Chapter 1

I was only nine when I entered the prince’s estate.

I was far too young to be discussing marriage, but my eldest uncle could not wait for me to grow up. The struggle for the throne would wait for no one, either. The prince needed my uncle to prove his loyalty, and a marriage alliance was the finest pledge he could offer.

My grandfather told me:

“The prince is no beast. For now, he is only taking you into his household to be raised. When you come of age, he will give you a place in his bedchamber.

“Do not blame me for being cruel. It was no easy thing for your uncle to earn an official post. If the Lu family had not been so modest and so little able to help him, I would never have sent you away.

“Sui’an, when you leave, remember that you will always be a daughter of the Lu family. We rise together, and we fall together.”

I understood none of that then. All I remembered was my mother’s silent, choking tears. Before I was old enough to know the pain of parting, an old matron dragged me away from home.

I entered the estate through a side gate. The matron clamped a hand around my wrist so tightly that she left a red ring on my skin.

Her stride was long, and I had to trot to keep up.

We hurried past another covered walkway. Suddenly, the matron let go of me and curtsied to a woman in court dress.

The woman stood beneath the eaves, the breeze lifting her skirts until she looked like an immortal about to take flight.

It was Shen Ning.

The matron was still droning on about my family when Shen Ning simply ignored her. She gave me a gentle smile and asked, “Poor little thing, would you like some iced cream?”

I had no idea what that was, but I nodded anyway.

Careful not to touch the red marks on my wrist, she hooked a finger lightly around mine. “Come with me.”

Her hand was warm and soft, like my mother’s, yet somehow different.

I looked up at her. “Big Sister, are you unable to go home too?”

Shen Ning stopped midstep.

She nodded. “Yes. But how did you know?”

I lowered my head and stared at the two pearls on my new embroidered shoes.

“I heard the matron call you the princess consort.”

A princess consort was a prince’s wife—a girl who had married.

The matron had told me that girls who married could never go home again.

Shen Ning pinched my cheek and laughed. “You’re a clever little thing.”

By the time I had my iced cream, Shen Ning had already ordered my belongings moved into her courtyard.

She told the prince that she meant to raise me herself. He said she could do as she pleased.

The prince always let Shen Ning manage the women of his household as she wished.

For a time, I thought that meant he loved her. Why else would he listen to her?

My father never listened to my mother.

When I whispered this conclusion to Shen Ning, she laughed until tears streamed down her face.

“Goodness. At your age, you already know what love is?”

I scratched the back of my head, unable to see what was so funny.

When she had finished laughing, she put on a stern face and began testing me on my lessons.

Shen Ning had said she would educate me, and she did not do things by halves. Naturally, I had to study the classics, music, and rites. On top of that, she had a bow made for me and taught me archery.

When she dressed for riding, she swept her hair high and wore no powder. She looked clean and striking. I loved watching her shoot most of all. The gaze she fixed on the target was as keen as that of an eagle wheeling through the sky.

I imitated her and drew the bow, but every arrow flew wide.

When she saw I was about to cry, Shen Ning did not laugh. She stepped behind me, set her hands over mine, and drew the bow to its full arc.

The string twanged. The arrow that had been useless in my hands tore through the air and struck the center of the target.

Shen Ning said:

“Sui’an, remember what it feels like to win. Nothing in this world comes easily, whether it is study or martial skill.

“When the moment is wrong and you fail again and again, fear creeps in, and taking even one more step becomes difficult.

“But once you have beaten something once, you can beat it a second time, and a third… until at last you conquer it.”

I understood.

“Big Sister, you mean the classics pick on the weak too!”

Shen Ning flicked me on the forehead. “Exactly. They pick on little pig-brains like you.”

What did she mean? I was clever!

By the time I learned to ride, Shen Ning was pregnant.

She had filled out a little, and her cheeks glowed pink.

I liked listening to her belly. Whether the baby moved or not, I would press my ear against it for a while.

She would tap me between the brows and call me a little pest.

The only bad thing was that the prince came to see her often. Whenever he stayed the night, I could not sleep beside Shen Ning.

The nights without her were terribly long. I hugged my quilt and stared into the dark. The moon sank too slowly, and there were always more stars than I could count, so I could only watch Shen Ning’s window. The warm yellow candlelight spilling through the paper panes turned as white as moonlight.

It was cold.

My belly began to hurt, and the damp smell of blood filled my nose.

I looked at the blood between my legs and thought I must be gravely ill.

But Shen Ning was not beside me. She knew nothing.

Zhui’er, the maid sleeping in my room, was even younger than I was. She was already asleep.

It was fortunate that she was. Otherwise, she would surely have raised a clamor. If she disturbed the prince, we might both be sentenced to death before I had time to die of my illness.

Feeling very sorry for myself, I picked up a lantern and felt my way through the dark to find Su Yuling. She was a secondary consort and could summon a physician for me.