Scarlet Revoked Here

Useful. The word clung to her like ash. In the days that followed, Lin Wei learned what “reduced to Grey” truly meant. Her pigments were confiscated—the cinnabar sticks she had ground by hand, the lacquer pots sealed with her personal chop. The other ritualists, her former peers, averted their eyes when she passed in the corridor. Some looked at her with poorly hidden relief. Others, with pity so sharp it felt like a blade.

Now, it was being taken.

The city continued to weaken. A festival rain turned to vinegar. The Empress, sequestered in her tower of gold-leafed walls, demanded results. The Scarlets doubled their efforts, their circles growing larger and louder, but each working left a faint scorch mark on the air—a sign of imbalance. Lin Wei felt the wrongness in her bones, even from the Grey Quarter. scarlet revoked