your Majesty, Emperor of Great Ning.”

This imposing man bowed, then straightened and met Li Chi’s eyes directly.

“They are right. The world praises us, often placing the word great before defense and protection. But as soldiers, I take no pride in that. To be proud as a soldier means to make the enemy afraid to come at all — not to fight to the death holding the gates, again and again. There is no pride in that. That is our shame.”

Before Li Chi could speak, every figure present turned toward him and bowed deeply.

“Your Majesty — the pride that the soldiers of this land ought to have, the pride that the people of this land ought to have — we entrust it to you.”

And then they began to fade.

Li Chi reached out and tried to seize Xu Qülu’s hand. He grasped only air.

One by one, the figures in the courtyard dissolved. Li Chi watched each face disappear, and in each of them he felt the same silent plea — Your Majesty, in a thousand years and more, we have held back the enemy countless times. We never felt that was anything to be proud of.

Li Chi drew a long breath. He stood straight. And he gave those fading silhouettes a soldier’s salute.

“While Great Ning stands. While I stand. While my children and their children stand — wherever the Ning banner reaches, who dares not be at peace?

“I give you my word: from this day forward, when wolves and tigers threaten the four frontiers, we will drive them out. We will not wait for them to come to us.”

The last half of Xu Qülu’s fading form raised clasped hands in salute.

“Let the Human Emperor stand. Let all under heaven be at peace.”

Li Chi jolted awake to find himself standing in the open courtyard outside the hall. Guards surrounded him on all sides, watching.

He had no idea whether it had truly been a dream.

He lay awake through the rest of the night, thinking — thinking at great length. And then he had decided to leave the palace and walk.

Chang’an had no curfew, but at this hour the streets were empty of ordinary people, with only the occasional patrol of Ning soldiers passing through.

Li Chi knew he needed to find, as quickly as possible, a real plan — something that would give substance to the promise he had made to those spirits, not just words.

Even the woodpile could not settle him, because he knew too well how heavy the burden on his shoulders was.

Now, standing in the great hall, Li Chi breathed in deeply.

“The dragon robe is beautiful,” he said, turning to Gao Xining.

“I chose it myself.”

She nodded vigorously. “I know.”

—

An hour later. The Imperial Study.

Li Chi sat behind the desk and watched the great generals who had followed him through fire and battle, waiting while they read through the documents he had placed before them.

Last night in the woodpile, the outline of a plan had taken shape in his mind. When he returned to the palace, he had written it down.

“It is not enough to have border armies at the four frontiers,” Li Chi said.

“I want to establish military arsenals at each frontier. Three purposes: first, as a forward logistics and support base for the border forces; second, as a training ground for new soldiers; third, as an open door for anyone who wishes to volunteer for military service and earn distinction.”

Xia Houzhe thought it over. “An arsenal at each of the four frontiers — the border forces would have standing support always within reach. That alone is a great advantage. And selecting the best men right there at the frontier — that is an even greater advantage.”

“So I intend to install a Grand General at each frontier,” Li Chi said.

“The Northern Frontier position, at least, should not go to anyone else,” Xia Houzhe said immediately. “I genuinely cannot imagine anyone more suited to it than myself.”

Li Chi shook his head. “You’re not going to the northern frontier. You’re not going to any frontier. I’ve already fixed you in place as Grand General of the Imperial Guard — you’re chained to that post and there’s no getting free of it.”

Xia Houzhe paused, then sighed. “If I’m kept under Your Majesty’s nose all day, how am I supposed to skim anything off the top?”

Li Chi shot him a look. Xia Houzhe broke into a grin.

—

Choosing the right Grand Generals for the four frontiers was essential. But in truth, among the generals of the Ning army, who was unequal to the task?

Li Chi turned to Dantai Yajing. “The Western Frontier — you are the best choice.”

Dantai Yajing rose at once. “Your Majesty, sending this subject to the western frontier is not appropriate. My family has been tied to the west for generations—”

Before he could finish, Li Chi was already smiling. “Doesn’t that make you exactly right for it?”

Dantai Yajing began to protest further, and Li Chi held up a hand. “Don’t think too much about it. Your appointment as Western Frontier Grand General is settled. There is only one condition under which you may leave whenever you like — whenever you write me a letter saying, I miss everyone. I want to come home, you come home.”

Dantai Yajing’s nose stung. His eyes grew wet.

“The Southern Frontier is still unsettled, and the terrain is complicated,” Li Chi went on. “I plan to send Gao Zhen and Fang Biehan there first to stabilize things, using the Wolf Ape Battalion as the core, until the south is secure.”

“As for the Eastern Frontier — Shen Shanhu is the most—”

Before he could finish, a voice from outside the door rang out:

“Your Majesty, she cannot go to the Eastern Frontier.”

Everyone turned.

And rose to their feet.

The Grand Marshal King had returned.

—