In a tavern, the storyteller smacked his block on the table. "The current crown prince's parentage is uncertain."
I crushed my wine cup, but did not draw my sword.
That night, back at the palace, my mother told me a story. Sixteen years ago, amid a blizzard of blades, a lone rider had rescued the fleeing prince of the south. Later, that swordsman trained three thousand elite soldiers and twenty death warriors for her. Later... She looked north and said no more.
I asked only, "Who is my father?"
The frontier winds and sand stung my face. Xiao Zhan, the Prince of Zhenbei, handed me a tiger tally, his temples streaked with white. I shook my head, but he summoned twenty men. "The troops I trained for your father sixteen years ago."
For my father? Li Yuan, or... him?
Currents stirred beneath the court's surface, while the Shen family held its ground. I took those twenty men with me. Whose shadow was hidden in the flash of their blades? My mother's letters and the frontier reports held things they did not dare tell me.
I ascended the throne at twenty-five. At last, from atop the dragon throne, I saw the whole game. Who was moving the pieces, and who was merely a piece?
Five years later, I led the imperial campaign in person. The cavalry's old debt had to be repaid, and so did the mystery from sixteen years ago.
