The roar of rushing water swallowed my aunt's cackle, a deluge that slammed into the inverted palace with the force of a tidal bore. The water, murky and black, surged upward from the floor, not in a gentle swell, but a violent geyser, already past our knees. Maliwan cursed, her gaze flicking between the churning surface and the sealed overhead grate, a frustrated snarl twisting her lips. Natthawut, his sword still clutched in a white-knuckled grip, pulled me closer, shielding me with his body as debris—fragments of carved stone, splintered furniture—crashed around us. “The current is too strong,” he rumbled, his voice strained above the din. “We’ll be dragged under before we reach it.” I coughed, a mouthful of river water bitter on my tongue. The water was now at my waist, tugging at the voluminous, shimmering silk of the ceremonial gown Auntie had forced me into. It was an absurdity of an outfit, layers upon layers of woven luminescence, wide as a fishing net, built for old-world court ostentation. And then, a thought, as preposterous as the gown itself, bloomed in my mind. “Wait,” I gasped, clutching Natthawut’s arm. “The dress. It’s… it’s floating.” Indeed, the wide skirts, meant to fan out majestically, were ballooning around me, lifting my feet off the ground just enough to give me a precarious sense of weightlessness. The air trapped within the folds, denser than the encroaching water, created an unexpected pocket of resistance. “It’s too much fabric!” Maliwan scoffed, trying to swim against the rising tide towards the overhead hatch. “It’ll just drag you down.” “No, no, it’s not!” I insisted, a flicker of my true self piercing through the ditz. “It’s *lifting* me. If we can trap more air…” I took a deep, shuddering gulp of air, then ducked under the water, forcing the precious breath into the billowing silk. The material, designed to be impermeable to river dampness for grand processions, held the air captive. I thrashed my legs, pushing downwards, feeling the dress expand like an enormous, iridescent bubble around me. With a loud *whoosh*, the gown surged, dragging me upward with startling force. I broke the surface, gasping, but now my chest was above the water, the buoyant silk supporting me. “Grab on!” I yelled, extending a hand to Maliwan, who stared, momentarily dumbfounded, before seizing my outstretched arm. Natthawut, ever practical, simply wrapped his free arm around my waist, letting the silk do its work. The water was now licking at the high, arched ceiling, consuming the inverted palace entirely. We floated, a ridiculous cluster of frantic limbs and billowing silk, a grotesque flower blooming in the dark, churning depths, rising steadily towards the exit hatch. The metallic clang of its sealing still echoed in my ears, a cruel reminder of the matriarch’s escape. We bumped against the cold, wet stone, the door now directly above us. “It’s bolted from the outside,” Maliwan stated, her voice tight with frustration, slamming a fist against the hatch. “A heavy mechanism. We’ll never force it.” Natthawut’s gaze fixed on the hinges. “Perhaps not force it, but bypass the locking pin.” He pointed to a small, rusted gap where the bolt retracted. “I’ll need something thin, yet sturdy.” My mind raced. My hairpin, the one I used to keep my unruly bun somewhat contained, was fashioned from hardened river-steel, a simple but resilient pin. I unfastened it, pulling it from my hair, which immediately tumbled in damp strands around my face. “This,” I said, pressing it into his palm. “It’s small. Strong.” He nodded, his mouth tightening into a thin line. Moving with brisk agility despite the current and the confined space, Natthawut braced his boots against the stone, then leveraged his shoulders. He shoved the wooden panel with his shoulder, creating a minute gap, then meticulously worked the hairpin into the rusted mechanism. There was a faint click, then another, louder *CRACK* as the old metal protested. He strained, muscles corded, a vein throbbing in his temple. The air pocket in my dress began to compress under the immense pressure, and I felt myself sinking slightly, the silk struggling to maintain its form. Just as I thought we would be crushed, there was a final, wrenching *SHATTER*. The latch gave way, and the hatch blew open. The pent-up water, under incredible pressure, shot us upward like a cork from a bottle. We launched out of the submerged palace with a violent expulsion, gasping for air, propelled high into the humid afternoon sky. We arced gracefully (or perhaps, hysterically) before plummeting, a tangle of limbs, wet silk, and a bewildered general, not into the clear canal water, but into the bustling, odorous heart of the Zhoan Floating Market. We landed with a sickening *SPLAT* directly into a vendor’s largest display—a mountain of freshly caught, glistening river fish, gutted and laid out on a bed of ice. Fish guts, scales, and melting ice flew in every direction. The impact knocked the wind out of me, and I lay there, draped over a particularly large, gaping catfish, absolutely covered in the slimy, briny detritus of a thousand aquatic lives. Maliwan landed with slightly more grace, rolling off a stack of live crabs, while Natthawut, somehow, managed to land on his feet, albeit knee-deep in a basket of startled eels. Silence descended over the market, broken only by the outraged squawk of the vendor and the panicked thrashing of the eels. A hundred pairs of eyes, belonging to merchants and patrons alike, stared at us, mouths agape. My face, still covered in the remains of my makeshift skin disease, now sported a fashionable new layer of fish entrails. My magnificent, buoyant dress, deflated and dripping, clung to me like a soggy shroud. Natthawut showed no reaction. He simply extricated himself from the eels, his uniform already ruined beyond repair. He offered a curt, unapologetic nod to the fish vendor, then strode over, pulling me upright with a surprisingly gentle hand. “We must go,” he said, his voice low and urgent, entirely ignoring the spectacle we presented. We moved, a grotesque parade of fish-scented disaster, through the stunned market, ignoring the shouts, the gasps, and the occasional thrown mango. Our destination: the Silk Quarter, where I knew, tucked away in my hidden study, was the Crimson Lotus ledger. Kanyaa’s final words, her taunting sneer, gnawed at me. *“Enjoy the embrace of the river, my dear niece! Consider it a family reunion!”* Back in the relative sanctuary of my workshop, the air still thick with the scent of fermented dyes and our own lingering fishy aroma, I stripped off the ruined gown and frantically retrieved the ledger. My hands, still trembling slightly from the ordeal, flew over the coded entries. Kanyaa had been meticulous, disturbingly so. Her plan, once I pieced together the fragments of coded script and hidden ciphers, was audacious, monstrous. “The Monsoon Festival,” I breathed, the words tasting like ash. “The fireworks. It’s not just a celebration. It’s a dispersal system.” Natthawut, who had been methodically wiping the fish guts from his sword, paused, his sharp gaze fixed on me. “Dispersal system for what?” “Mind-controlling silk threads,” I explained, pointing to a diagram of the city’s ceremonial firework launch sites, overlaid with calculations for wind currents and a specific, arcane weaving pattern. “She’s going to use the magic-infused detonations to rain down micro-filaments across the entire city. They’ll sink into the skin, bind to the nerve endings, turn everyone into her puppets.” I stared up at him, cold sweat prickling my scalp. “The entire city, Natthawut. The entire city will become her instrument.” Maliwan, who had been rinsing her throwing knives in a bucket of clean water, slammed one down onto the work table. “We have to stop her. Now. The festival starts at sunset.” We abandoned any pretense of discretion, sprinting through the bustling pathways of the Silk Quarter, our peculiar odor preceding us. The sky was already bruised with the first hints of twilight, the air thrumming with the revelry of the citywide gala. Distant drums beat a rhythmic pulse, and the first celebratory sparklers were already streaking across the darkening sky. The central plaza, a vast expanse by the Grand Canal, was a riot of color and sound. Lanterns glowed, food stalls spilled fragrant smoke, and crowds surged towards the ceremonial stage. But as we approached the main gates, a chilling sight halted us. The elite guards, Natthawut’s own personal regiment, stood rigidly at their posts. Their faces, usually stern and alert, were disturbingly placid. Their eyes, normally keen, glowed with an eerie, phosphorescent blue, like the cold fire of a deep-sea creature. They held their polearms and crossbows at the ready, but their gaze was blank, devoid of recognition. Natthawut, striding forward, barked, “What is the meaning of this? Why are you not securing the perimeter?” Not a single soldier moved. No response. No salute. Their glowing eyes simply tracked his movement, unblinking. A slow, terrible realization dawned on Natthawut’s face. He reached for his sword, but it was too late. Without a word, without a change in their vacant expressions, the soldiers raised their weapons, a hundred points of steel and iron now aimed directly at their own

Buoyancy and Betrayal