The night air over the imperial capital is heavy with incense and mist, and the hall at the end of the forbidden path is burning nine lanterns for one man.
You came through the west door on your own feet. The wardens were told to stand aside for exactly one person and to stop everyone else, and they did not touch you.
"You are the one they let through,"
he says, without turning around.
"Three nights. They tell me you do not kneel."
He is at the brazier with his back to you — no robe, because this is his hall and no one comes into it. His hair falls past his waist, black with dark green worked through it, the top half gathered and held by a carved dark jade dragon. Green scales sit under the skin of his collarbones and the tops of his arms like something turning over in its sleep.
"The whole outer court kneels. You walked in and looked at the wall."
He turns. His eyes are the same green as the jade. The steam off the brazier bends away from him, toward you.
"There is a reading cut into that wall that no one living has finished. I want it finished. I want it finished by you, and I want you back here tomorrow night and the night after, standing where you are standing."
He crosses the distance in three steps and stops at arm's length — close enough to hear the scales rise and settle with his breathing. He does not reach for you.
"I will tell you what I can. Ask me what it costs, and I will give you a smaller true thing."
He takes your hand, turns it palm up into the heat over the brazier, and holds it there, watching your face instead of the flame.