The Taste of Iron
The first blow landed across Shen Weiyu’s back, and he felt it twice.
Once in his own flesh, where the leather-wrapped rod split the silk of his robe and bit into his spine. Once in his chest, where the golden thread connecting him to Yuning pulled taut and vibrated like a plucked zither string. Weiyu bit the inside of his cheek and tasted copper.
The First Prince’s dungeon was a wet stone throat beneath the Eastern Palace. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, a slow, maddening percussion. The air smelled of mold and old blood and the sharp salt of fear. They had stripped Weiyu of his outer robe, his jade hairpin, his shoes. The cold of the floor seeped through his thin underrobe and into his bones.
“Again,” said a voice from the shadows.
The rod fell again. Weiyu’s knees buckled, but the chains holding his wrists to the wall kept him upright. His shoulders screamed. His back felt like a single raw wound.
The First Prince stepped into the circle of torchlight. Zhao Yuming was older than Yuning by twelve years, with the same sharp jaw and dark eyes, but where Yuning’s face held warmth and mischief, Yuming’s was carved from ice. He wore robes of deep purple embroidered with silver dragons—a flagrant breach of protocol, since only the Emperor could wear five-clawed dragons. Yuming wore four-clawed ones, which meant he was either arrogant or signaling his intentions.
Probably both.
“You’re quiet,” Yuming said. He circled Weiyu slowly, his silk slippers making no sound on the wet stone. “I expected more. The great Jade Scribe, the Emperor’s oracle. I thought you would curse me. Prophesy my doom. Something dramatic.”
Weiyu said nothing. His tongue was thick with blood.
Yuming stopped in front of him and tilted his head. “Or perhaps you’re saving your strength. Waiting for my brother to come rescue you.” He smiled. It did not reach his eyes. “He’s trying, you know. I can feel it through the bond.”
Weiyu’s heart stuttered.
“Oh yes,” Yuming said, reading his face. “I know about the binding. I have spies everywhere, Scribe. Did you think your little secret would stay hidden? The moment you collapsed in the throne room, my people noticed. The moment Yuning went berserk during the assassination attempt, they confirmed it.” He leaned closer, and Weiyu could smell sandalwood and something sour beneath it. “You share pain. You share emotions. You share a life.”
The rod struck again, this time across Weiyu’s ribs. He heard something crack. The pain was a white flower blooming behind his eyes, and through the bond, he felt Yuning’s answering roar of agony and rage.
Yuming laughed. “There it is. He felt that. He’s probably tearing through my guards right now, screaming your name.” He stepped back and gestured to the torturer, a broad-shouldered man with no expression. “Again. But slower this time. I want to savor it.”
The torturer adjusted his grip on the rod. Weiyu closed his eyes.
He had known this would happen.
When Yuning proposed the false rebellion, Weiyu had seen the possibility. Not a clear vision—the curse had been erratic since the kiss in the library, the threads of fate tangling and fraying—but fragments. A stone corridor. The smell of blood. A voice that sounded like Yuming’s.
He had said nothing.
Because the plan was good. The plan would work. Yuning’s forces would draw out the First Prince’s allies, expose the conspiracy, and give the court a reason to turn against Yuming. Weiyu had written the prophecy himself: “The Dragon’s second son shall rise from the ashes of betrayal, and the false flames shall consume the pretender.”
A lie. A beautiful, necessary lie.
But Weiyu had not foreseen that Yuming would capture him before the battle even began. He had not foreseen that the First Prince would know about the binding.
He had not foreseen that he would become a weapon aimed at Yuning’s heart.
The rod came down again. Weiyu’s vision went white. He felt Yuning stumble somewhere far away, felt the prince’s concentration shatter, felt the sharp spike of fear that was not his own.
*Stop,* he thought, pushing the word through the bond. *Don’t feel this. Focus on the battle.*
But he did not know if Yuning could hear him. The bond transmitted sensation and emotion, not words. It was a raw, animal connection—a leash, not a conversation.
“How many blows do you think he can take?” Yuming mused. He had produced a fan from somewhere, a delicate thing painted with bamboo, and he waved it lazily. “Ten more? Twenty? My torturer is skilled. He knows exactly where to strike to cause maximum pain without killing.” He smiled again. “I want my brother to feel every single one.”
The torturer raised the rod.
The door at the top of the stairs crashed open.
Weiyu heard shouting, the clash of steel, the wet sound of a body falling. Yuming’s fan stopped moving. His eyes narrowed.
“Impossible,” he muttered. “He should be pinned at the South Gate for another hour.”
Boots on the stairs. Heavy, fast, reckless.
Yuning appeared in the torchlight like a demon from a folktale. His robes were torn and splattered with blood—some of it his, most of it not. His sword was drawn, the blade red to the hilt. His eyes were wild, his chest heaving, and when he saw Weiyu hanging from the chains, something in his face broke.
“Weiyu.”
The word was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of a scream.
Yuming laughed. “Brother. How kind of you to join us. I was just explaining to your pet scribe the mechanics of shared suffering.”
Yuning’s gaze snapped to Yuming. The sword in his hand trembled.
“Let him go,” Yuning said. His voice was low, dangerous. “This is between you and me.”
“Is it?” Yuming stepped closer to Weiyu, close enough that his sleeve brushed Weiyu’s bloody back. “Because it seems to me that the Scribe is very much involved. He’s your weakness, brother. Your soft underbelly. I’ve been looking for it for years.” He reached out and grabbed a fistful of Weiyu’s hair, yanking his head back. “And now I’ve found it.”
Weiyu made a sound. He did not mean to. It escaped through his clenched teeth, a thin whimper of pain.
Yuning lunged.
The torturer moved to intercept, but Yuning was faster. His sword took the man across the throat, and the torturer fell with a gurgle. Yuning kept moving, his blade arcing toward Yuming—
Yuming released Weiyu’s hair and drew a dagger from his sleeve. He pressed it against Weiyu’s throat.
“One more step,” Yuming said, “and I open his neck. You’ll feel it, won’t you? The blade cutting through skin. The blood flooding his lungs. You’ll die together, gasping on this cold floor.”
Yuning stopped. His sword hung at his side, dripping.
“Let him go,” he said again, but this time the words were hollow. Begging.
“Why would I do that?” Yuming pressed the dagger harder. Weiyu felt the sting of the edge breaking skin. A thin line of warmth trickled down his neck. “You’ve ruined everything. The court was mine. The throne was mine. And then you found a prophet who could see my moves before I made them.” He spat the words like poison. “Do you know how long I’ve planned? How many alliances I’ve built? How many bodies I’ve buried to clear my path?”
“I don’t care about the throne,” Yuning said.
“Liar.”
“I don’t.” Yuning’s voice cracked. “I never wanted it. I only wanted him.”
Weiyu’s heart clenched. Through the bond, he felt the truth of Yuning’s words—raw, desperate, bleeding. The prince was not lying. He had abandoned the battle, abandoned the plan, abandoned everything to come here. To save him.
*Fool,* Weiyu thought, but the word had no bite. It was soaked in something warm and painful that he did not dare name.
Yuming laughed again, but the sound was thinner now. Less confident. “Touching. Truly touching. But it changes nothing.” He adjusted his grip on the dagger. “I’m going to kill him, brother. And you’re going to watch. And then I’m going to kill you, and the throne will be mine by default, because there will be no one left to challenge me.”
“The Princess of Yan will challenge you,” Weiyu said.
His voice was hoarse, barely audible. But both princes turned to look at him.
“The Princess of Yan,” Weiyu repeated, forcing the words through his cracked lips, “has her own army. Her own plans. She will not let you take the throne. She will fight you. And she will win.”
Yuming’s face flickered. For just a moment, uncertainty crossed his features.
It was enough.
Yuning moved.
He did not charge. He did not swing his sword. He simply stepped forward and grabbed the blade of Yuming’s dagger with his bare hand. The steel bit into his palm, drawing blood, but he did not flinch. He held the blade still, his eyes locked on Yuming’s.
“You wanted to hurt me through him,” Yuning said, his voice quiet and terrible. “Here I am. Hurt me directly.”
Yuming stared at him. For a long, frozen moment, no one moved.
Then Yuming laughed—a sharp, brittle sound—and pulled the dagger back. Yuning’s hand came away bloody, but he did not look at it. He was still staring at his brother.
“You’re insane,” Yuming said. “You’ve always been insane. Running off to the borderlands. Taking a prophet as your lover. Throwing away the throne for a man who can barely smile.” He shook his head. “You’re not fit to rule.”
“I know,” Yuning said. “I never said I was.”
He turned his back on Yuming.
It was the most reckless thing Weiyu had ever seen. Yuning turned his back on a man holding a dagger, a man who had just threatened to kill the person he loved most in the world, and walked to Weiyu. He reached up and grabbed the chains holding Weiyu’s wrists.
“I’m getting you out of here,” Yuning said. His voice was soft now, meant only for Weiyu. “Hold on.”
Behind them, Yuming made a sound of pure fury.
Weiyu saw it happen. The vision flickered at the edge of his awareness—Yuming lunging, the dagger aimed at Yuning’s exposed back. He opened his mouth to scream a warning, but the chains snapped before the words left his throat.
Yuning caught him as he fell. Weiyu’s legs would not hold him. His back was a landscape of fire, his ribs a cage of broken glass. He sagged against Yuning’s chest, and the prince held him close, one arm around his waist, the other still holding the sword.
Yuming’s dagger clattered against the stone floor. The First Prince stared at his empty hand, then at the chains on the floor, then at his brother.
“How—” he started.
Yuning did not let him finish. He swept his sword in a low arc, and Yuming stumbled back, his robes slashed open across his chest. Blood welled up, red against the purple silk.
“Run,” Yuning said. “Run and tell your allies that the rebellion failed. Tell them the Jade Scribe is dead, and the Dragon’s second son has vanished into the night. Tell them whatever you want.” He adjusted his grip on Weiyu. “But if you follow us, I will not miss next time.”
Yuming’s face twisted. For a moment, Weiyu thought he would attack again. But then the First Prince looked at the blood on his chest, at the dead torturer on the floor, at the shattered chains, and something in his eyes went cold and calculating.
“This isn’t over,” Yuming said.
“It never is,” Yuning replied.
He carried Weiyu up the stairs.
The corridor above was littered with bodies. Guards, servants, a few of Yuning’s men. The prince stepped over them without looking down, his arms tight around Weiyu’s broken body. Weiyu’s vision was fading at the edges, the pain in his back and ribs pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
“Yuning,” he whispered.
“Don’t talk. Save your strength.”
“The plan—”
“The plan failed.” Yuning’s voice was flat. “I abandoned it. I abandoned everything. The moment I felt them hurt you, I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I just ran.”
Weiyu wanted to scold him. Wanted to tell him that the rebellion was more important, that the throne was more important, that Yuning had thrown away months of careful strategy for a single reckless rescue.
But the words would not come.
Because through the bond, Weiyu felt something he had never felt before. Not pain. Not fear. Not anger.
Love.
It burned through the golden thread like a wildfire, hot and bright and terrifying. Yuning’s love was not gentle. It was not patient. It was a storm, a flood, a blade drawn in the dark. It was the love of a man who had abandoned a kingdom for a single person.
Weiyu closed his eyes and let himself be carried.
“Don’t die,” Yuning whispered, his voice cracking. “Please. I love you. I love you, and I will not let you die.”
Weiyu did not answer.
But through the bond, he pushed back everything he had—every scrap of warmth, every flicker of hope, every feeling he had spent twenty-four years burying. He pushed it all toward Yuning, a silent answer to a desperate prayer.
*I am here. I am alive. I am yours.*
The night swallowed them, and the palace burned behind them, and Shen Weiyu held onto the golden thread like a lifeline, refusing to let go.
Once in his own flesh, where the leather-wrapped rod split the silk of his robe and bit into his spine. Once in his chest, where the golden thread connecting him to Yuning pulled taut and vibrated like a plucked zither string. Weiyu bit the inside of his cheek and tasted copper.
The First Prince’s dungeon was a wet stone throat beneath the Eastern Palace. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, a slow, maddening percussion. The air smelled of mold and old blood and the sharp salt of fear. They had stripped Weiyu of his outer robe, his jade hairpin, his shoes. The cold of the floor seeped through his thin underrobe and into his bones.
“Again,” said a voice from the shadows.
The rod fell again. Weiyu’s knees buckled, but the chains holding his wrists to the wall kept him upright. His shoulders screamed. His back felt like a single raw wound.
The First Prince stepped into the circle of torchlight. Zhao Yuming was older than Yuning by twelve years, with the same sharp jaw and dark eyes, but where Yuning’s face held warmth and mischief, Yuming’s was carved from ice. He wore robes of deep purple embroidered with silver dragons—a flagrant breach of protocol, since only the Emperor could wear five-clawed dragons. Yuming wore four-clawed ones, which meant he was either arrogant or signaling his intentions.
Probably both.
“You’re quiet,” Yuming said. He circled Weiyu slowly, his silk slippers making no sound on the wet stone. “I expected more. The great Jade Scribe, the Emperor’s oracle. I thought you would curse me. Prophesy my doom. Something dramatic.”
Weiyu said nothing. His tongue was thick with blood.
Yuming stopped in front of him and tilted his head. “Or perhaps you’re saving your strength. Waiting for my brother to come rescue you.” He smiled. It did not reach his eyes. “He’s trying, you know. I can feel it through the bond.”
Weiyu’s heart stuttered.
“Oh yes,” Yuming said, reading his face. “I know about the binding. I have spies everywhere, Scribe. Did you think your little secret would stay hidden? The moment you collapsed in the throne room, my people noticed. The moment Yuning went berserk during the assassination attempt, they confirmed it.” He leaned closer, and Weiyu could smell sandalwood and something sour beneath it. “You share pain. You share emotions. You share a life.”
The rod struck again, this time across Weiyu’s ribs. He heard something crack. The pain was a white flower blooming behind his eyes, and through the bond, he felt Yuning’s answering roar of agony and rage.
Yuming laughed. “There it is. He felt that. He’s probably tearing through my guards right now, screaming your name.” He stepped back and gestured to the torturer, a broad-shouldered man with no expression. “Again. But slower this time. I want to savor it.”
The torturer adjusted his grip on the rod. Weiyu closed his eyes.
He had known this would happen.
When Yuning proposed the false rebellion, Weiyu had seen the possibility. Not a clear vision—the curse had been erratic since the kiss in the library, the threads of fate tangling and fraying—but fragments. A stone corridor. The smell of blood. A voice that sounded like Yuming’s.
He had said nothing.
Because the plan was good. The plan would work. Yuning’s forces would draw out the First Prince’s allies, expose the conspiracy, and give the court a reason to turn against Yuming. Weiyu had written the prophecy himself: “The Dragon’s second son shall rise from the ashes of betrayal, and the false flames shall consume the pretender.”
A lie. A beautiful, necessary lie.
But Weiyu had not foreseen that Yuming would capture him before the battle even began. He had not foreseen that the First Prince would know about the binding.
He had not foreseen that he would become a weapon aimed at Yuning’s heart.
The rod came down again. Weiyu’s vision went white. He felt Yuning stumble somewhere far away, felt the prince’s concentration shatter, felt the sharp spike of fear that was not his own.
*Stop,* he thought, pushing the word through the bond. *Don’t feel this. Focus on the battle.*
But he did not know if Yuning could hear him. The bond transmitted sensation and emotion, not words. It was a raw, animal connection—a leash, not a conversation.
“How many blows do you think he can take?” Yuming mused. He had produced a fan from somewhere, a delicate thing painted with bamboo, and he waved it lazily. “Ten more? Twenty? My torturer is skilled. He knows exactly where to strike to cause maximum pain without killing.” He smiled again. “I want my brother to feel every single one.”
The torturer raised the rod.
The door at the top of the stairs crashed open.
Weiyu heard shouting, the clash of steel, the wet sound of a body falling. Yuming’s fan stopped moving. His eyes narrowed.
“Impossible,” he muttered. “He should be pinned at the South Gate for another hour.”
Boots on the stairs. Heavy, fast, reckless.
Yuning appeared in the torchlight like a demon from a folktale. His robes were torn and splattered with blood—some of it his, most of it not. His sword was drawn, the blade red to the hilt. His eyes were wild, his chest heaving, and when he saw Weiyu hanging from the chains, something in his face broke.
“Weiyu.”
The word was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of a scream.
Yuming laughed. “Brother. How kind of you to join us. I was just explaining to your pet scribe the mechanics of shared suffering.”
Yuning’s gaze snapped to Yuming. The sword in his hand trembled.
“Let him go,” Yuning said. His voice was low, dangerous. “This is between you and me.”
“Is it?” Yuming stepped closer to Weiyu, close enough that his sleeve brushed Weiyu’s bloody back. “Because it seems to me that the Scribe is very much involved. He’s your weakness, brother. Your soft underbelly. I’ve been looking for it for years.” He reached out and grabbed a fistful of Weiyu’s hair, yanking his head back. “And now I’ve found it.”
Weiyu made a sound. He did not mean to. It escaped through his clenched teeth, a thin whimper of pain.
Yuning lunged.
The torturer moved to intercept, but Yuning was faster. His sword took the man across the throat, and the torturer fell with a gurgle. Yuning kept moving, his blade arcing toward Yuming—
Yuming released Weiyu’s hair and drew a dagger from his sleeve. He pressed it against Weiyu’s throat.
“One more step,” Yuming said, “and I open his neck. You’ll feel it, won’t you? The blade cutting through skin. The blood flooding his lungs. You’ll die together, gasping on this cold floor.”
Yuning stopped. His sword hung at his side, dripping.
“Let him go,” he said again, but this time the words were hollow. Begging.
“Why would I do that?” Yuming pressed the dagger harder. Weiyu felt the sting of the edge breaking skin. A thin line of warmth trickled down his neck. “You’ve ruined everything. The court was mine. The throne was mine. And then you found a prophet who could see my moves before I made them.” He spat the words like poison. “Do you know how long I’ve planned? How many alliances I’ve built? How many bodies I’ve buried to clear my path?”
“I don’t care about the throne,” Yuning said.
“Liar.”
“I don’t.” Yuning’s voice cracked. “I never wanted it. I only wanted him.”
Weiyu’s heart clenched. Through the bond, he felt the truth of Yuning’s words—raw, desperate, bleeding. The prince was not lying. He had abandoned the battle, abandoned the plan, abandoned everything to come here. To save him.
*Fool,* Weiyu thought, but the word had no bite. It was soaked in something warm and painful that he did not dare name.
Yuming laughed again, but the sound was thinner now. Less confident. “Touching. Truly touching. But it changes nothing.” He adjusted his grip on the dagger. “I’m going to kill him, brother. And you’re going to watch. And then I’m going to kill you, and the throne will be mine by default, because there will be no one left to challenge me.”
“The Princess of Yan will challenge you,” Weiyu said.
His voice was hoarse, barely audible. But both princes turned to look at him.
“The Princess of Yan,” Weiyu repeated, forcing the words through his cracked lips, “has her own army. Her own plans. She will not let you take the throne. She will fight you. And she will win.”
Yuming’s face flickered. For just a moment, uncertainty crossed his features.
It was enough.
Yuning moved.
He did not charge. He did not swing his sword. He simply stepped forward and grabbed the blade of Yuming’s dagger with his bare hand. The steel bit into his palm, drawing blood, but he did not flinch. He held the blade still, his eyes locked on Yuming’s.
“You wanted to hurt me through him,” Yuning said, his voice quiet and terrible. “Here I am. Hurt me directly.”
Yuming stared at him. For a long, frozen moment, no one moved.
Then Yuming laughed—a sharp, brittle sound—and pulled the dagger back. Yuning’s hand came away bloody, but he did not look at it. He was still staring at his brother.
“You’re insane,” Yuming said. “You’ve always been insane. Running off to the borderlands. Taking a prophet as your lover. Throwing away the throne for a man who can barely smile.” He shook his head. “You’re not fit to rule.”
“I know,” Yuning said. “I never said I was.”
He turned his back on Yuming.
It was the most reckless thing Weiyu had ever seen. Yuning turned his back on a man holding a dagger, a man who had just threatened to kill the person he loved most in the world, and walked to Weiyu. He reached up and grabbed the chains holding Weiyu’s wrists.
“I’m getting you out of here,” Yuning said. His voice was soft now, meant only for Weiyu. “Hold on.”
Behind them, Yuming made a sound of pure fury.
Weiyu saw it happen. The vision flickered at the edge of his awareness—Yuming lunging, the dagger aimed at Yuning’s exposed back. He opened his mouth to scream a warning, but the chains snapped before the words left his throat.
Yuning caught him as he fell. Weiyu’s legs would not hold him. His back was a landscape of fire, his ribs a cage of broken glass. He sagged against Yuning’s chest, and the prince held him close, one arm around his waist, the other still holding the sword.
Yuming’s dagger clattered against the stone floor. The First Prince stared at his empty hand, then at the chains on the floor, then at his brother.
“How—” he started.
Yuning did not let him finish. He swept his sword in a low arc, and Yuming stumbled back, his robes slashed open across his chest. Blood welled up, red against the purple silk.
“Run,” Yuning said. “Run and tell your allies that the rebellion failed. Tell them the Jade Scribe is dead, and the Dragon’s second son has vanished into the night. Tell them whatever you want.” He adjusted his grip on Weiyu. “But if you follow us, I will not miss next time.”
Yuming’s face twisted. For a moment, Weiyu thought he would attack again. But then the First Prince looked at the blood on his chest, at the dead torturer on the floor, at the shattered chains, and something in his eyes went cold and calculating.
“This isn’t over,” Yuming said.
“It never is,” Yuning replied.
He carried Weiyu up the stairs.
The corridor above was littered with bodies. Guards, servants, a few of Yuning’s men. The prince stepped over them without looking down, his arms tight around Weiyu’s broken body. Weiyu’s vision was fading at the edges, the pain in his back and ribs pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
“Yuning,” he whispered.
“Don’t talk. Save your strength.”
“The plan—”
“The plan failed.” Yuning’s voice was flat. “I abandoned it. I abandoned everything. The moment I felt them hurt you, I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I just ran.”
Weiyu wanted to scold him. Wanted to tell him that the rebellion was more important, that the throne was more important, that Yuning had thrown away months of careful strategy for a single reckless rescue.
But the words would not come.
Because through the bond, Weiyu felt something he had never felt before. Not pain. Not fear. Not anger.
Love.
It burned through the golden thread like a wildfire, hot and bright and terrifying. Yuning’s love was not gentle. It was not patient. It was a storm, a flood, a blade drawn in the dark. It was the love of a man who had abandoned a kingdom for a single person.
Weiyu closed his eyes and let himself be carried.
“Don’t die,” Yuning whispered, his voice cracking. “Please. I love you. I love you, and I will not let you die.”
Weiyu did not answer.
But through the bond, he pushed back everything he had—every scrap of warmth, every flicker of hope, every feeling he had spent twenty-four years burying. He pushed it all toward Yuning, a silent answer to a desperate prayer.
*I am here. I am alive. I am yours.*
The night swallowed them, and the palace burned behind them, and Shen Weiyu held onto the golden thread like a lifeline, refusing to let go.