[Jake's POV]
She moved like water over stone.
The sliding rice-paper doors whispered open and then were still. Two Imperial Guards stepped out first and took positions. Their faces were blank. Their hands rested near their sides.
Then she entered.
Midnight blue _qipao_. The silk caught the lantern light and threw it back in fragments. Silver lotus flowers were embroidered along the collar and down the sides. Each stitch looked impossibly fine. Her dark hair was pinned up with jade needles. They gleamed. The elegant curve of her neck was bare. Her lips were painted a deep, blood red. Her skin was pale. Porcelain.
She didn't walk. She glided. No sound. The hem of her _qipao_ barely brushed the polished wood floor.
The air changed the moment she was in the room.
It got heavier. Denser. Not the raw pressure of violence. This was older. The weight of authority that had ruled for generations. It pressed down on the shoulders of everyone at the table.
