Yuehwa was in her brother's study room—now hers—sitting in his chair, staring out of the window at the doleful droplets of rain that had begun to fall from the grey skies. On the table sat a huge stack of petitions that needed her perusal, but she had not touched a single one.

"The heavens know that we miss you, Sang," she murmured, closing her eyes as she ran her fingers along the worn table edge. In her mind's eye, she could still see herself as a precocious five year old, running into this very room where her older brother would be diligently practicing his calligraphy. She would badger him to teach her how to write as beautifully as he did, and he would hand her a brush, gently guiding her hand through each and every stroke. He would laugh at her messy, wriggly strokes that looked like worms on the rice paper, but still he would patiently teach her over and over, until she could finally write almost half as well as he could.

When she opened her eyes, her brother was gone, and she was once again alone.

The pattering of the raindrops hitting the roof was interrupted by someone announcing the arrival of General Han, and minutes later the stoic elderly man came marching into the study. "Your Highness," he bowed down to her and greeted, as he had done with three generations of kings that had come before her.

"There's no need for all these formalities, Uncle Han," Yuehwa said kindly, beckoning for him to straighten himself up.

"This is the royal palace. Protocol still needs to be abided by from time to time," the general replied, although his countenance had softened somewhat. He sat down on the chair that Yuehwa gestured towards, saying, "We've made the necessary arrangements to swap out the bodies and transfer the king to the ice chamber. The casket has already been sealed in preparation for tomorrow's cremation ceremony, so the swap is unlikely to be discovered. Can you tell me now the reason why you've asked for this to be done?"

Yuehwa walked over to the window, staring at the torrential rain that was showing no signs of letting up. She hoped that it would still be raining tomorrow, since that could mean that someone up there was telling her that she was doing the right thing, and that this cremation should not even be taking place.

"Thank you for trusting me, Uncle Han," she said.

The general had done exactly as she had instructed, no questions asked, even though what she had asked of him was going against one of this kingdom's oldest traditions. The people of Hwa believed that death was merely a transition into a new life, and that rebirth could be found in the flames and ashes with which this life would end. It was thus considered taboo if the body of the dead was not cremated within seven days of death. Despite knowing this, Yuehwa had asked for her brother's body to be transferred to the hidden ice chamber that resided beneath the royal palace, where it could be preserved for a longer period of time.

"The imperial physicians ruled out the possibility of foul play ages ago. We never detected any traces of poison in his blood all this while," the general replied. "Do you not trust their diagnosis?"

"Not every poison can be easily detected," Yuehwa murmured. Some poisons killed silently, cruelly. That was why dark magic was reviled and exiled all those years back, because the price for wielding such power was often paid in blood, and it would always leave destruction and tragedy in its wake.

Since finding out about the true cause of her brother's death, her nights had been haunted by the memory of those dark red swirls—blood, poisoned by treachery. Her heart felt like it was being stabbed a million times over. Who would have thought of doing something like this to someone as kind and gentle as Sang? All his life, her brother had done nothing but try to live up to the lofty expectations that had been placed on his shoulders, even though this wasn't the sort of life he wanted to lead at all. In the end, he didn't even get to watch his little boy grow up because someone had been cruel enough to have ended his life prematurely.

She would not rest until she had dug the perpetrator out from the shadows, and put a blade through their heart.

But the general did not need to be burdened with this knowledge now. There were many other important things that she needed his help with, if she were to run the kingdom well.

"I need more time to investigate, which is why I asked for my brother's body to be transferred to the ice chamber temporarily," she said simply. "Do not tell the queen about this. I do not want her to worry. The investigation may yet yield nothing."

The culprit could have been anyone. The obvious suspect would be the Prime Minister. After all he had been eyeing the seat of power for a long time. Or it could have been any one of the other kingdoms who wanted to deal a blow to what was commonly perceived to be the strongest out of the five kingdoms. Perhaps Baixun had been the mastermind behind this, or that cunning father-in-law of his, the king of Dahai, who used dark magic to guard his own treasures.

Whoever it was wanted this kingdom for themselves, and she would not let them have it.

She had to lay a trap.

#

After the cremation ceremony, everything went back to normal. Or at least as normal as things could possibly get.

The crown prince of Feng arrived in the capital the day after the ceremony, but he was left hanging out to dry because the newly appointed regent, Princess Lee Yue, refused to grant him an audience day after day, always managing to cite one excuse or the other. He was given accommodation at the furthermost corner of the palace, the east wing, and was treated extremely well by the servants that had been assigned to his quarters, but the constant evasion by the princess was getting on his nerves. He had never been the most patient of individuals to begin with.

A loud crash rang out across the east wing as yet another porcelain cup went flying across the room, smashing into smithereens against the wall. The pitiful attendant who had been assigned to look after the well-being of the prince rushed around trying to pick up the broken pieces while avoiding any new flying projectiles that might come his way. All the other palace maids were hiding behind pillars and walls, hoping not to catch the eye of the enraged prince.

"What the hell does that woman think she's playing at! I've already been here for five days and still she tells me that she doesn't have time to see me? Is this how she's supposed to treat her future husband?" he yelled, looking around for something else to fling at the wall. This time, the unfortunate object happened to be a jade statue of a horse.

The attendant stared at the shattered pieces of jade in dismay, wondering whether or not this would need to come out of his monthly pay.

"Does she think she's so high and mighty just because she's the regent of Hwa? Does she? Well you can bloody well let her know that she's nobody in my eyes! I'm going to tell my father to march the armies of Feng towards Hwa so that we can raze down all your damn cities and then we'll see if she can still act all arrogant and pompous!"

This time, he picked up a porcelain saucer that was lying about, but instead of hitting the wall with a crash, the saucer was caught in mid-air by someone who was hanging upside off the ceiling beam. Alarmed by the sudden intruder, the prince instinctively took a couple of steps backwards, tripping over a stool and landing backwards on his arse.

"Tsk," the intruder tutted, admiring the saucer that she was holding in her hands. "No need to take out your frustrations on these pretty things. It's such a waste, don't you think?"

All the blood immediately drained out of the crown prince's face and his hands and legs began trembling uncontrollably.

"Guar—" the attendant was about to scream.

On any other occasion he wouldn't even have needed to yell for the guards and they would already have come rushing in, but the non-stop racket that the prince had been creating inside the room had numbed their senses somewhat.

"No!" the prince suddenly shrieked, cutting the attendant off. "Don't call for the guards! It's fine, I know her. All of you can just leave now. Leave!"

The attendant exchanged uncertain glances with the palace maids. Only when the prince yelled at him once more did he pick up the hem of his trousers and go running out of the room along with all the other servants, hastily shutting the door behind him.

"Not bad, looks like you've grown some common sense after all," Yuehwa said, swinging herself upright so she was perched comfortably on the beam. She tossed the saucer back at the terrified prince, who managed to catch it before it hit him right on the head.

"W-w-what are you doing here?" he stammered.

Yuehwa knew that the Phoenix was probably the last person the prince ever wanted to see on the face of this earth. The nightmare about being hung up stark naked from a tree was not an experience that one would forget so easily.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I just dropped by to run an errand," she remarked. Reaching inside her sleeve, she fished out a red envelope and threw it at him. "Here you go, I believe this is for you."

The prince picked up the envelope gingerly by the tips of his fingers, as if afraid that it was laced with poison.

Reading his thoughts, Yuehwa laughed and said, "I'm not the poison expert. The White Scorpion isn't here today, in case that's what you're worried about." The second the words left her lips, Yuehwa felt an ache in her heart as the memory of when she and Shoya had hung this coward up on a branch floated back to mind. Those were carefree days, but what was past was past.

The envelope was sealed with the royal seal of the kingdom of Hwa, and contained an invitation card to a royal banquet. After his eyes quickly scanned the invite, the prince of Feng looked back up at her warily. "What is this?" he asked. "Why are you giving this to me?"

"Can't you read?" Yuehwa scoffed, although she was secretly amused by the prince's suspicious reaction to the invitation.

Crown Prince Hwang Minsu of Feng was one of the most detestable sorts of people she ever had the good fortune of encountering (and she had encountered plenty of detestable sorts in her travels), and there was this tiny bit of sadistic amusement that she got out of torturing his cowardly soul. That was why she was even here today. Bored and weary from the daily grind of having to attend to matters of the kingdom, second-guess the actions of everyone around her and try to uncover the culprit behind her brother's death all at the same time, she decided that she needed a break. That break took the form of this practical joke that she was playing on the poor prince.

The royal court was still pestering her to accept the proposal from Feng, but she had instead chosen to throw a grand banquet for everyone who was anyone across the kingdoms, subtly hinting in the invitation that she—the princess of Hwa—would be choosing her match during the course of said banquet.

It was ironic that it had to come to this, she thought, give how she had meddled with Naying's engagement tournament. Now she had written herself into the same sorry hole.

Not that she had any intention of actually marrying anyone.

What she wanted to do was to lure the mastermind behind her brother's murder out into the open. Whoever it was either wanted to pocket Hwa for themselves, or wanted to destroy the kingdom entirely, but they would have to step over her dead body first.

"Don't say I didn't warn you. If you dare try anything shady like what you did in Dahai, then it won't simply be a case of hanging naked from a tree, got it?" she said, a crooked smile stretching across her lips. She flipped herself onto the window sill. "Have fun at the banquet!"

Without waiting for the terrified prince to reply, Yuehwa turned and leapt out, swiftly making her exit from the guest quarters. The smile she had been wearing faded away, replaced by a sombre grimace. Before making her presence known to the prince, she had already conducted a thorough search his chambers, trying to find any clue of Feng being linked to her brother's death—but there was nothing.

What was I expecting? Even if Feng was behind it, that spineless fool probably knows nothing. Either that or he's a much better actor than I'm giving him credit for.

When Yuehwa returned to the king's study, she found a familiar figure waiting for her by the circular window, the sleeves of his white robes gently swaying with the breeze.

"What are you doing here again?" she demanded.

So much for criticising palace security in the other kingdoms. She would have to have a word with General Han about strengthening patrols on her own turf. It seemed far too easy for charlatans to scale her walls.

"It's not Feng," Shoya said, evidently already knowing what she had been up to.

"How can you be so sure? Unless you're the culprit?"

An uneasy silence hung thick in the air, and the gulf between them seemed to widen a little more. Yuehwa looked away, moving towards the king's desk instead. There was a sadness in Shoya's eyes that she would rather ignore.

She was annoyed that her every move had not escaped his detection and only wanted to throw out an instinctive retort. She didn't actually think that he had a hand in any of this—or did she?

"It would not benefit Feng to harm your brother," Shoya replied, after what felt like a tense eternity. "With him alive, the probability of forming an alliance with Hwa is far higher. After all, Hwa is more likely to be willing to part with a princess than a regent, and a kingdom with a king at its helm would seem far more reliable in times of war than one without."

"Or maybe they wish to devour my kingdom altogether? Perhaps you underestimate your father's ambition," Yuehwa scoffed.

"You know that's not possible. Feng is nowhere near strong enough to conquer a kingdom like Hwa."

"Even with the help of dark magic?"

The tension in the room rose further, making it hard to even breathe. Yuehwa's fingers dug at the surface of the table as she glared at Shoya, and the wood strained against her touch.

"Maybe now isn't the right time to be discussing this," Shoya replied quietly. "You should rest. Your body isn't made of steel, and there is an entire kingdom depending on you now." He turned back towards the open window, then paused. "The king of Feng has decided to attend the banquet personally. His entourage has already left the capital," he said. "I know that if Hwa and Feng hope to maintain sovereignty against the combined forces of Gi and Dahai, it is inevitable that you must work together, but Yuehwa—don't sacrifice yourself for the sake of this. Please."

"If you think I would do something like that then maybe you don't know me after all."

Out of the corners of her eyes, Yuehwa could see Shoya's shadow hesitate for a brief moment, then he disappeared, leaving behind no trace but a soft rustle of the rice paper window pane. As always.

When did things change between us, Shoya?

Perhaps this was meant to be from the beginning, for he was never only the White Scorpion, and she was never only the Phoenix.

Trust was a fragile thing. Once the first crack formed, fractures would only continue to grow like the ugly lines on a broken mirror, until one day the surface shattered for good.