The Ledger of the Hollow Throne

Synopsis

In the Hollow Throne, every imperial decree must exist in three sealed copies: palace, archive, and shrine. If the copies differ, the nearest clerk dies for treason. Bai Lihua, an eighteen-year-old fourth-rank archive clerk with perfect recall for every decree she has copied in blood, discovers a hidden fourth copy sealed inside a latrine wall. It is dated three weeks in the future, signed by a regency seal dead for sixty years, and names her as the clerk who will execute an imperial order. If she refuses to appear, her younger brother will be erased by attainder. Trapped inside the palace, unable to accuse anyone without a higher-rank sponsor, Lihua hunts illegal decrees through latrines, shrines, smoke vents, and forbidden offices, uncovering a parallel government of clerks that has ruled the empire from the walls for generations. Her dead mother was one of them. Her supervisor may be her enemy, her sponsor, or the only person trying to keep her alive. The pilot ends on execution day, when Lihua turns the court's own ritual into a public reading of the empire's hidden ledger.

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