Chapter 4 · free to read
All night I matched the burned seal against every crest in the harem. Only one wore the nine-tailed phoenix in gold.
Wanqing was a knife. Consort Li was another. But Pei was the hand that armed them both — and the hand that pointed at me.
Every mannerism was a mask I had to fit exactly. One wrong flinch, and a dead girl walks in a living woman's skin.
The tea gathering. My first performance before the woman who ordered my death — and she did not yet know it was a performance.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.