The guards around him surged forward, raising their iron shields in front of Song Lan. But he paid them no mind, sweeping them aside with one arm and fixing his gaze on Luowei where she stood at the boat’s stern. “Where are you going?”

Luowei glanced behind her and answered, “Downstream along the river. Where I moor, I couldn’t say for certain.”

Song Lan’s emotions surged, his chest heaving faster and faster, each breath pulling at the wound in his shoulder in waves of pain. “Since we parted at Valley Tour Mountain… do you know… I…”

For a moment he even forgot the imperial “We,” and could only bring his uninjured arm down hard on the stone balustrade, the veins on the back of his hand standing out in sharp relief. “You have some nerve!”

Having said that, he swallowed hard and put on the expression of grief he knew best. “If you leave the capital today, the next time you return — you will come to kill me, won’t you?”

Ye Tingyan staggered to his feet, and gave a low, soft whistle.

Song Lan’s eyes widened as he heard the sound of mechanisms releasing — and from beneath the ship’s hull, a company of soldiers suddenly poured out, fully armed and unhurried, manipulating mechanisms at all sides.

Only then did he realize: the vessel they were on was no ordinary pleasure craft at all. It was a converted warship!

Soldiers yanked away the silk and damask that had been draped over the ship’s hull as camouflage, and he could even hear the sound of the crew drawing their bows aboard.

Chang Zhao looked grimly around him a few times, and gave Song Lan a small shake of his head.

A short while ago, Chang Zhao had gone straight from the market to the palace. Song Lan had brought relatively few people from the palace — his intention had been to work in concert with Yan Ping’s forces from within and without. But Yan Ping had gone with Ye Tingyan and had not yet arrived at this point; it was clear they would not be coming.

Ye Tingyan’s true identity was now fully exposed. Song Lan had been too slow to grow suspicious of him — and thinking back now, the Zhuque Bureau, the Imperial Guards, and the mobile garrison forces and Jintian Guards scattered through the city — there was no telling how many of them had already become his loyal followers!

In the future, if Song Lan tried to root them out, he would face the same frustration as that time when a single sword tassel had been enough to neutralize the entire Jintian Guard.

Song Lan’s heart was filled with rage. He seized the arrow that had pierced his shoulder and, with a sharp tug, wrenched it free.

The tearing agony of flesh and blood nearly dropped him where he stood. Chang Zhao reached out to steady him, calling out “Your Majesty” twice, but in his heart something was slowly sinking.

Right now, they were fully exposed on the broken bridge with nowhere to take cover. Luowei and her people, meanwhile, had this warship for protection. If it truly came to a fight, the outcome was uncertain — and the risk was far too great.

Moreover, they were not close to the inner city here. Even if his people responded to the order and came, how long would it take? Looking at the expression of perfect composure on Ye Tingyan’s face, there were very likely more contingency plans in reserve. In such a situation, it was better to let both sides stand down.

Though he was perfectly clear in his own mind: these two people were formidable enemies. If he let them leave the city today, it would be no different from releasing tigers back into the wild. Ye Tingyan had been maneuvering within the palace and the city for so long — he must have installed his people at every critical point. If they came back one day, Song Lan might not have the strength to hold them off.

But no matter what was said, Song Lan was the target of their hatred.

Having made up his mind, Chang Zhao took advantage of helping Song Lan to his feet and spoke quickly and quietly. “Your Majesty, why struggle with a pack of strays? You have driven them out of the capital — they can hardly stir up any great trouble now. Today Your Majesty is wounded. If we force them into a desperate stand, that would not go well.”

On an ordinary day, with a calm mind, Song Lan might well have caught the flaw in his reasoning.

But since Luowei had escaped from Valley Tour Mountain — the Jingqiu remonstrance, the grief of losing his son, whatever he had heard in the Empress Dowager’s palace, and now Ye Tingyan’s betrayal — he had been worn down to utter exhaustion, and by now displayed an increasingly erratic and near-manic demeanor.

Song Lan gave a cold laugh and snarled, “Am I afraid of them?”

The moment the words left his lips, Ye Tingyan picked up the long bow again, nocked an arrow, and aimed it directly at him.

The sunset had faded. Only the last glow remained in the far sky, a sweep of dim red.

“Protect the Emperor!”

The guards lined up in formation again before him. But in that instant, Song Lan’s mind flashed back to the day of the Mochun Tournament spring hunt.

Lin Zhao and that horse-tamer had directed a maddened horse toward the imperial presence. At that critical moment, he had caught a glimpse of Ye Tingyan out of the corner of his eye.

Just as now — expression unchanged, unhurried, calm — Ye Tingyan had steadily drawn the long bow in his hands. His gaze was dark and still, seeking out the weakness in the scene, seeking the single best moment.

One arrow released, driving through the horse’s eye with what seemed a force of a thousand weights.

Now he was clearly the one with more people on his side — and yet, standing behind the iron shields, he still felt that this arrow carried a force of a thousand weights. Any crack in his defenses, and it would pierce through the protection of the shields and armor, and drive straight through his heart.

He knew Ye Tingyan’s eyesight was not good — a moment ago, before that first arrow was shot, he had seen Ye Tingyan narrow his eyes against the setting sun.

Now that the sun had set — would this arrow still fly wide?

In that instant Song Lan broke out in a cold sweat. He could not bring himself to admit it — that after all these years of committing every manner of offense against heaven and man, it was this one small arrow, not yet fired by this one minor official, that had awoken fear in him.

A guard stepped forward to bandage the wound on Song Lan’s shoulder. Chang Zhao waved off the people around him to hold their fire, and stood on the bridge, thinking, before he spoke. “Lord Ye, what a fine scheme. When did you prepare all of this? If today she had not rescued anyone, or had taken the overland route — what would you have done?”

As he said it, he laughed to himself. “Fortunately I thought highly enough of you to have him killed in advance. If you had rescued him alive, I would have brought the stone down on my own foot.”

Ye Tingyan pressed down Luowei’s hand — which was trembling with fury — and maintained his expression of complete ease. “I have never much cared for taking risks. Even now, though I often act boldly, I am still in the habit of planning for every contingency. Whatever route we chose today, I would naturally have been prepared for it. Even if you had given me only one hour to rescue someone from the middle of a crowded market, I could have devised a perfect solution! Lord Chang, there is no need to stall for time — you know full well what the situation is.”

He left the remark unfinished, but Chang Zhao understood the mockery — why stall for time? Song Lan might not grasp it, but he should have known perfectly well: today, it was plainly he and Song Lan who had laid the trap. And yet in this moment of urgency, Ye Tingyan and Luowei had turned the whole thing on its head in one swift, brilliant reversal.

Aside from letting them go, he had no other choice.

The brazenness in those words was something he had never heard from Ye Tingyan before. This man, like himself, kept his thoughts deep and ran his stratagems in the inner court with careful deliberation — but his edge was mostly concealed within the cold glint of arrows deflected and shadows cast by hidden knives. It rarely poured out of the man himself so openly.

Chang Zhao was momentarily in a daze. And Song Lan, seemingly shaken by Ye Tingyan’s arrow, though he knew in his heart that stopping them today was likely impossible, seemed suddenly to remember something and cried out, “Wait — Su Luowei, do you know—”

Ripples spread across the river’s surface. A gust of wind swept up, and Song Lan turned into it and let out a strange, broken laugh. “After all, we have left something behind in you! Do you know — within the incense you lit to protect yourself against me, I had long ago mixed something else into it? Ha ha ha… that is a poison of unrivaled rarity in all the world! This is your own doing! If you had not tried to guard against me, the poison would never have worked its way into your body! “

His expression contorted as he screamed, “Only I in all the world have the antidote! I may let you go today, but if you want to live, you will have no choice but one day to come obediently back to my side! I will give you this chance — if you return to the palace today, you will still be the Empress with every honor intact. I can forgive all that has passed…”

He had not finished speaking when the arrow left Ye Tingyan’s bow.

With a sharp ring of metal on metal, this arrow shot clean through the iron shield in front of Song Lan. The arrowhead came to rest a single cun from his cheek.

Song Lan went deathly pale. Even his breath caught.

After he came back to himself, he shouted in furious alarm, “Come, someone—”

Ye Tingyan nocked a third arrow and cut him off. His voice dropped suddenly, carrying a cold, cutting edge that was almost frightening. “I have practiced archery since childhood. By age ten I could shoot a wild goose from a distant mountain, split a willow at a hundred paces. I know Your Majesty did not believe me before — shall we make a wager now? Whose arrows fly faster — theirs, or mine?”

Luowei looked up at him, and suddenly laughed out loud.

There was wind on the river. She had not dressed her hair in the precise, formal style required in the palace, and the loose wisps around her face were blown slightly damp by the wind off the water. She paid it no mind, and reached up to brush away the strand that had fallen across her eyes — unhurried, untroubled.

“Even if I were to be left unburied in the wilderness…” she said slowly, each word deliberate, her voice blending with the sounds of wind and water until it seemed to drift from some faraway place, “I would never go back to your cage.”

Ye Tingyan’s gaze did not waver. He gave the order in a low, steady voice: “Set sail!”

The people on the ship, hearing the command, were bold enough to set down their weapons, and passed the call forward in orderly succession: “Set sail—”

The guards on the bridge had received no orders and fell into momentary confusion, none of them knowing what to do.

Luowei took a step closer to Ye Tingyan, then looked back over her shoulder at Song Lan, and said, “You may sit upon your glittering throne of corpses and wait to die before me.”

After the sun went down, a rising mist began to drift across the water. It was a pale, dim haze — yet in the deepening darkness before night fully fell, Song Lan could still make out the two figures standing side by side at the bow of the ship.

Ye Tingyan still held the bow drawn and aimed at him. In the gathering dark, only the arrowhead gleamed with a cold, startling light. Luowei stood beside him in a pure white dress, like a river goddess rising from the water to the bank of reeds.

He suddenly felt the scene was achingly familiar — familiar enough to stir something that had long been buried.

Chang Zhao assumed Song Lan had finally thought it through — that to protect himself, he had no choice but to let them go — and had fallen silent for that reason. He turned his gaze, and was startled to see Song Lan murmuring to himself as if possessed: “No — no — who are you — who are you—”

He pointed at the boat as it drifted further away, and suddenly became agitated. “Who are you, who are you! Come, fire the arrows! Stop them, quickly, quickly!”

Sparse arrows flew through the twilight and vanished into the vast darkness, lost without a trace. Other arrows came whistling back and struck against the shields with a series of dull thuds.

The sun sank at last, heavy and final. The Emperor’s commands came too late. He could do nothing but watch as the sails filled with wind, and the vessel disappeared into the broad open river.

That night, with wind and water in their favor, even if he dispatched pursuit at the fastest possible speed, he could never overtake them.

Song Lan sank down heavily along the edge of the broken bridge, and felt as though all the strength had left his body.

No one could say how much time passed. The moon appeared in the east, in the direction they had sailed, casting a layer of silver light across the water. Yan Ji arrived in haste with troops, and delivered the pained report that Yan Ping had been killed, that the Zhuque Bureau and the Imperial Guards had each suffered casualties, and that it was not yet certain how many among them were informants.

“And… also…” Yan Ji stammered, “Within my younger brother’s body, they left a handkerchief for Your Majesty.”

Song Lan raised his head. He took the handkerchief from Yan Ji’s hand — half-soaked in blood, with a line written on it in blood: “One who has not fully mastered his teacher’s skill, yet believes he has exhausted it.”

One who has not fully mastered his teacher’s skill, yet believes he has exhausted it.

Song Lan turned the line over and over in his mind several times, then threw back his head in long laughter.

“Your Majesty!”

Chang Zhao was still pondering the meaning of the words when he saw Song Lan clap a hand over his wound — and his laughter cut off abruptly. Song Lan opened his mouth and vomited blood, then crumpled into unconsciousness.