chapter 3

After the letter was sent, I remained at Chu Lizhi’s side.

When he rode out to battle, I waited for him in his tent.

Sometimes the wait stretched late into the night. Bored and weary, I would drift to sleep without realizing it.

When I woke, Chu Lizhi would be back.

The dim lamplight gilded the sharp planes of his face with warmth. Even the brooding eyes that others scarcely dared meet seemed softened and gentle.

He had won his throne through bloodshed on the battlefield.

No one could truly expect him to become as mild and utterly even-tempered as his father had been.

And yet many people longed for him to follow his father and rule as a benevolent sovereign.

For their sake, he had reined in his nature.

He stopped riding personally to war and abolished the cruelest punishments.

He yielded to the people’s hopes and changed in countless ways.

He changed until he barely resembled the husband I had once worshiped as a god.

While alive, I had often wondered whether he truly loved me.

Or whether, as the other women of the harem whispered, he had only raised me high to serve as a shield for the empress.

I had refused to believe them.

But my son had nearly died, and Chu Lizhi had let the empress escape so easily.

For the first time, I had been afraid.

So I went mad.

I raged.

And our last meeting became something so ugly, so wretched.

I floated to Chu Lizhi’s side and rested lightly against his shoulder.

“I blamed you unjustly,” I whispered. “I am truly sorry.”

His brush stopped.

For one breathless instant, I thought he had sensed me. I lifted my face to his, unable to keep the hope from my eyes.

These days with no one to speak to were almost impossible to endure.

Then someone entered with a gust of wind, scattering dead yellow leaves across the tent floor.

They crumbled at the slightest touch.

An ill omen.

Chu Lizhi frowned. Mingde stepped forward and said softly, “Your Majesty, letters have arrived from the palace.”

Seven days had passed since Chu Lizhi last wrote.

Delight flashed across his face, and he beckoned Mingde closer at once.

Mingde produced two letters.

“This one is from Her Majesty the Empress Dowager,” he explained. “And this one is from Her Highness the Noble Consort.”

After a moment’s thought, Chu Lizhi opened the Empress Dowager’s letter first.

It said that all was well in the palace. The empress and the other consorts came regularly to pay their respects. The Fourth Prince had fully recovered and was staying at the Empress Dowager’s Shoude Palace. Everything was peaceful. The Noble Consort alone had developed sores from an allergic rash on her face and wore a light veil during her visits, but she, too, was nearly recovered and there was no cause for undue concern.

At the final sentence, Chu Lizhi’s brows knotted.

He pondered for a moment, then picked up the other letter.

It held only one line.

“Yaoyao also misses Your Majesty and prays that victory follows you wherever you march.”

The hand was a delicate, elegant script I often used.

It seemed the empress had made extensive preparations before killing me.

Who knew how long she had plotted it?

Though the letter contained only a single sentence, Chu Lizhi stared at it for a very long time.

His fingertips brushed the characters. His expression darkened with every passing moment. At last he drew a deep breath and turned to Mingde.

His voice was glacial.

“Return to the palace at once. You will see the Noble Consort with your own eyes and make certain she is safe.”

The empress had made a mistake.

She could not have known that in private letters to Chu Lizhi, I never called him “Your Majesty.”

I used only his courtesy name.

“Baiyu.”