Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Seven years ago, I became Danchi’s Consort Xi.

Five years ago, I became empress of Northern Qian.

Three years ago, Northern Qian’s highest ministers risked their lives to remonstrate. They demanded the death of the demon empress who had transformed a once-wise king into a foolish tyrant. One by one, Danchi granted their wish – by executing them. At last, the court became peaceful and harmonious, united in praising the empress as virtuous, brilliant, and without equal beneath heaven.

Then disaster came. Floods swept the central lands, destroying the harvest. The treasury was empty. Of course it was: the northerners still could not rebuild Southern Xu’s powerful economy, which they themselves had destroyed. With grain and silver limited, Northern Qian’s ministers demanded that northern people receive relief first. Southern slaves, naturally, should be sacrificed to the catastrophe.

Danchi instead decreed that Great Qin’s treasury would distribute grain without regard to ethnicity.

Northern Qian erupted in outrage.

Everyone believed I had bewitched him again. The matter was grave. Northern Qian’s soldiers fought at the front while their wives and children starved after the flood, yet southerners survived. Army morale would suffer terribly.

But no one could change Danchi’s decision, just as five years earlier no one had stopped him from making me empress.

With no other choice, they recalled the First Prince, long exiled to the battlefields.

“Princess, what do you think he will do?” Youchun asked blankly.

“Probably everything he can to kill me.”

We leaned against a palace tower during a night banquet celebrating the First Prince’s return. Northerners adored feasts. After too many scandals, they had begun imitating Southern Xu by seating men and women separately. Northern Qian despised Southern Xu, yet ended by copying it in everything.

Across the distance, I saw Chen Dong surrounded by men, drinking cup after cup. Without warning, he raised his head and looked at me.

Years had passed, but his eyes remained those of an eagle. I no longer looked away. I moved my fan and smiled.

The first horn of our war had sounded.

“Your Majesty.”

I turned. Yu Ning, Chen Dong’s wife and consort of the First Prince, stood behind me, watching timidly.

She too was a princess, from a northern tribe Chen Dong had conquered. She was extraordinarily beautiful, yet always seemed frightened.

I smiled. “How was the food? Are you accustomed to it?”

She nodded and answered nervously in the northern tongue. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I have never eaten such a splendid feast.”

“The central floods have forced the harem to reduce expenses. When times improve, I can arrange much more. Come to the palace again then.”

I meant only courtesy. But she lowered her head and twisted her fingers, struggling with some decision. At last, she looked up.

“Your Majesty, may I… may I bring Donglin?”

Donglin was her son with Chen Dong.

I stared. “The child is still so young.”

“That does not matter, Your Majesty. He has spent these years with us in military camps and learned nothing. I hear Your Majesty has no children. Would it not be best if Donglin grew up beside you?”

Her words tumbled in confusion, but I understood.

She was offering me her allegiance.

With a mother’s instinct, she sensed that Chen Dong’s return would bring war between us, and that my chances were greater. She did not want her son sacrificed. So she offered him to me. Danchi’s other sons were dead or scattered. If I won, a child of royal blood would let me rule legitimately as regent. If Chen Dong won, she would invent a flawless story that I had stolen the boy. Even a tiger would not eat its cub; her son could still live in wealth and safety.

She was not especially clever – or perhaps she never meant to conceal her purpose. Every desire lay open in her sorrowful eyes.

They were a mother’s eyes.

I looked into the distance. Around the newly built pavilions, autumn hibiscus grew lush and sweetly fragrant.

“I have no children because I cannot bear them,” I said slowly. “Do you know why?”

That year, after running back from the city gate, the girls risked their lives to place me in Danchi’s harem.

He had been drinking alone until senselessly drunk. I poured his wine. He caught my wrist and laughed.

“Xiaoxi?”

Then his eyes narrowed. “Or should I call you Princess Xihe?” He examined me drunkenly and shook his head with a smile. “You are very brave.”

“Xihe has never wanted anything but to live.” I forced myself to meet his gaze and smiled calmly. “Chen Dong believed a princess of a fallen kingdom brought ill fortune, so he grew afraid. Is Your Majesty afraid as well?”
He stared at me for so long that every hair on my body stood on end.

“All of Southern Xu lies prostrate beneath my feet. You think I’m afraid of you?” He yanked me into his arms, sending his wine cup crashing to the floor. “The finest beauty belongs with the finest hunter. He was afraid because he knew he couldn’t handle you.”

Less than a year later, Chen Dong returned. He found me attending upon his father, my belly swollen with child. I had painted my face heavily that day in hopes of hiding the injury, but the red swelling was too severe to conceal.

That day, he and Danchi had a furious quarrel over how the urgent summons had cost him an opportunity in battle. He never once looked at me. Not until three nights later, on the eve of his return to camp.

It was a late autumn night. I sat alone in the courtyard brewing tea when the door creaked open. I turned and saw Chen Dong standing there in full armor.

“You came.”

I thought he would demand to know why I had returned from the dead, or why I was here. Instead, the first thing he said was, “He hits you?”

I faltered, then gave a faint smile. “What woman in His Majesty’s harem hasn’t been beaten?”

“I’m taking you away,” he said.

I shook my head and slowly backed away. “I won’t go. I told you I would avenge my people…”

“What can you possibly do?” he asked coldly. “Do you think you can become empress?”

“Why not? I’m carrying His Majesty’s child…”

Beneath the cold wash of moonlight, he looked at me and slowly spread his lips in a strange smile. “His Majesty’s child?”

“What do you mean?”

For the first time, he showed me such naked malice, like a venomous snake flicking its tongue. “On the day I came of age, he poisoned me. Since then, I have endured splitting headaches every night, and one day they will drive me mad. So the following year, I poisoned him in return. From that day until the day he dies, I will be his only son.”

He seized my hand so hard I thought the bones in my wrist would splinter. “So tell me, you whore – whose child is in your belly?”

Tears sprang to my eyes from the pain as I struggled. “Let go of me! How dare you! I am your father’s consort – your elder!”

He released me. I struck the table, shattering the tea service, then fell to the ground.

For one instant he looked at a loss. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Stay back!” I snatched up a shard of porcelain and pressed it to my throat. “Take one more step and I’ll die before your eyes!”

The door suddenly burst open, flooding the room with light. Danchi stood on the threshold, with Youchun – the one who had alerted him – at his side.

“Your Majesty, the First Prince is trying to kill me…” I reached toward him, only to collapse once more amid the shards.

Black blood snaked out from beneath me.

“You beast!” Danchi shook from head to toe as he turned and brought his blade down.

Chen Dong had no time to dodge.

The bright arc of steel flashed, then stopped an inch from his forehead. Its cold gleam illuminated the faces of father and son.

Danchi stared at him. In the end, he loosened his grip, and the sword hit the floor with a clang.

“Get out.”

The next day, Chen Dong departed to the shrill proclamation of a eunuch: “For violating the sanctity of the imperial harem, General Chen Dong ought by law to be put to death. In consideration of his military service, he is instead demoted by three ranks.”

And just like that, my child – Danchi’s youngest and final hope – died.

“That was probably when my body was damaged. I never conceived again.”

“I didn’t know, Your Majesty. I didn’t know the First Prince had anything to do with it…” Yu Ning, the First Princess Consort, explained in panic. I shook my head to stop her, because Chen Dong was approaching.

“The First Prince and his wife truly are devoted to one another. Barely separated, and here he comes looking for you.” I smiled gently.

Chen Dong ignored me. He merely pulled Yu Ning behind him. “We’re leaving.”

“Stop.”

I walked up to him and lifted my face. “Will the First Prince not pay his respects to his imperial mother?”

He drew a deep breath. When he spoke, his voice remained level. “What do you want?”

“Lord Dulu, one of the First Prince’s former subordinates, is overseeing the current flood relief. I hear he has repeatedly clashed with the Lord Zhang I appointed. I would ask the First Prince to persuade him to show a little more sense.”

Chen Dong came close to laughing coldly. “You mean to make an important Northern Qian official obey a man of Southern Xu?”

“His Majesty’s decree is to aid the people of Great Qin, regardless of whether they are northerners or southerners. If Lord Dulu cannot understand that, does the First Prince also fail to – ”

“It cannot be done,” he cut in flatly. “The state will aid northerners only.”

The crowd gradually fell silent, watching us from afar. Rather than take offense, I smiled. “Why?”

He looked calmly at me. “Northerners are born to conquer the world, just as Southern slaves are born to serve. A northerner’s life is worth more than a Southern slave’s. Does that require a reason?”

Then he took his wife and strode away.