Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The emperor bestowed upon me a bowl of contraceptive decoction. More than a hundred people from court and harem watched me drink it, and only then did they breathe a collective sigh of relief.

After all, it was no secret that Her Majesty the Empress had once been Princess Xihe.

I was his aunt.

I had also once served as a camp prostitute for the northern army.

Before I turned sixteen, my life had been a dream – not mine alone, but a dream shared by millions of Southern Xu’s people.

Those were troubled times. The realm our founding emperor had conquered had been squandered little by little by the generations that followed him. By the time it reached my grandfather’s hands, it had shrunk into a petty court huddled in one corner of the land. All its former splendor had become a joke.

Yet the worse things grew, the more determined everyone was to lose themselves in pleasure. Grandfather kept eighteen consorts. The nobles dined on piglets suckled on human milk. Beautiful white peacocks perched atop the highest palace roofs and gazed coldly down at the starved corpses and beggars in the streets.

The people waited in despair. They waited for Northern Qian’s iron cavalry to come and trample the dream to pieces.

That was the world into which I was born.

On the night of my birth, the crown prince – my father – was cut down by a Northern Qian general. Southern Xu lost a city and its heir, and with them the last of its courage to resist. Grandfather sent envoys, trembling, to sue for peace. After a fit of hysterical weeping, my mother rose from her pool of blood and became a star in the heavens. The palace descended into chaos. Only my eight-year-old brother awkwardly gathered me into his arms.

“Xihe, don’t cry.”

Grandfather indulged me terribly. His brows slanted down at the ends, so even when he smiled he looked worried. He would settle me on his knee and tell me how magnificent the emperors and generals of old had been. “I am old now,” he would say. “No one wants to listen to me anymore. Only Xihe does.”

My brother would timidly remind him from the side, “Grandfather, Xihe fell asleep ages ago.”

Grandfather would blink, look down at my sleeping face, and smile again. “Good that she’s asleep. Xihe can eat and sleep. She is more fortunate than her grandfather.”

In a place where even new life carried the rot of old age, my brother and I naturally grew into perfect wastrels. Before he was even fifteen, my brother already had five lesser consorts. His pretty young women danced in the great hall clad in nothing but lotus leaves, while I took pleasure in destroying things. Fine silk had to be snipped to ribbons. Exquisite porcelain had to be smashed piece by piece so I could hear each one break. Grandfather could do nothing with me. But my brother was the heir to the throne, and after much thought, Grandfather decided to find him a wife.

The future crown princess was named Helan Zhiqiu. The Helan clan had cultivated scholarship and propriety for longer than our dynasty had existed, and the daughter they raised was naturally the finest of well-bred young ladies. Grandfather hoped she might rein in my increasingly outrageous brother – and teach me, while she was at it, how a girl ought to behave.

The first time she entered the palace, I was in the middle of a tantrum. I had made a kite from silk and wanted to send it soaring into the sky, but no matter how fast the servants ran, it refused to rise. Looking back, I suspect that was because I had tied too many pastries to it.

“This princess wants to see a kite fly! If the kite won’t fly, then you will fly for me!”

I ordered the servants to wrap themselves in silk, dress up in ridiculous shapes, and jump from the roof for my amusement. They dared not disobey. Sobbing, they lined up and leaped one after another. When I saw them flailing through the air and landing hard on their backsides, I burst out laughing.

“What do you think you’re doing?” seventeen-year-old Helan Zhiqiu demanded.

She wore a palace gown in a muted yellow-green, and her features were plain. Never had there been a girl at court dressed with such restraint.

“My lady,” an old palace matron whispered, “this is Princess Xihe.”

Zhiqiu’s eyes were clear and bright, and she continued to regard me sternly. “If they have done wrong, punish them. Why devise these games to humiliate them?”

“Because they are servants and I am a princess. If it makes me happy, they should count it an honor even to die!” I raised my chin and shouted, “How dare you lecture me! I’ll tell my brother – ”

She did not give an inch. “What is the royal house, if not an example to all its people? The late crown prince gave his life without thought for himself, and the late crown princess was dutiful and unassuming. Yet today you treat human lives as weeds for the sake of your amusement. Are you worthy of the people’s devotion? Are you worthy of the good names your father and mother left behind?”

Everything around us fell silent. I stared at her, dumbstruck. Then my mouth crumpled, and I began to howl.
At the time, I did not know that Grandfather himself had once been harangued into hanging his head by old Chancellor Helan in open court. I knew only that no one had ever scolded me so harshly. I wanted my brother. Weeping all the way, I ran to his chambers, where he lay sprawled half-naked on his bed after taking Five Minerals Powder. Pretty, pale girls nestled beside him like lambs.

“Brother – ” I sobbed, tugging at his hand.

“Mm? What is it?” With some effort, he pushed himself upright and stroked my hair. “Don’t cry. Tell me who bullied you, and your brother will have them killed.”

“Helan – Helan Zhiqiu. She’s wicked! Brother, don’t marry her!”

My brother smiled languidly, and the beauties around him laughed as well. He lifted me onto his knee and wiped my tears. When I finally stopped crying against his chest, I heard him say, “What is she worth, to make my little sister shed a single tear?”

In the end, my brother avenged me. On his wedding night, he summoned his favorite lesser consort and made love to her in his bridal bed. His bride, the future empress Helan Zhiqiu, was driven from the room.

It was as absurd as anything could be.

I wanted to see her crushed. Hmph! That would teach her to act so superior, to frown and scold me, to –

What I had not expected to find was a perfectly calm Helan Zhiqiu.

In a side hall, she had removed all her jeweled ornaments and washed the paint from her face. By the light of a single lamp, she was painting.

The autumn wind was so cool that night, and yet so gentle. I poked my head around the door and called, “My royal brother doesn’t want you, ugly! Ha ha ha!”

The moment I finished laughing, I ducked back into hiding.

She turned. “Is that Xihe? Come here.”

Fine. I wasn’t afraid of her. I swaggered inside, and she showed me her painting.

There I was in a rouge-pink dress, my hair ornaments fluttering – only this version of me was far more graceful.

“Why are you painting me?”

“For a kite,” she said. “I picked up the one you tore apart. You wanted to show the late crown princess in heaven what you look like now, didn’t you? Though your picture was rather poor, and your writing impossible to read.”

Mortified, I nearly reached out and tore her painting to pieces. I stopped myself only because it was a picture of me – and because I had never seen myself look so beautiful.

She dipped her brush in ink. “Is there anything else you wish to tell the late crown princess? Come, I’ll write it for you.”

I rested my chin on the table and thought. “Tell Mother I’ve been very good,” I muttered.

“That would be a lie.”

“You!”

I spun around in fury, yet could not bear to leave. Unruffled, she began adding a few strokes to the painting. “The next time you behave, I’ll write it on the kite for you.”

“Then what about this time?”

“Look.”

She lifted me onto her lap. On the painting, beside me, she had drawn a plate of pastries. I clapped my hands in delight.

“Yes, yes! Grandfather says Mother’s favorite was Five-Petal Cake!”

The wind blew hard that night. Glazed palace lanterns swayed wildly, and though the matrons could barely keep their eyes open, they still had to watch the future empress and Princess Xihe fly a kite through the palace grounds.

“Hey, do you really think Mother became an immortal in heaven?”

“My name is not ‘hey.’ I am your sister-in-law.” She glanced back at me. The wind had teased her immaculate hair loose, making her look far more vivid and beautiful. “But you may call me Zhiqiu.”

“Zhiqiu,” I said. “Does Mother miss me? Or am I the only one who misses her?”

“What mother does not miss her child? The late crown princess has been watching you from the clouds all this time. So, Xihe, you must be a good girl.”

Through my tear-blurred eyes, I truly saw a woman reach down to stroke my hair and gather me into a soft, warm embrace. For a moment, I could not tell whether she was my mother in the clouds or Zhiqiu beside me.

The moon was lonely that night, and my kite flew very, very high.