4. The Feast of Expulsion

The palace of Chu rose from the heart of Ying like a mountain carved by obsessive gods. Its walls were of rammed earth faced with grey stone, its gates were bronze-bound cedar reinforced with iron studs the size of a man's fist, and its watchtowers were manned by archers who had been trained to shoot first and ask questions of corpses. In the predawn darkness, it seemed less a building than a geological feature—something that had always been there and would always be there, indifferent to the small lives that scurried through its corridors.

I approached the eastern gate, the one used by officials and servants rather than by kings and their honored guests. The guards recognized my tally but not my face, which was how I preferred it. An inquisitor who was too well-known was an inquisitor who could not move quietly through the world.

"Inquisitor Dou," the guard captain said, examining my credentials by the light of a smoking torch. "You're expected."

That stopped me. "Expected by whom?"

"The Prime Minister. He left word that you were to be admitted whenever you arrived, day or night. He said you would have questions for the girl."

The girl. Yan Ji. The survivor who was not supposed to exist. The loose thread that Zichang could not quite bring himself to cut—or had not yet decided to cut.

"How thoughtful of him," I said, and passed through the gate.

The palace interior was a labyrinth of corridors and courtyards, each one more ornate than the last. Even at this hour, servants hurried through the passages carrying trays of food and vessels of wine, their footsteps muffled by the thick carpets that lined the floors of the inner quarters. The walls were hung with silk tapestries depicting the exploits of King Zhuang, the great conqueror who had made Chu the terror of the central plains. In the flickering torchlight, the woven warriors seemed to move, their bronze swords rising and falling in an endless, silent battle.

I did not go directly to the Prime Minister's quarters. Instead, I turned toward the eastern wing, where the lesser guest chambers were located—rooms reserved for visiting officials from the provinces, merchant envoys from the northern states, and, apparently, the sole surviving daughter of a massacred family.

The corridor outside her room was guarded by two soldiers in the lacquered leather armor of the palace garrison. They straightened as I approached, their hands moving to the hilts of their swords.

"I am here to see the Lady Yan," I said, showing my tally. "By order of the court."

The guards exchanged a glance. "The Prime Minister said—"

"The Prime Minister said I would have questions. I am here to ask them."

Another exchange of glances. Then the older of the two—a man with a scar that ran from his temple to his jaw, pulling his left eye slightly downward—nodded and stepped aside.

"She doesn't sleep," he said. "Hasn't slept since we brought her here. Just sits by the window, staring at nothing. Won't eat. Won't speak. The physicians say her body is unharmed, but her mind..." He shook his head. "She saw things no one should see."

"I know what she saw," I said. "I have been to the Yan compound."

The guard's face went very still. "Then you know more than most. Good luck, Inquisitor. You'll need it."

I pushed open the door.

The room was small but well-appointed—a sleeping platform covered with silk cushions, a lacquered table bearing a tray of untouched food, a bronze mirror on a carved stand, a brazier glowing with the last embers of a fire that had been lit hours ago. The window faced east, toward the river, and through it came the first pale suggestion of dawn.

Yan Ji sat on the windowsill with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She was younger than I had expected—fifteen, perhaps sixteen, with the round face and soft features of a girl who had not yet fully grown into womanhood. Her hair was unbound, spilling over her shoulders in a black cascade, and her robes were the white of deepest mourning, unadorned by any ornament or embroidery.

She did not turn when I entered. She did not move at all.

"Lady Yan," I said. "My name is Dou Ji. I am an inquisitor in service to the King."

Silence.

"I have been investigating what happened at your family's compound on the night of the Great Exorcism. I have spoken to witnesses. I have collected evidence. But I need your testimony to complete the picture."

More silence. The brazier crackled, sending up a shower of sparks that died before they reached the ceiling.

"I know you were hiding in the cistern," I said. "I know you heard everything. I know you saw what the soldiers did after the crowd dispersed. I need you to tell me—"

"The soldiers did not come after the crowd dispersed."

Her voice was barely a whisper, but it cut through the silence like a blade through silk. She still did not turn. Her eyes remained fixed on the window, on the river, on the thin grey line of dawn that was slowly erasing the stars.

"The soldiers were already there," she said. "They were waiting when the procession arrived. They opened the gates from the inside."

I moved closer, lowering myself onto a stool near the brazier. The warmth was welcome—the night had been cold, and I was old enough to feel the cold in my bones. "Tell me everything. From the beginning."

For a long moment, I thought she would not answer. Then, with the slow, deliberate movement of someone who has been holding themselves together through sheer force of will, she turned to face me.

Her eyes were the worst part. They were the eyes of someone who had seen the bottom of the world and discovered that there was nothing there—no gods, no justice, no meaning, only the endless, indifferent churn of violence and survival.

"I was not supposed to be there," she said. "I had been visiting the family of my betrothed in the southern provinces. The journey back took longer than expected—the roads were muddy from the autumn rains, and our cart broke an axle outside the eastern gate. By the time we reached the compound, it was nearly midnight. The festival procession was already in the streets."

She paused, her fingers tightening around her knees.

"My maid and I came in through the servants' gate at the back. The house was quiet. Everyone was asleep, or so I thought. I went to my room and began to unpack. And then I heard the drums."

"The drums?"

"The procession drums. They were getting closer. And with them, the chanting. At first I thought it was part of the festival—the exorcism prayers, the purification rites. But then I heard the words more clearly, and I realized they were not the festival prayers. They were something older. Something my grandmother used to whisper when she thought no one was listening."

"'We become the beast so the village may be clean,'" I quoted.

Yan Ji flinched as if I had struck her. "Yes. Those words. How do you—"

"I have been investigating, Lady Yan. Please continue."

She took a shuddering breath. "The drums stopped outside our gate. The chanting grew louder. And then I heard my father's voice—he had woken, he was shouting for the guards, demanding to know what was happening. And then the gate opened."

"Opened from the inside?"

"Yes. Our own guards opened it. The men who had sworn oaths to protect us. They threw open the gate and stepped aside, and the crowd poured in like water through a broken dam."

I thought of Cang Yue's testimony. The soldiers who were reassigned from the Fei household guard to the outer perimeter two days before the festival. The same thing had happened at the Yan compound. The same choreography. The same betrayal.

"What did you do?"

"I ran. I ran to the garden, to the old cistern at the back. It was dry—it had been dry since the drought. I climbed inside and pulled the lotus leaves over the opening. And then I listened."

"To what?"

"To my family dying."

The brazier popped again. The room was growing lighter now, the dawn seeping through the window like water through cloth. Outside, a bird began to sing—a small, ordinary sound, utterly indifferent to the horrors being recounted in this small room.

"My father died first," Yan Ji said. "He was shouting at them—shouting that this was a mistake, that he had done nothing wrong, that the King would have their heads. And then the shouting stopped, and there was only the sound of... of..."

"Of what?"

"Of laughter. They were laughing while they killed him. Laughing and chanting and beating their drums. It was not a massacre. It was a celebration."

She closed her eyes, and for the first time, her voice broke. "My mother died next. Then my older brother. Then my aunt, my cousins, the servants who had been with our family since before I was born. One by one, I heard them fall. One by one, I heard the laughter rise to meet their screams."

"And the soldiers? The ones who had opened the gate?"

"They were the worst. They knew the house. They knew where everyone slept, where everyone hid. They led the crowd from room to room, pointing, directing. They were not caught up in the frenzy. They were methodical. Efficient. They were—"

"Specialists," I said, echoing Cang Yue's word.

"Yes. They moved through the house like men performing a familiar task. They checked every hiding place. They counted the bodies. They made sure."

I rose from the stool and walked to the window. The river was visible now, its surface silver-grey in the dawn light. Boats were beginning to move—fishermen heading out for the morning catch, their nets coiled on their decks like sleeping serpents.

"Lady Yan," I said, "did you recognize any of the soldiers? Were they men you had seen before, in your father's service?"

She was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was barely audible. "Yes. All of them. They were our guards. The men who had protected our gates for ten years. The men who had eaten at our table and received our wages and sworn sacred oaths to defend our household. All of them."

"Did you see their faces?"

"I did not need to. I knew their voices. I knew their footsteps. I knew the way one of them—Captain Hu, his name was—always cleared his throat before he spoke. I heard him clear his throat before he gave the order to check the garden."

My blood went cold. "He gave the order to check the garden?"

"Yes. But by then, the cistern was hidden. The lotus leaves had settled back into place. They searched the garden—I heard them trampling through the peonies, overturning the stone benches, calling to each other. But they did not find me. They gave up after a while, and they went back into the house, and they finished what they had come to do."

"And afterward?"

"Afterward, there was silence. The crowd dispersed. The drums faded. The soldiers remained for another hour, perhaps longer. I heard them moving through the rooms, gathering things, burning things. And then they left too, and there was only the silence, and the smell, and the crows."

She turned back to the window. The first ray of true sunlight broke over the horizon, illuminating her face. She was beautiful in the way that a ruined temple is beautiful—haunted by the memory of what it once contained.

"The Prime Minister's men found me the next morning," she said. "I had climbed out of the cistern at dawn. I was standing in the courtyard, surrounded by the bodies of my family, when they arrived. They brought me here. They told me I was safe. They told me I was being protected."

"But you do not feel protected."

She turned to look at me, and in her eyes I saw something that was not quite grief and not quite rage, but something that contained elements of both.

"I feel like a hostage," she said. "The Prime Minister has been to see me three times. Each time, he asks the same questions. What did I see? What did I hear? Who have I spoken to? Each time, he tells me that I am safe, that justice has been done, that the traitors are dead and the state is cleansed. But he does not look at me when he speaks. He looks at the wall behind my head. He looks at his hands. He looks anywhere but at my face."

"Because he knows what you saw."

"Because he knows that I saw the soldiers. The same soldiers who now guard my door. The same soldiers who bow to the Prime Minister and call him 'Protector of the Realm.' The same soldiers who killed my family and burned my father's records and laughed while they did it."

I walked back to the stool and sat down heavily. The weight of the evidence in my robes—Cang Yue's bundle, the bronze bell, the charred bamboo fragment—seemed to press against my chest, demanding to be acknowledged.

"Lady Yan," I said, "I am going to write a report for the King. A report that tells the truth about what happened on the night of the Great Exorcism. I would like to include your testimony. But I must warn you: if I do, you will become a target. The people who orchestrated this massacre will have every reason to silence you."

She laughed—a short, bitter sound that was utterly devoid of humor. "I am already a target. I have been a target since the moment I climbed out of that cistern. The only reason I am still alive is that the Prime Minister has not yet decided whether killing me would attract more attention than keeping me alive."

"Then why keep you at all?"

"Because I am useful. A survivor who can be produced to confirm the official story—to say that justice was done, that the traitors were punished, that the state is cleansed. But I will not say those things. I have told the Prime Minister that. I will not lie about what I saw."

"And what did he say to that?"

She turned back to the window. The sun was fully up now, painting the river in shades of gold and rose. "He said that truth is a luxury reserved for those who have power. He said that I would be wise to learn that lesson before it was too late."

I rose from the stool. The interview was over. I had what I needed—testimony from a direct witness, corroborating everything Cang Yue had told me and adding new details that made the picture even darker. The soldiers had been not merely complicit but instrumental. The betrayal had been not spontaneous but orchestrated. And the Prime Minister had been not merely aware but actively managing the aftermath.

"I will do what I can," I said. "I cannot promise justice. I cannot even promise safety. But I can promise that your words will not be buried."

She did not turn. "My words are all I have left, Inquisitor. My family is gone. My home is gone. My future is gone. All I have is the truth, and the truth is a very small, very fragile thing. Please do not let them break it."

I left her by the window, her white robes glowing in the morning light, and stepped back into the corridor. The guards were still there, still standing at attention, still pretending they had not been listening at the door.

"She is not to be disturbed," I said. "By anyone. Until I return with the King's authorization."

The scarred guard nodded, but his eyes were uncertain. "The Prime Minister—"

"The Prime Minister will answer to the King, just as I do. Guard this door with your lives. If any harm comes to the Lady Yan, I will hold you personally responsible."

I did not wait for his response. I walked through the corridors of the palace, past the silk tapestries and the bronze ritual vessels and the servants who scurried out of my path, and I made my way toward the royal audience hall, where the King held his morning court.

But I did not reach it.

Lingyin Zichang was waiting for me in the Hall of Ancestral Harmony, a long, narrow chamber that connected the eastern guest wing to the main audience hall. He stood before a wall of ancestral tablets—the names of Chu kings going back three hundred years, carved into tablets of jade and gold—with his hands clasped behind his back and his face arranged in an expression of calm contemplation.

"Inquisitor Dou," he said, without turning. "I thought I might find you here."

"Prime Minister. I was on my way to present my preliminary findings to the King."

"Were you?" He turned then, and his eyes were not calm at all. They were the eyes of a man who had been calculating odds and probabilities and had arrived at a decision. "I wonder if we might speak privately first. There are some matters that the King need not be troubled with."

"The King is the ultimate authority in Chu. All matters should be brought before him."

"Should be, yes. In an ideal world. But we do not live in an ideal world, do we, Inquisitor? We live in a world of compromises. Of necessary sacrifices. Of truths that must be weighed against consequences."

I said nothing. The Hall of Ancestral Harmony was very quiet, the only sound the distant murmur of the river and the soft whisper of the wind through the open windows.

"I have been thinking about your investigation," Zichang continued. "About what you have discovered. About what you might report. And I have been thinking about what is best for Chu."

"And what have you concluded?"

He smiled—a thin, careful expression that did not reach his eyes. "I have concluded that you are a man of integrity. A rare thing in this court. A valuable thing. And I have concluded that such a man should be rewarded."

"Rewarded."

"The position of Chief Inquisitor has been vacant since the death of old Master Guo last winter. It is a prestigious post. A comfortable salary. A staff of twenty investigators who would report directly to you. And, most importantly, the authority to shape the official record of all investigations conducted in the name of the King."

He paused, letting the offer hang in the air between us.

"The Chief Inquisitor," he continued, "would have the power to determine which truths are recorded and which truths are... set aside. For the good of the state. For the stability of the realm. For the peace of mind of His Majesty, who has enough burdens without being troubled by uncomfortable details."

I looked at the ancestral tablets, at the names of kings who had conquered and killed and built an empire on a foundation of bones. They had all faced moments like this, I realized. Moments when the truth was a weapon that could cut the hands that held it.

"And if I refuse?" I asked.

Zichang's smile did not waver. "Then I will be forced to conclude that you are not, after all, a man who understands the necessities of governance. And I will be forced to take steps to protect the state from... instability."

"Is that a threat?"

"It is a prediction. The Lady Yan is fragile. Witnesses to traumatic events are notoriously unreliable. A wise inquisitor would not stake his career—or his life—on the testimony of a hysterical girl. A wise inquisitor would recognize that Fei Wuji and Yan Jiangshi were traitors who deserved their fate, and that the manner of that fate is irrelevant to the justice of the outcome."

"Justice," I said, "is never irrelevant to its own outcome. The manner of a death is what distinguishes an execution from a murder."

"Philosophy." He waved his hand dismissively. "I am offering you more than philosophy. I am offering you power. The power to protect people like the Lady Yan. The power to prevent such... excesses... from occurring again. The power to shape the future rather than merely chronicle the past."

I was silent for a long moment. The river murmured. The wind whispered. The ancestral tablets glittered in the morning light like the eyes of dead kings watching to see what their descendants would do.

"I will consider your offer," I said. "But I have one question."

"Ask."

"The soldiers who opened the gates. The soldiers who led the crowd through the Fei and Yan compounds. The soldiers who checked the hiding places and counted the bodies and burned the records. Who gave them their orders?"

Zichang's expression did not change. Not a flicker. Not a twitch. But something moved behind his eyes—something cold and watchful and utterly without mercy.

"I did," he said. "The order was given to protect the state from traitors who had already been condemned. The soldiers acted within their authority. Their methods may have been... enthusiastic... but their purpose was lawful."

"And the crowd? The masks? The chanting?"

"The crowd was a tool. A useful tool. Nothing more. The people needed catharsis. I gave it to them. The state needed cleansing. I provided it. And now the state is cleansed, and the people are satisfied, and the only remaining question is whether you will join me in ensuring that this happy resolution remains undisturbed."

He stepped closer, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper.

"You have a choice, Inquisitor. You can be the man who preserves the peace, or you can be the man who shatters it. You can be the Chief Inquisitor who protects the realm, or you can be the inconvenient witness who needs to be managed. The choice is yours. But I urge you to consider carefully. The beast that was awakened on the night of the Great Exorcism is still hungry. And it would be a tragedy if it were to find its way to your door."

He held my gaze for a long moment. Then he turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing in the silence of the Hall of Ancestral Harmony.

I stood alone among the tablets of the dead kings, and I thought about power, and truth, and the price that must be paid for both.

And I thought about Yan Ji, sitting by her window, waiting for someone to tell her that her family had not died for nothing.

The sun was high now. The palace was waking. And somewhere in the city of Ying, a beast was sleeping with one eye open.