Chapter 1
On my second day back in the capital, I went to the palace for an audience with Father.
I swung down from my horse outside the palace gates.
A few steps away stood two figures I knew all too well.
Li Wuzhe, the childhood friend I had grown up with, once my betrothed.
And Jiang Jingyue, my younger sister by a different mother.
“You’ve only just recovered from your cold. Why are you dressed so lightly again?”
Frowning, Li Wuzhe took off his cloak and wrapped it snugly around her.
“Wait until you’re back inside the palace and warm before you take it off.”
Snow settled on her lashes, melting as she blinked and trailing down her soft, pretty face.
She looked especially frail and pitiful.
“I heard… my elder sister returned to the capital a few days ago.”
Jiang Jingyue sniffled, her eyes a little red.
“Everyone in the palace says that with her military victories, Father would grant her anything now—even permission to kill me…”
“With me here to protect you, who would dare?”
Standing to one side, I finally couldn’t help speaking. “What a devoted pair you are.”
Li Wuzhe whipped around.
When he saw me, he instinctively stepped forward, shielding Jiang Jingyue behind him.
Then he said quietly, “Shuyi.”
I lifted the sword at my waist a little.
Before I could speak, Jiang Jingyue said,
“Three years apart, and the bitter cold of the frontier hasn’t touched you, Sister. You’re more beautiful than ever.”
As she spoke, she carefully arranged her face into an ingratiating smile.
So innocent. So pitiful.
I watched her with interest for a moment, then gave a derisive snort.
“I can hardly compare with you, Jiang Jingyue. You’re even more repulsive than you were three years ago. Another look at you might make me vomit.”
“Jiang Shuyi!”
Li Wuzhe shouted furiously. “You’ve only just returned, and already you have to pick on Ah Yue at every turn?”
“What? Am I not allowed?”
He looked at me, his face full of disappointment.
“You were spoiled and overbearing before, always making trouble for your sister. I thought three years in exile would have softened you.”
“I never imagined you’d become this vicious!”
A sharp pain welled up from my heart.
I stood in the ever fiercer wind and snow.
For some reason, I suddenly thought of the past.
Of three years ago, when Father exiled me to the frontier.
Li Wuzhe had begged everyone he could, high and low, but never found a way to save me.
Instead, he made such a commotion that his father gave him twenty lashes.
He came to see me off the day I left the capital.
The whipping had left him pale from blood loss, but the rims of his eyes were faintly red.
“Shuyi, I’ll wait for you to come back.”
“No matter how long it takes, I’ll keep waiting.”