The scent of incense was thick in the air
The scent of incense was thick in the air, coiling in lazy tendrils to weave through drooping silk tapestries embroidered in gold. The faint strains of a guqin played somewhere in the background, soft as a whisper against the chaos erupting outside the walled gardens of the palace. Xu Minzu tightened the sash on her crimson changshan—a long, fitted dress embroidered with golden phoenixes battling dragons amidst black clouds. Her black hair, pulled high and adorned with gold pins, swayed slightly as her chin tilted up in defiance.
“Lady Minzu, the gates won’t hold much longer,” Chen Wei panted, his armor clinking as he fought to catch his breath. He was a lean man, sharp-featured, with streaks of blood painting his bronze breastplate. His words felt foreign against the serenity of the ornate chamber, where Minzu stood like a ghostly statue of the Tang Empire’s former splendor.
Minzu’s almond-shaped eyes, framed with kohl and smudged faintly from the humid night, didn’t flicker from the jade statuette she held in her slender hand. “Do you believe in shadows, Chen Wei?” Her voice was soft, rich like fermented plum wine, yet threaded with an unease she struggled to suppress.
Chen Wei hesitated, glancing warily at the oiled paper window that quivered as another distant explosion rumbled through Xi’an’s streets. Memories flooded his mind—of the rumors whispered in the taverns, of assassins cloaked in silk and shadow, of whispers from distant lands about new alchemical weapons and fire-laden machines. Yet, standing before Minzu, it wasn’t the enemy’s explosives that frightened him—it was her poised stillness in the face of it all.
“I believe in survival, my lady,” Chen Wei managed. “If the emperor falls, so will the empire. We must flee. Now!”
A Time Between Suns
Minutes earlier, their world had splintered. The night had seemed calm—a rare reprieve in a city clinging to its final fragments of prosperity. But as the second moon—a pale, translucent orb hanging low on the horizon—had risen, a screeching roar pierced the heavens. Moments later, mechanical birds of prey descended through the clouds in flocks. They bristled with metallic edges and gouts of green-orange fire trailing from their bodies like hellish comets poised to devour Xi’an’s imperial stronghold.
It wasn’t sorcery or the wrath of heaven. Minzu knew exactly what they were. Long before her father had been executed for treason, she had clandestinely worked with him in their workshops, creating marvels and monstrosities for the empire—tools of peace turned toward infinite bloodletting.
And this, tonight, was no coincidence. The jade statuette in her hand—the “Shadow Core” as her father had called it—was their masterpiece. The power sealed within was enough to turn men into living wraiths, bound to no laws of flesh or physics. The foreign invaders had learned of it, and only death would suffice if they left Xi’an without it.
"We don't have time for games, Lady Minzu!" Chen Wei’s voice shook through her reverie. "Give me that artifact, and I'll protect it with my life as we fall back to the riverboats."
Her lip twitched in something between a sad smile and a sneer. “Protect it, you say? The same way you failed to protect my family from the executioner’s blade?"
Chen Wei’s face hardened, his hand reflexively snapping to the hilt of his saber. Minzu moved faster, tracing a single, elegant finger along the surface of the jade statuette. For an instant, the room seemed to blur at its edges, and the ticking of a small brass clock on the corner table slowed, distorted into something monstrous and strange.
“The gates won’t hold,” she continued calmly, her voice now distant. “Then let them fall.” Turning toward him, her eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, pinpricks of unnatural luminance. “It’s time for the shadows to dance.”
The Teeth of the Machine
By the time the invaders breached the inner halls, the palace was eerily silent—its intricate tile floors smeared with streaks of red, tapestries wafting listlessly in the smoke-heavy air. Despite their superior weapons, the attackers moved cautiously, sensing the awful reality beneath still and empty corridors.
“Careful,” barked the group’s leader, a man in a strange, armored suit constructed of light gray plating and wires that glowed faintly turquoise. The language he spoke was unintelligible, guttural consonants punctuated by snarling tones. His comrades responded in curt, uniform chatter as they raised their angular weapons, sleek tubes trailing wires and emitting a low-pitched hum.
Suddenly, something whistled through the air with the speed and hiss of a striking viper. A soldier closest to the leader reacted too late; his body crumpled to the floor, blood blossoming on his chest as a sliver of jade protruded from his heart.
Before anyone else could react, chaos erupted. The shadows flickered wildly, splitting and warping along the gilded walls as figures seemed to materialize from the darkness itself. Silent, precise, they wore flowing black robes streaked faintly with crimson, and tendrils floated unnaturally around them like wisps of smoke. They struck fast and without mercy—knives flashed, and blood sprayed across the polished stone floors.
The leader bellowed orders, firing bursts of searing light at the apparitions. Yet none of it seemed to matter. Sometimes his prize would fracture and scatter into countless shadows against the wall before reassembling elsewhere to claim another victim.
A Memory of Betrayal
Hours later, Minzu walked alone through the courtyards of the imperial palace. A faint drizzle began to fall, dampening her crimson dress as she stepped over the remains of soldiers, both foreign and domestic.
Her father’s words came unbidden to her mind: “Trust is a weapon sharper than any blade but crueler than any lie.”
Chen Wei’s body lay slumped against the roots of a large cherry tree, his eyes frozen open in fear. Blood soaked his armor where her blade had struck true. He had begged for mercy. He had explained that the invaders were sent by Xi’an’s own desperate factions, trying to barter away secrets in exchange for foreign support. But Minzu’s heart had hardened long ago, calcifying under years of betrayal.
The artifact was still in her possession—secured for now. Its strange glow pulsed faintly beneath her sleeve, warming her arm like a living thing.
Tonight, though her reflections felt like ash and ruin, she stepped forward into the future. The shadows, at least, had never lied to her.
Genre: Historical Dark Fantasy
The Source...check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: China Halts Drone Exports
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