chapter 5

When I married him at sixteen, he was only an unfavored young prince.

I was his principal wife.

I accompanied him from his desolate fief all the way to the splendor of the capital.

Of the He family’s hundred thousand soldiers, only thirty thousand remained by the end.

I had no elder brother.

My father had been wounded in battle and could never return to the frontier.

But the court was in turmoil, the people’s allegiance uncertain, and the Southern Barbarians were growing restless.

Chu Lizhi needed a general at the border to hold them in check.

The Song family was the natural choice.

But the Song family demanded an empress.

And so my edict of investiture was burned.

In the space of a single night, I fell from wife to concubine.

The precious daughter of the Song family became empress.

And I became Noble Consort.

I did not care about the seat itself.

But I regretted what it meant.

In this life, I would never again have the chance to be his lawful wife.

Through every dynasty, only an empress could share the emperor’s bed in life and his tomb in death.

No matter how exalted a noble consort might be, she remained a consort. A concubine.

The privilege of never parting in life or death would never be mine.

The thought brought a sudden wash of melancholy.

I wondered where the empress had thrown my body.

The poison had been vicious. I must have died with my features hideously contorted.

By the time Chu Lizhi returned to the palace, I would surely have begun to stink and rot.

Would he still recognize me?

And where would he lay me to rest?

I drifted down beside Chu Lizhi and slipped my hand into his palm, trying to steal one trace of warmth.

He had probably drunk too much. His face was flushed, his eyes unfocused, and his thumb moved over the carvings on the jade pendant again and again.

I leaned against his shoulder and spoke so softly, as if afraid I might disturb him.

“Chu Lizhi, I miss you a little.”

You were right beside me.

Yet my wish to hold you had already become an impossible dream.

Chu Lizhi, please—find me soon.

Please.

At that moment, a hoarse, frantic cry came from the distance.

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

I looked up.

It was Mingde, who had returned to the palace several days before.

He was back.

Chu Lizhi’s head snapped up. Mingde stumbled toward him, his face wild with panic, and collapsed to his knees.

Before he could force out a word, he began to sob.

Chu Lizhi stared. “Mingde? What has happened to you?”

Then he remembered the task he had entrusted to the eunuch. Dread flooded his face. He lunged forward, seized Mingde by the collar, and barked, “Did you see the Noble Consort? Is she well?”

Mingde lifted his head. His voice was hoarse with tears, but every word came clearly.

“Your Majesty, a plague somehow broke out in the palace. Her Majesty the Empress acted decisively and contained it, but the Noble Consort—”

He choked. Whether from cold or fear, his whole body shook.

“The Noble Consort caught the illness. She has been unconscious for five days. The imperial physicians say that if she does not wake within a month, she may never wake at all. Your Majesty!”