Dragon's Fire Consort
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 7
Winter in Xianyang meant frozen courtyards and strategies planned by brazier light. Zhang Mei spent her days in the war room and her nights reviewing supply manifests, looking for vulnerabilities.
There were too many.
“Three supply depots,” she said, pointing to marks on the map. “All controlled by officials appointed by Crown Prince Zhao. Every grain shipment, every arrow resupply, every replacement weapon—all passes through his people first.”
General Han grunted. “Standard logistics. The Crown Prince oversees imperial supply chains. It’s his responsibility.”
“It’s also his weapon,” Liang said quietly. He’d been unusually subdued since the dinner with his brother. “If supplies arrive late or spoiled, if weapons are substandard, if grain shipments get ‘lost’—it all looks like administrative error, not sabotage.”
“So we build redundancy,” Zhang Mei said. “We can’t control what he does, but we can prepare for it. We bring extra supplies in the initial march. We establish foraging protocols. We train troops to operate on reduced rations if necessary.”
“That will slow us down,” General Zhao pointed out. “More supply wagons means slower movement.”
“Slower is better than starved.”
They worked through the afternoon, building contingency after contingency. Alternative supply routes. Emergency protocols. Communication systems that didn’t rely on official couriers.
It was exhausting, meticulous work. But necessary.
Xiu interrupted them as evening fell, bowing apologetically. “Captain? There’s a ... situation. In your quarters.”
Zhang Mei’s hand went instinctively to her boot. “What kind of situation?”
“A gift. From Crown Prince Zhao. The servants won’t touch it without your permission.”
Liang and Zhang Mei exchanged glances.
“Show me,” Zhang Mei said.
The “gift” sat in the center of her chamber—a large ceramic jar, beautifully decorated with painted dragons and phoenixes. The kind of expensive artwork that belonged in a museum.
Or concealed a trap.
“Everyone out,” Zhang Mei ordered. The servants fled gratefully.
Liang entered behind her, closed the door. “Don’t open it.”
“I wasn’t planning to.” She circled the jar carefully, studying it from all angles. No visible wires, no obvious mechanisms. But that didn’t mean it was safe.
“Could be poison,” Liang said. “Gas released when the lid opens. Or powder that disperses in the air.”
“Could be.” Zhang Mei knelt, studied the base. No manufacturer’s mark, no indication of origin. “Or it could be exactly what it appears to be—an expensive gift from your brother, designed to make us paranoid.”
“Which is also a kind of poison.”
True. Living in constant fear of attack was almost as effective as actual attack.
“There’s a note,” Liang said, picking up a silk scroll from beside the jar. He read aloud: “‘To Captain Zhang, in recognition of her service to the dynasty. May this rare wine from the southern provinces bring warmth in the cold season. With deepest respect, Crown Prince Zhao.’”
Wine. In an unsealed jar, which meant any poison would have already dispersed or settled.
Probably.
“We need to test it,” Zhang Mei said.
“How?”
She thought of modern chemical analysis, toxicology screens, all the tools that wouldn’t exist for two thousand years. “The old-fashioned way. Give some to an animal, see if it dies.”
Liang winced. “Harsh.”
“Practical. If Zhao poisoned this, I’d rather a rat die than me.”
“Fair point.”
They requisitioned a rat from the kitchen stores—much to the cooks’ confusion—and carefully poured a small amount of wine into a dish. The rat drank eagerly.
They waited.
An hour passed. The rat remained energetically alive, thoroughly drunk, but definitely not poisoned.
“So it’s safe,” Liang said.
“Or the poison is slow-acting. Or it requires a larger dose. Or—” Zhang Mei shook her head. “This is exactly what he wants. Make us second-guess everything. Waste time testing innocent gifts while the real threat comes from somewhere else.”
“So what do we do with it?”
Zhang Mei looked at the expensive jar, the presumably safe wine, the note dripping with false courtesy.
“We send it back,” she said. “With a polite note thanking him for his generosity but explaining that as a soldier, I prefer simple fare. Returning it is respectful but sets a boundary.”
Liang smiled. “You’re learning court politics.”
“I’m learning how to say ‘fuck you’ politely.”
“Same thing.”
Two weeks later, the first real attack came.
Not poison. Not an assassin in the night. Something more subtle and far more dangerous.
Zhang Mei was crossing the palace grounds when she heard shouting from the training yard. She ran, instinct overriding court protocol, and found chaos.
A training accident. Or what looked like one.
A practice spear—supposedly blunted—had pierced straight through a soldier’s shoulder. The man was screaming, blood pooling on the frozen ground. Other soldiers stood around in shock.
Zhang Mei pushed through. “Get a physician! Now!” She knelt beside the wounded man, assessing. The spear had gone clean through, missed major arteries by a finger’s width. Lucky. Or unlucky, depending on how you looked at it.
She pulled the spear out—quick and clean, the way field medics had taught her. The soldier screamed again, then passed out.
“Pressure on the wound,” she ordered the nearest soldier. “Front and back. Keep it clean.”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.