Chapter 9 · free to read
In the harem a dead servant is a chore, not a crime. He would be in a lime pit by noon and out of memory by supper.
Emerald. Wanqing's colour. Mine now. Someone had folded my own sleeve into a corpse's hand and left him where the whole harem would come to look.
He lied on an imperial document without one moment's hesitation, for a woman he had known three weeks. I did not ask what that cost him. I could not afford to.
There was a second living soul in this palace who knew the Dowager had been murdered. For two months I had prayed for one. Now I had to decide whether to recruit him or bury him deeper than the silk.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.