The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis

The doors to the strategy hall opened just before the first light touched the eastern parapets.

There was no fanfare, no horn, no eunuch calling out a name. Just the soft scuff of boots on stone and a quiet breath that told me who it was before I turned around.

Mingyu stood in the doorway, travel-stained and calm, his outer robe slung carelessly over one shoulder. There were leaves in his hair. Dust clung to the hem of his sleeve. But his spine was straight, and his eyes were clear.

Shi Yaozu didn't move to greet him. He simply stepped back into the shadows without a word and left us alone.

I didn't rise to my feet.

I didn't speak.

I just watched him cross the threshold and take in the room like he'd never left it. His gaze fell on the lacquered scroll case, the maps, the candles burned to stubs. Then, without asking, he reached for the merchant list and started reading.

The silence stretched as his eyes scanned line after line. His fingers moved slowly over the edges, pausing on the seal from Lord Rui's estate. He said nothing when he reached the confession.

Didn't comment on the steward's betrayal.

Didn't ask who ordered the purge.

Only when he'd finished reading the final page did he look up.

"I knew you'd hold the line."

My shoulders dropped, just slightly.

It wasn't praise in the traditional sense. It wasn't a grand gesture. Just seven words that finally let me breathe. I held the line. I did good. I didn't mess up.

It wasn't until this moment that I finally understood that that was what I was worried about.

I stood and crossed the space between us, stopping when we were close enough to feel each other's breath. He didn't reach for me.

He leaned forward slowly—forehead to forehead—and closed his eyes.

"I missed you," he said softly.

I didn't answer.

I didn't have to.

I nodded my head in agreement as I let myself lean forward and rest against him, just for a moment. Just long enough to remember that not everything had to be carried alone. His body was warm, solid, familiar.

The sunrise hadn't reached us yet, but the air in the room was no longer cold.

I pulled back slightly, just enough to look at him.

"Where were you?"

"North," he said. "Where the scholars hide the real records."

"Did you find what you needed?"

"I found enough."

He stepped around me and poured himself a cup of the wine Yaozu had left cooling near the edge of the brazier. The steam rose lazily from the surface.

He drank slowly, then set the cup down with precision.

"I'm not surprised they sent green," he said.

That caught my attention. I turned toward him. "You saw the silk?"

He nodded. "One of the riders on my way in had a scrap. They're using it everywhere now. Banners. Sashes. Even on their food carts."

"Baiguang green," I muttered. "Not that I know what that means. I just don't understand why they get to claim my favorite color and I have to just give it over. If there was a vote, I don't remember."

"It's more than color," he replied with a soft chuckle. "In Baiguang, green is sacred. It's the color of rebirth, of remembrance. Of lost emperors and fallen dynasties. Wearing it is a quiet defiance. A way of saying, 'We remember what you destroyed.'"

I moved to the edge of the map and ran a finger down the trade lines. "And what does it say to you?"

He gave a humorless smile. "It says they're ready to martyr someone. Probably you."

I snorted. "Good luck with that."

Mingyu's gaze sharpened. "They won't attack the capital head-on. Not yet. First, they'll drown you in whispers. Symbols. Portraits of a woman you never were. They'll say you lit the fire that consumed their Empress. That you poisoned the Crown. That you seduced me into war."

"I'm already the monster in their stories," I said quietly. "I just don't understand how I am wrapped up with things that happened a long time before I was actually here. I didn't touch their old Empress, and I barely touched their new one. If I had taken out Yuyan, then she wouldn't be alive to spread all these rumors."

He didn't correct me, he just let out a long sigh. "Things don't have to make sense in order for people to believe you. Just think, if you were around to take out their old Empress, you would be older than my mother right about now. It's not you that they are attacking… it's an idea… it's Daiyu as a country."

I stepped away from the map and picked up the ribbon one of the scouts had recovered. Faded green. Stained at one edge with something that looked like dye or dried wine.

I held it up between two fingers and let the early light touch it.

"Is that why they wanted me to wear this," I asked, holding it up to the candlelight. "They want me to become her—this soft, tragic figure who died screaming beneath someone else's blade."

Mingyu moved closer. "They think that if they do that, no one will come after them for their death. But they are wrong. If they so much as pluck one hair out of your head, I will come after them and slaughter them. So don't give them that ending. Don't give me the chance to see just how dark I can go."

"I won't," Xinying promised. "I'll do all the killing for both of us."

I lowered the ribbon and let it fall back to the table.

"Tell me," I said. "What do the colors mean in our court? Is red just a pretty choice for banners?"

"No," he said. "Red is warning. Authority. Fire and blade. It means blood that's been earned—not spilled. It means command."

I raised an eyebrow. "And here was me thinking the Empress choosing to wear red was a reminder that she didn't mind shedding it."

Mingyu laughed, low and tired. "Mother hasn't shed blood since I was born, but that doesn't mean she can't."

We stood there in the quiet, watching the candlelight shift as the sun started to stretch across the floor.

"She said we should all wear red next time," I murmured.

He reached for the lacquered case and closed the lid gently. "She's right."

"So, what happens next?"

"You already started it," he said. "Now we draw the lines. Not on maps—on memory."

He looked at the red banners still hanging in the windows. They fluttered slightly now, no longer still.

"I want the south to see red and think of justice. Not conquest."

"It's a little too late for that," I said.

His expression didn't change. "Then let's give them justice worth fearing."

I turned to him.

Mingyu's eyes met mine. Calm. Steady. Like he already knew the shape of every fight that was coming.

"We don't have to win by their rules," he said. "They're still clinging to stories. You're writing your own."

I nodded once.

Then sat down slowly, my body heavier than I'd realized.

Mingyu didn't press me. He only poured a second cup of wine and slid it across the table.

I didn't drink it.

I closed my eyes for a breath.

Then two.

Then let my weight lean against his shoulder.

The sun finally reached the far wall, catching on the threads of the nearest banner—deep crimson against the pale stone.

It glowed like flame.

And neither of us moved.