Chapter 2 · free to read
Three weeks a survivor. The Dowager kept me close — not as a favor, but as a tool she had not yet finished testing.
One name remained. A ladle of tonic carried nightly to the Eastern Palace — signed by a hand too delicate to belong to any servant.
She poisons the son to blame the mother — and if I name her, she will swear I forged the ledger myself. Two snares, and I stand between their teeth.
So I gave her a gift — a tonic bowl, and a whisper that the Dowager suspected the wrong maid. Pride is a poison too. I only had to wait for her to pour.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.