I summoned Yuxiu to the estate and presented her with a luminous, flawlessly translucent carved jade kylin bottle of the deepest green.

“The kylin bottle symbolizes safety and martial strength. Please convey it to Huai’an on my behalf — with my prayers for heaven’s protection, safe passage, and an early triumphant return.” I ran my hand over the bottle and smiled gently. Yuxiu received the jade bottle with deep gratitude, sinking into a bow. “Thank you, Princess Consort.” I took hold of her hand and said each word with deliberate weight: “Tell Huai’an — I will be here in the capital, waiting for them to return safely.”

Xiao Qi’s promise was ultimately not something I felt at ease to fully trust. On the battlefield, anything might happen. A thousand li away, I did not know whether I would have the power to keep Zidan safe. Zidan was a person as serene as still water at his core, yet beneath that surface lay a resolve as cold and unyielding as ice — and going south this time, he had most likely already steeled himself to die. On one hand, I quietly instructed Pang Gui to accompany Zidan in the capacity of a personal guard, to follow the southern campaign and protect his safety at close range. On the other hand, I entrusted Zidan to Song Huai’an’s care, pressing him to bring Zidan back to me alive and unharmed.

Beyond Xiao Qi’s favor, I had to have strength of my own. As a woman, I could not ride into battle at the front, personally seizing territory and expanding the realm. Nor could I stand at court and speak directly on matters of state and military strategy. In the past, I had believed that without the shelter of family, I would have nothing. Now I finally understood: the true treasure my family had given me was not wealth or status but the wisdom and courage that had always been a part of me — enabling me to conquer the most powerful man in the world, and to win the loyalty of the most devoted of warriors.

Men conquer the world; women conquer men. From ancient times to the present, this has always been the natural order of things. Today’s Wang Xuan is no longer the pampered daughter of yesterday. I want the world to never again dare underestimate me — and I want no one, whoever they may be, to have the power to manipulate my fate.

The day of the southern campaign drew near. After the Lantern Festival palace banquet, I had not set foot in Jingling Palace again, nor had I seen Zidan. Though Jin’er and I had been reunited after a long separation, we had met only in that single hurried encounter on that first day. Afterward, pressing matters came one after another, and I had neither the will nor the heart to revisit those memories with her — or perhaps I had simply not yet worked out how to face her. She was now Zidan’s concubine, the mother of his daughter — no longer the little maidservant who had waited on me at my side.

That night, word came from the palace that Jingjing had developed a fever and a cough again. I hurried into the palace to look in on him, and stayed by his side until he fell asleep before leaving Qianyuan Hall.

Just as I stepped down from the jade steps at the front of the hall, a guard’s sudden shout rang out: “Who goes there!”

My attendants on either side immediately closed around me in a tight circle. The torch flared brighter, and there in the shadow beneath the eaves of a side hall, a dark figure was hemmed in by a surging rush of imperial guard soldiers, the cold gleam of blades and swords cutting through the air. “Please, Princess Consort, save me — I must see the Princess Consort!” A frightened cry rang out — it was Jin’er’s voice.

I called the guards to stop and quickly stepped forward. Indeed, Jin’er had been seized by the guards with blades at her throat, stumbling to the ground in a desperate state.

“How is it you?” For a moment I was bewildered. She was ashen-faced, tears streaming down her face. “Your servant wished to seek the Princess Consort’s audience, and did not wish the Imperial Uncle to know — so I slipped away quietly to wait here…”

I furrowed my brow and sighed, then told A’Yue to help her to her feet. “Madam Su, if you have business with me in the future, simply send a palace attendant to report it. Very well, come with me.”

I led her and my most trusted maidservants to a secluded inner room. In my heart, I had a fairly clear sense of why she had come — she must have heard about Zidan’s southern campaign and come to plead with me. I dismissed the guards and attendants on either side and sat down without any change of expression, saying levelly, “Madam Su — please speak.”

Jin’er suddenly fell to her knees, weeping loudly, “Your Ladyship — Jin’er begs you to show mercy and plead with His Highness. Do not let the Imperial Uncle go on this campaign — do not let him go to his death!”

“Silence!” I had not anticipated such reckless words from her, and cut her off at once. “What kind of talk is this? The Imperial Uncle is about to depart on campaign — how can you speak such things!”

“If he goes like this, how could he possibly come back!” Jin’er threw herself without regard to her own dignity toward my feet and looked up at me in anguish. “Your Ladyship — have you not a shred of compassion?”

Furious, my whole body trembling, I could not find the words to retort, and could only say sharply, “Jin’er — are you out of your mind?”

She grabbed hold of my sleeve and wept too hard to speak clearly. “Does Your Ladyship not think at all of the feelings of the past between us…”

My ears rang loudly, the blood surging to my head. Without a moment’s thought, I raised my hand and struck her across the face. “Hold your tongue!”

Jin’er fell to the floor, one cheek flushed deeply red, staring up at me in a daze and no longer crying or calling out.

“Madam Su — listen to me carefully.” I fixed my eyes on hers and spoke each word with precision: “The Imperial Uncle is going on campaign by imperial edict to suppress the rebels. He will emerge victorious and return safely. He will not die on the front lines.”

I held her gaze — wide with shock and desperation. “But if the words you just spoke were to be heard and spread abroad, they would bring about his death immediately.”

Jin’er crumpled onto the floor, her whole body shaking, her words becoming incoherent. “Your servant knows she is in the wrong, your servant was reckless and foolish… I beg your Ladyship…”

I cut her off once more. “Jin’er — you must remember two things. From now on you are never to speak again of past feelings between us — that is the first. The second: I am now the Princess Consort of Prince Yuzhang. You need not call me ‘Your Ladyship’ from this point forward.”

She said nothing more, but stared at me without blinking, the look in her eyes shifting through a succession of complex emotions. I turned my head aside with a sigh, no longer wishing to say more, and waved my hand to dismiss her. She retreated slowly to the doorway, then suddenly turned around and looked at me coldly. “Princess Consort — are you so utterly unwilling to speak of the past? Are you so determined to cast off every last trace of what came before?”

I closed my eyes. I felt a profound exhaustion — unwilling even to look at her again. “A’Yue — see Madam Su out. From now on, without my explicit order, she is not to step one foot beyond Jingling Palace.”

Jin’er suddenly began to laugh, shaking off A’Yue’s hand. “Princess Consort may rest easy — Jin’er will not trouble you any further!”

With a cold, indifferent sweep of my sleeve, I turned and walked toward the hall door.

“Even if Jin’er betrayed the Princess Consort—” Jin’er, being pulled away by the palace attendants, still laughed bitterly as she went, “—the Imperial Uncle has never once wronged you!”

On the twenty-first day of the first month, at the auspicious hour of noon, Zidan led his forces out through the Wude Gate and set off on the long journey to the front.

Xiao Qi led the hundred officials in ascending the city wall to see them off from afar. To the sound of the officiant’s proclamation, Xiao Qi solemnly raised a wine vessel, offered it first to the heavens above, then to the earth below, and cast the remaining wine to pour outward in all four directions.

I stood behind him, looking down from high upon the city wall at Zidan’s retreating figure. His silver helmet and snow-white armor, unmarked by the least trace of dust, stood out strikingly in the midst of the military formation — like the lightest fall of snow upon shields and armor. In an instant it was swallowed up by the tide of dark-iron soldiers, and gradually disappeared into the distance without a trace.

He had never once looked back toward the city wall. That solitary, slender figure vanished from my sight, utterly resolute.

In the blink of an eye, three months had passed. An early spring of unbroken, continuous rain had poured down for more than ten days.

The entire capital was enveloped in the ceaseless melancholy of wind and rain, dreary and interminable through all the days, and the palace too was increasingly cold and damp. The capital always had stretches like this in spring and autumn — ten days or half a month of unbroken rain that left people feeling gloomy and unable to find any joy. A few days earlier I had caught another chill, which I had assumed was nothing serious, but I had ended up confined to bed for several days. Since falling gravely ill two years ago, I had never fully recovered, and no amount of careful nursing had restored my strength. The imperial physicians had concluded that my body could not yet bear the burden of bearing children, and the medicine had not been discontinued for a single day.

After waking from my afternoon rest, I lay half-awake propped up on the soft couch, feeling a sudden congestion in my chest. I raised a hand to cover my mouth and coughed repeatedly. Then I felt a warm, steady hand come to rest at my back and gently pat me. I managed a faint smile, took hold of his hand, and leaned into him, my cold body immediately enveloped in warmth.

“Feeling any better?” He stroked my hair gently, his eyes full of tenderness. I nodded, and seeing his face etched with fatigue and his eyes faintly red, I felt a pang of sympathy. “Go and take care of your affairs — there’s no need to look after me. Missing something important and then working until midnight again would not do.”

“Those things are not so pressing. It’s you I’m worried about.” He sighed and tucked the bedding more snugly around me. The news that had come in about the southern campaign army’s being held up at Yulongji had put everyone on edge, and he had not slept well for several days in a row. I was about to ask him if there had been any progress today when a voice from beyond the curtain announced, “May it please Your Highness — the gentlemen are awaiting you in the hall.”

“I know,” Xiao Qi replied in an even tone, without making any move to rise. I looked through the curtain at the sudden gusts of rain and wind outside. “Is there still a standoff in the south?”

“There’s no need for you to be worrying over these matters — rest and take care of yourself.” Xiao Qi smiled and smoothed the loose strands of hair from my face, then rose and went out. I looked at his retreating figure and my mind was in turmoil — the words I had been sitting with for a long time had reached my lips and then faltered again. My brother’s letter was still under my pillow. I drew it out and read it through again. That thin, single sheet of paper — held in my hands, it felt heavier than a thousand catties.

The southern campaign army had swept southward, carrying all before it — until they came to Yulongji, where days of heavy rain had caused the river to rise sharply, and the small craft that had been prepared beforehand were utterly unable to cross the raging torrent. When the commander guarding Yulongji abandoned the city and fled south, he had anticipated the coming of the rainy season and had already ordered all the large trees along the banks to be cut down, leaving our army unable to build boats to cross, and so they had been stranded at Yulongji for many days. Meanwhile, the hundred-thousand-strong advance force under Hu Guanglie had long been locked in a standoff with the enemy, their provisions nearly exhausted, and they were desperately awaiting the arrival of the main army. If Yulongji could not be forced and crossed, the only other option was to take the long way around through Minzhou. Minzhou was the fief of Prince Jinan, with terrain that was steep and forbidding, easy to defend and difficult to attack. Unless Prince Jinan opened the city gates and allowed them passage, forcing an assault on the city would likely be even harder than crossing the river. And Prince Jinan had a marriage alliance with Prince Jianzhang — while presenting a face of loyalty to the court by publicly denouncing the rebels, he at the same time held Minzhou shut against entry, practicing duplicity and defiance against the court — which was truly hateful.

My brother’s letter stated that the Chuyang Great Dyke — which had been delayed for years — had finally been completed after numerous hardships since his arrival. Once the Chuyang Great Dyke was built, the flooding that had plagued the lower reaches for decades would be almost entirely resolved — a work that would benefit generations to come, a blessing for the people of the land. This dyke was not only the product of my brother’s painstaking effort but had required enormous financial resources and cost the sweat and blood of thousands of river workers.

Yet I also knew that it was precisely because the dyke’s construction had been rushed to completion while the three drainage secondary channels had not yet had time to be finished that the river water, swelled by the relentless rain, had nowhere to be diverted, causing the river to rise to an unprecedented height and blocking the army’s crossing.

Days of heavy rain showed no sign of stopping. The only course left was to breach the dyke and release the floodwaters, bringing the river level back down. Breaching a dyke was difficult enough; breaching a newly completed one was harder still. Once the dyke was breached, it would mean that nearly three hundred li of floodplain along both banks of Chuyang would be entirely submerged, tens of thousands of people would face devastation, their crops destroyed and their homes gone — the thought of that desolate scene, with refugees everywhere and cries of anguish filling the land, made me shudder with dread. At present, Song Huai’an and Zidan, trapped at Yulongji, had submitted a memorial to Xiao Qi several days ago requesting that the dyke be immediately breached to release the floodwaters, allowing the army to cross. My brother, upon learning of this, had on one hand urgently submitted a memorial to the court, and on the other written to me personally, insisting that the dyke must under no circumstances be breached and pleading for more time to complete the drainage channels.

Yet none of us knew how much more time the three drainage channels would need, nor whether the southern campaign’s advance force could hold on that long.

Xiao Qi was caught in an impossible dilemma. The hundred-thousand-strong advance force, cut off and surrounded in Jiangnan, were comrades who had fought and bled alongside him for years. If reinforcements could not reach them, they would surely be driven to destruction — and Xiao Qi could not and would not abandon the lives of a hundred thousand soldiers. Yet what wrong had the people along both banks of Chuyang done? To purchase victory in this war at the cost of their lives and the destruction of their homes would be to win with an everlasting mark of infamy.

All of us were caught, wavering and struggling — between the lives of those at the front and the fates of the people along the riverbanks. Which weighed more? To conquer in a war between kinsmen — waged for the sake of power and dominance — was it worth paying with the lives of innocent common people?

And if the dyke, built with my brother’s heart’s blood, were destroyed — bringing disaster instead of relief from the very act of controlling the floods — how could he ever face himself again? How could he bear the weight of that eternal infamy?

I coughed for half the night, and had just managed to settle and drift into a groggy sleep — when I heard the sound of hurried footsteps, and the voice of the night-watch guard came softly through: “May it please Your Highness — an urgent military report from the border has arrived. A matter of the utmost urgency!”

I opened my eyes abruptly, but saw Xiao Qi had already turned and sat upright, pulling on his robes and getting out of bed. “Bring it here!”

The lights outside the chamber blazed at once. An attendant entered hurriedly and knelt outside the curtain. “A fire-sealed dispatch from the border — please review it, Your Highness.”

Xiao Qi took the letter, its seal of crimson wax still conspicuous, and frowned as he broke it open. The room was utterly still, and through the silence there seeped a tension that was almost stifling. I sat up and pushed aside the bed curtain to look out, and in the lamplight, I watched as Xiao Qi’s expression grew increasingly grave — taking on the chill of frost, a lethal intensity gathering around him like a cold mist — and my heart lurched with sudden foreboding.

Outside, the night rain fell in a drizzle, the sky still a sheet of black. The sound of wind and rain carried a bone-deep chill.

“What has happened in the north?” I could not help speaking up. Xiao Qi turned to look at me, and his expression eased somewhat. He simply took up his outer robe and put it on. “Nothing of major consequence. The hour is still early — go back to sleep.”

I looked at his cold, stern face, and suddenly realized that in these past days he had grown a little thinner — the lines of his features sharper and more defined. The entire vast realm rested on his shoulders alone; even a man cast in iron would grow weary of it. A sudden ache rose in my chest. I could not help sighing, “Does this have to be handled so urgently? It’s only the third watch — could it not wait until morning court to be discussed?”

Xiao Qi was silent for a moment, then said in a flat voice, “The Southern Turks have crossed the border. Military intelligence is urgent — there is no delay.”

My heart lurched. “The Turks?”

“The Southern Turks alone are not truly a threat,” Xiao Qi said with a cold snort. “What is truly infuriating is that the southern territories dared to collude with outside barbarians!”

Just a few days earlier, five thousand Southern Turk cavalry had raided Yicheng, plundering vast quantities of cattle, sheep, and valuables. The border garrison sent out troops to drive them back, succeeding in forcing the Turkish cavalry out of Yicheng — but in pursuing them, they were ambushed by a large Turk force in the Huoji Gorge and were forced to withdraw without achieving their objective. The Southern Turk Khan himself had led ten thousand iron cavalry to the border, fixing them there with a threatening stare and declaring loudly that this was to avenge the humiliation of former years. The border garrison sent to Ningshuo for reinforcements, but half of Ningshuo’s garrison had already been deployed south for the campaign and was stationed in defense of key strongholds around the capital, leaving military strength severely depleted. Holding the position against the Southern Turks’ ten thousand cavalry was just barely feasible, but behind the Southern Turks there were surely additional forces, and if they joined together with the Northern Turks to invade the south, the situation at the border would truly become dire.

In the years when Xiao Qi served as the northern frontier commander, he had fought a string of great battles that finally drove the Turks out of the border territories and back into the desert steppes. The old Turkish Khan died of his wounds from that campaign and not long after succumbed to illness, which touched off a succession struggle among the royal clan, splitting the Turks into two factions. The Northern Turks, weakened, withdrew far to the north and severed all ties with the Central Plains. The Southern Turks, after these heavy blows, had their strength badly sapped and for many years had not dared to cross the northern steppe by so much as a single step. In the years that followed, turmoil struck the Central Plains imperial house, and internal strife broke out repeatedly. Xiao Qi, preoccupied with the contest for power, had no time to turn his attention northward, giving the Southern Turks breathing room to opportunistically absorb the weaker tribes of the northern steppe, accelerating the build-up of their military strength — until this full-blown threat had finally ripened.

But worse than all of this was another piece of news: our army’s spies, having infiltrated the enemy camp, had discovered that within the Turk Khan’s royal tent were envoys from the southern imperial clan. Not only had these envoys provided generous funding to help the Turks launch their assault, they had also entered into a compact with them: the southern imperial forces would tie down the southern campaign army, while the Turks would take advantage of the situation to invade from the north, forming a pincer movement against the Central Plains from north and south. What the southern imperial clan had done amounted to inviting wolves into their home — all for the sake of seizing power, they were willing to fracture the country’s territory and hand the northern borderlands over to foreign invaders without a second thought.

Rain poured from the eaves in unbroken streams, a curtain of rain hanging beyond the window curtains, black storm clouds pressing down on the horizon.

I stood at the window, wrapped in a cloak, and still felt an intermittent, seeping cold. The Southern Turks, the Southern Turks. In a daze, it was as if I had been transported back to the vast and desolate northland, and a figure in white — solitary and gaunt — seemed to surface hazily before my eyes.

A’Yue stepped forward and gently lowered the curtain against the wind. As she did, she smiled softly, “There’s a strong draft at the window — the Princess Consort should rest inside.”

I returned from my reverie and turned to look at her. “A’Yue, you’re from Wujiang, aren’t you?”

“Your servant grew up in Wujiang as a child, and later moved to the capital with family.” She answered with a smile.

I paced back to the table and said thoughtfully, “Wujiang is close to Chuyang. Are the people of that region living in a comfortable manner?”

A’Yue hesitated. “The soil and water are said to be very good, but with the floods year after year, the families with any means have mostly moved away. Only the ordinary common people remain — and they suffer not only from flooding but from corrupt officials’ exploitation.” Speaking of her hometown’s hardships, she grew more and more indignant. “Manage to escape a natural disaster, and there’s still no escaping the man-made ones. Every year, in the name of managing the floods, no one knows how much money is squeezed out of people. The elders of the countryside say that man-made disasters are more ferocious than floodwaters…”

I had long heard of the corruption of local administration in the south, and hearing her say it in such terms still filled me with a deep heaviness of heart. Man-made disasters more ferocious than floodwaters — now, with the south in civil war and foreign invaders pressing from the north, as a force of devastation, was there anything that could compare to flooding?

I had once been uncertain whether it was worth it for a war between kinsmen to come at such terrible cost to the common people. But now, with the Turks invading, this war was no longer one of kinsmen fighting among themselves — it was a war of defense against foreign enemies and suppression of traitors to the state within. Compared to the cost of losing territory and having the foundations of the realm collapse, another kind of sacrifice was what we would choose instead.

Xiao Qi decided to give my brother half a month more, while also ordering Song Huai’an to redirect troops to Chuyang and pour all available effort into rush-completing the drainage channels. If the channels were not completed within half a month, Song Huai’an was to immediately breach the dyke. Anyone who dared to resist this order was to be dealt with under military law.

A few days later, the envoys from the southern imperial clan arrived in the capital with an air of arrogance, demanding talks for peace — in reality, leveraging their position as a form of coercion.

In Taihua Hall, the court officials stood in solemn silence. I held the young Emperor in my arms behind the curtain. Xiao Qi stood on the ceremonial steps in his court robes with his sword at his side. The envoys entered the hall with their heads held high, presenting the jointly signed memorial from the southern provincial kings petitioning that the realm be divided along the river — with Zi Lu to be proclaimed Emperor in the south. The man’s words were arrogant and his speech polished and florid, exhausting every possible rhetorical art. He warned that if the court did not withdraw its forces within ten days, the northern border would be unable to withstand the pressure, and the Turk cavalry would come pouring in without opposition. The court officials were outraged and engaged in heated argument with him on the spot, denouncing the southern provincial kings as traitors to the state.

Xiao Qi picked up the memorial that an attendant had presented to him, glanced at it without reading a word, and flung it down the steps. Everyone present was startled, and then silence fell.

“Go back and tell the kings this,” Xiao Qi said, with a haughty smile. “When I have pacified the north, it will be the hour of the southern rebel forces’ annihilation!”

For a moment the steps were utterly silent, and then every minister dropped to their knees as one and cried aloud, “Long live our Emperor!” The envoy’s expression crumbled before the assembly, and he retreated in embarrassment. I watched from behind the curtain as Xiao Qi stood upright and unyielding as a mountain, and my heart surged with an overpowering emotion. With him bearing the entire ten-thousand-li realm on his shoulders alone, even if wind and rain came crashing in, no one could shake it by even the slightest fraction.

In the days that followed, the fighting in the north grew fierce. The Turk cavalry mounted relentless attacks day after day, burning and plundering the surrounding territory. Additional Turk forces kept pressing in behind the first waves, while the soldiers defending the cities fought to the death, sustaining heavy casualties. Fortunately, Tang Jing had already led a hundred thousand reinforcement troops northward and would be arriving at Ningshuo within days. Both the north and the south were mired in a prolonged stalemate. Battle reports flew in like snowflakes by galloping horse, and again and again I waited in anticipation for news from my brother in the south — only to be disappointed again and again.

It was now deep into the night. I sat at my mirror, drawing a glass comb slowly through my long hair, my thoughts drifting in a reverie.

Of the allotted half month, only a little time remained. These mere ten-odd days were a long and agonizing ordeal — for me and for Xiao Qi, for my brother, for the people along both banks of the Chuyang, for the soldiers at the northern border, and for the advance force of the southern campaign. But my brother had sent back no news in all this time, and there was no way of knowing whether the drainage channels would be completed on schedule. Contemplating the consequences of the dyke being breached, my heart grew darker and darker with dread, and my grip tightened involuntarily — the glass comb snapped clean in two between my fingers. An ill omen seemed to crash over me like a wave, and I could no longer hold back the fear inside. I swept my sleeve violently across the dressing table, scattering all the jewels and ornaments before me to the floor.

“A’Wu!” Xiao Qi heard the sound and dropped the papers in his hands, crossing the room quickly to take hold of my palm. Only then, when he looked, did he see that the broken edge of the comb had cut a shallow gash across the center of my hand. I turned and buried myself in his embrace, not saying a word, my body trembling slightly.

He sighed quietly and only used his sleeve to blot the thin thread of blood from my palm, the plain silk robe darkening with a stain of red. I listened to the steady, strong beating of his heart and felt the fear slowly subside, and said in a low murmur, “When will this war end? When will there ever be peace?”

He bent down and pressed a light kiss to my forehead, carrying with it a sigh of weariness. “I believe good news will come very soon.”

Xiao Qi did indeed prove right — though the following day brought not the news I had been waiting for, but rather an entirely unexpected turn of events.

A secret Turk envoy slipped quietly into the capital to request an audience with the Regent Xiao Qi. This man came in utmost secrecy, going so far as to bypass the northern frontier and enter by way of the northwest, his party disguised as western-region merchants, evading detection until after they had already passed through the customs barrier. Initially taken for Turk spies, the leader of the group identified himself as the secret envoy of a Turk prince, requesting to meet with the Regent. The local official actually found a sealed letter from the Turk prince on this man’s person and immediately had them all escorted under guard all the way to the capital.

In his secret letter, Turk Prince Helu stated that he and Xiao Qi had made a pact in the past, and now that his wings had grown, and the Turk Khan was invading in the south — the moment for seizing the throne had arrived. Unfortunately, the forces at his command were too few for him to dare to act rashly. He was requesting a loan of a hundred thousand troops from the Central Plains, with a pledge that once the deed was done, he would immediately withdraw from the northern border, cede the fertile lands south of the Mohe River, pay annual tribute in cattle and sheep, and never again invade.

In the grand hall of Chongji Palace, the Turk secret envoy was received in audience. He brought not only the Prince’s seal as proof but also a special gift. The tall, thickly bearded Turk envoy stood to one side and reported in fluent Chinese, “This is a gift presented by my nation’s prince to the Princess Consort of Prince Yuzhang.”

The ornate box was brought before me. I raised my eyes to look at Xiao Qi, but he showed no expression and only gave a slight nod.

I slowly opened the lid of the box. Inside was an extraordinary flower of pure white — clearly plucked quite some time ago, yet still vivid in color and with glistening stamens and petals.

“This is a rare flower that grows atop the Huodu Peak of our nation. It does not wilt in the snow nor wither in the frost, and blooms but once in a hundred years — a sacred remedy for driving out poison and healing wounds throughout the world. Our master originally intended to present this two years ago, but circumstances delayed the giving. He hopes the Princess Consort will forgive the lateness of the gift.”

Helan Zhen had not forgotten that strike — and was now using this subtle and veiled gesture to make amends for the injury he had caused me that day. Within the flower’s petals, a faint brilliance was turning and flowing. I parted the furled petals and saw, nestled within, a brilliant, dazzling pearl. On the occasion of our great wedding, Wanru, who was like a sister to me, had given me a dark-phoenix hairpin with a black pearl inlaid in it — a pearl of which there existed only one in the world. That hairpin I had drawn out and used in an attempt to kill Helan Zhen. The attempt had failed, and the hairpin had been lost and never recovered.

Now the black pearl had returned — like a person known of old, come again.