Chapter 1

When I told my imperial brother this, he turned a page of his book and asked, “Fallen for him? Just how far have you fallen?”

Certainly not in the way he meant, with his harem of three thousand beauties. What sort of woman did he take his unmarried sister for?

Was it because I had remained unwed so long that people inside and outside the palace called me the “old princess”? Did he think I could no longer contain myself?

My brother ignored my indignant questions. He did not ask which guard. He merely said, “Give him to her,” to the shadows in the hall, then sent me away.

I knew the matter was settled. The Scales, the secret corps of imperial guards established by our founding emperor, always had its commander waiting in the shadows behind the sovereign.

I was not happy on the way home. My brother had agreed too readily, as readily as if I had asked for a toy. He thought I wanted another plaything. For the emperor’s sister, a princess, taking a shadow guard as a lover was the most trivial matter imaginable.

But my feelings were real. I loved Ah Jiu, the shadow guard who had protected me since childhood.

My brother and I were born to the late emperor’s favorite noble consort. When my brother was born, rumors swept the palace that the third prince would threaten the position of the empress’s son, the crown prince. Those rumors brought Mother and my brother untold suffering and persecution.

Only because Father broke precedent and assigned guards from the Scales to them did my brother survive to the age of five and I make it safely into the world.

Mother nearly never woke after giving birth to me. Father kept vigil for three days and nights. Her misfortune brought me one piece of luck: I became the only princess with a shadow guard of her own.

Only the emperor knew the Scales existed. My brother and Mother merely sensed something unusual. It was not until my brother took the throne and opened the sealed records that he learned how perilous those years had been, and glimpsed the hidden side of our father.

Father the emperor. Father the father.

For me, it was different. I learned that someone lived in my shadow when I was six, lured by maids and eunuchs whose faces I scarcely remembered into an abandoned palace in a remote corner of the grounds.

A maid with a gentle voice told me Mother had twisted her ankle and was waiting in the imperial garden. I had seen her in Mother’s residence a few times, and the attendants who had served me from infancy were all there. I followed without suspicion.

Then the sunlight seemed farther and farther away, the buildings more and more decrepit. Strange stains marked the peeling red walls.

The maid suddenly quickened her pace. Beyond weeds taller than I was stood a dry well. The servants who had always cared for me so tenderly and played with me said without expression, “Send the princess on her way.”

For the first time, I felt how cold the palace truly was. Colder even than when Mother had fed all the poisoned pastries to me to protect my brother.

Large, heavy hands pressed down on me. I had no strength to fight them. They pushed me into the well.

As I fell, the sky looked as dark as an abyss.

I thought my life was over. Then white light flashed, and the dim figures around the mouth of the well suddenly toppled to either side.

A hand caught the front of my robe. Ah Jiu lay flat on the rim, lips pressed together, clinging to me with all his strength. Stunned, I looked up into his cold black eyes.

Those eyes were so cold, so empty, that I remember them to this day. Even now, they have not faded in my memory.

Of course, it was no gallant rescue out of a storybook. Ah Jiu was nine, carrying a sword taller than himself. Taking down so many palace servants in an instant had already pushed him to his limit.

Worse, summer palace robes were made of gauze. A lifelike luan bird, beautifully embroidered on both sides, adorned the front of mine. In Ah Jiu’s hand, the bird began to tear apart.

The fabric ripped in his grasp. My eyes widened in astonishment as he threw away his sword and jumped after me.

The well was very deep. Fortunately, it was summer. The mud at the bottom saved our lives.

Ah Jiu shielded me as we fell, cushioning me with his body. I suffered only a few scrapes. The black pit reeked of rot. My fingers sank into slick mud and touched little hard fragments. I could not help wondering whether they were the bones of the last person who had fallen to their death.

Precocious as I was, I lasted barely seven or eight minutes in that pitch-black well, my legs hurting. When no one came to rescue me, my mouth crumpled. Silent tears became sniffles, then great howling sobs.

I had quite forgotten the person underneath me. Ah Jiu lay as silently as a cushion, giving no sign of his presence.

Only when I had cried myself dizzy and begun to hiccup did he speak. “There is little air down here. Keep crying and you may suffocate.”

My crying broke off in a terrified snort. I remembered the boy who had risked his life for me. Young, foolish, and frightened, I seized on him as my last hope. “Save me!” I blurted.

He must have been hurt far worse than I was, but he simply answered, “All right.”

His steady, cool voice was reassuring. Some of the fear that had threatened to burn me alive finally subsided.

A hand supported my shoulder. He began to struggle upright, and I realized I had been leaning against his chest all along.

At his first movement, I smelled blood. I had smelled that same scent of death a month earlier, when young Master Li, my brother’s study companion, fell from the ornamental rockery.

Panic seized me. I was afraid he would die too. “You’re hurt? Don’t move!”

He stopped at once and answered with painstaking seriousness. “Yes. A dead branch pierced my abdomen when I fell. My right elbow is broken. When Your Highness landed on me, several ribs probably broke.”

There were other injuries, large and small. Frightened by the list, I hurriedly interrupted. “And you’ve let me lie on you all this time? You’re hurt so badly and haven’t made a sound. Doesn’t it hurt?”

“I’m used to it.”

How could anyone grow used to pain?

I shifted clumsily. After two movements, he pressed a hand to my shoulder again. “What are you doing?”

I pushed his hand aside. “Getting off you. I can’t keep pressing on your injuries.”

“Unnecessary. It is cold at the bottom of the well. Direct contact with the mud will chill you.” After a pause, he added, “There may also be insects.”

Every hair on my body stood up. I went rigid, wishing I could shoot straight out of the well.

After a few breaths, I went on moving aside anyway. The instant I touched the mud, I sank into it.

Ah Jiu said nothing. There were only the two of us in the dark, dry well, yet all I could hear was my own breathing.

When he was quiet, he seemed not to exist. I searched for things to say.

“Who are you?”

“…”

“What’s your name?”

“Jiu.”

He met most of my questions with silence. His name was all he told me.

“Ah Jiu, are you still there?”

“Mm.”

Every so often, I called to him. He answered each time, never showing impatience.

Later, I felt around until I found his hand. “I’m so sleepy,” I said, close to tears. “I’m afraid you’ll leave me alone if I fall asleep.”

He was silent. Just as I was about to cry, he held my hand. “I won’t.”

With that promise, I drifted into an uneasy sleep. When I woke, bed curtains blurred before my eyes.

My whole body burned with fever. I could not open my eyes. The pain in my legs made me want to scream, but I had no strength. Only groans came out.

I heard Mother say I had run off to play and that she would punish me properly afterward.

I heard the empress pronounce judgment in slow, imperious tones: the fifth princess was unruly and uncouth, with not a trace of royal bearing.

I wanted to tell them that was not what had happened.

In my fever, I struggled endlessly through nightmares. I tried to catch up with Mother, tried with all my might to tell her I had not run off to play, that someone had pushed me. I was so frightened.

When I finally escaped the nightmares and sat bolt upright, the women physicians keeping watch smiled. They went to fetch the noble consort as though eager to claim credit.

Mother, who had been keeping the third prince company at his studies, took her time coming. She was dazzlingly beautiful, her robes trailing behind her as she approached.

Aggrieved and relieved, I sobbed out the truth. She slowly raised a hand to stop me, then adjusted the jeweled ornament that swayed in her hair.

“Do not run off to play again. For this misbehavior, you will be confined for three months. A small punishment to teach you a lesson.”

“Mother! I didn’t!”

“For your brother’s sake, you did.”

With that, she turned away, her magnificent robes stirring slowly behind her.

The doors of the side hall closed. Outside, the physicians loudly thanked her for their rewards. Inside, I sat bewildered on the vast, empty bed.

Three months of confinement. The servants were allowed in only to bring my meals.

At night, I lay on that silent bed and watched moonlight creep into the hall. When it reached the third pillar, it began slipping away again.

I could not help counting the hours.

My third brother’s evening lessons would be over now.

Now Father would be dining with Mother and my brother.

Now Mother would be helping him prepare tomorrow’s lessons.

Now Mother would be carefully instructing his attendants to stay alert during the night.

“Ah Jiu, are you there?”

My voice echoed through the hall. No one answered.

Half a month into my confinement, I tore the clothes the servants brought me. They answered my rebellion with smiles and fresh garments. Outside, new rumors spread: the fifth princess was vulgar, smashing gifts from the emperor, nursing resentment, knowing nothing of gratitude.

I leaned numbly against the bed and watched the shifting moonlight.

“Ah Jiu, are you there?”

“Mm.”

I looked toward the voice. It was too dark to see the rafters. I raised a candlestick and strained toward them, but its tiny light was useless. Whoever sat up there clearly had no intention of coming out.

I lowered my aching arm and returned to bed. At last I had someone to talk to. Everything I had suffered poured out.

I talked until I cried, wiped my eyes, and went on. By the time I had no tears left, there was still no sound from the rafters.

“Say something!” I shouted.

“Mm.”

I tugged at my quilt. “I was only worried about Mother.”

“Mm.”

“I didn’t run off to play.”

“I know.”

I pulled the quilt over my head. “Thank you,” I whispered into it.

Ah Jiu was very obedient. He listened to whatever I said and answered whatever I asked.

When I told him to eat with me, he came down after the servants left and sat beside me, going through the motions of sharing my meal.

I took a bite; he picked up his chopsticks and took a bite. I set my chopsticks down; he did the same, then vanished in the blink of an eye.

At night, I told him I was afraid to sleep alone. He dropped from the rafters onto the broad bed and sat against its inner side, holding his sword.

Lying there, I studied him properly for the first time. His long black hair was tied simply behind his head. He wore close-fitting black clothes that let him move freely. His skin was a little unnaturally pale, but he was very handsome, more handsome than any of the young gentlemen the court ladies brought to the palace on holidays.

“Ah Jiu, why don’t you lie down?”

“Habit.”

“Ah Jiu, why are you holding your sword?”

“A dagger is harder to hold like this.”

“Ah Jiu, why do you do everything I tell you?”

“Orders.”

“Ah Jiu, where have you been these past few days?”

“Healing. Being punished.”

My eyelids grew heavier as I talked. I forgot to ask why he had been punished.

If it were now, my first question would be whether his wounds had healed.

With Ah Jiu beside me, my confinement became much easier to bear. He said little, but I liked talking to him.

The day before I was to be released, I pressed against the door and peered through the crack. “They all say I’m wicked. They all say I was wrong. Was I really wrong?”

Leaning against a rafter with his eyes closed, Ah Jiu took a long time to answer. “I don’t know.”