The Third Cry of the Crow
The interrogation chamber stank of damp stone and burnt copper. My wrists bled against the iron restraints, each drop hitting the floor like a dying man's heartbeat.
Shen Yue—A-Yue who once shared stolen candied hawthorns with me in the spring rains—adjusted the crow-shaped whistle in his palm with clinical precision.
"You broke the rules," he said, voice stripped of all memory. "Now you'll learn the price."
When the curtain rustled, my bones turned to ice.
My brother stood framed in torchlight, clad in the embroidered robes of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. The same hands that once bandaged my scraped knees now held the instrument of my unraveling.
"Why?" The word tore from my throat raw as a fresh wound.
"Mother's justice died with her." His fingers brushed my cheek, colder than the shackles. "Must you join her?"
The crow whistle screamed.
First cry—my vision shattered into prismatic shards. The scent of mother's osmanthus cakes flooded my senses, mingling with the metallic tang of blood.
"You look just like her," my brother murmured as my skull threatened to split. "Kneeling in that same cell, begging for a justice that never came."
Second cry—the bones of my inner ear vibrated like plucked zither strings. I tasted lightning, saw soundwaves as crimson ribbons slicing through darkness.
"Stop chasing ghosts." Shen Yue's voice came from very far away. "Or we'll all burn with you."
Third cry—
Silence.
Perfect, crystalline silence.
I lifted my head. Blood dripped from my nose, my ears, the corners of my eyes—yet my voice emerged steady as an executioner's stride:
"Then burn."
Outside the dungeon, a real crow took flight, its shadow passing over the moon like an omen.
And in that moment—
The prisoner became the judge.
The betrayed became the blade.
[That night, three high-ranking officials were found dead in their beds, a single crow feather placed over each still heart. By dawn, the entire capital knew—
The daughter of the Moon Case had awakened.]
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