“Help me burn the throne instead,” Shen Zhao whispered.

In the storm-lashed capital of Huayan, the young prince Shen Zhao returned from exile—not with armies, but with a single scroll. Three years prior, his family was framed for treason; his father executed, his mother driven to suicide. Now, the usurper emperor offered him a minor post as a librarian, thinking him broken.

But in the quiet of the new palace, Bai Yu whispered to the young emperor: “You used me, Your Majesty.”