More than half a year had passed since the wedding. Xiao Limo's dependence on me had deepened into something I could barely call dependence anymore — it was gravity. Wake up and I'm not there? The house heard about it for an hour. Leave him alone for a morning? An ordeal.
Xiao Tao, who had grown up beside me, surveyed my life with growing bewilderment. "Princess, you haven't left the residence at all? Weren't you just saying last week that you missed the noise of the city?"
Noise annoyed me now.
"Princess Hua Ling has invited you to play polo. You love polo."
Imperial Father always said a princess should be valiant and spirited. I said a princess should be allowed to be lazy.
"Princess, you haven't worn pink in ages. Pink suits you best."
Pink is for girls. I am a grown woman.
"Princess has changed."
Princess is tired. Princess is done performing.
Xiao Tao's eyes had taken on a resentful slant when they landed on Xiao Limo. She stopped sweetening his lotus osmanthus cake without a word, muttering under her breath the whole time. "I grew up beside this princess. When has she ever looked this... hemmed in?"
Xiao Limo ignored her and ate with unclouded joy.
* * *
I sat at the latticed window, chin propped in hand. The sun had slipped behind the western ridge. Clouds peeled apart and spread into strips of vivid color — the sky coming undone at the edges.
Xiao Limo appeared at the door without my noticing. "Sister, are you unhappy?"
"Come here." I beckoned him over. "Two more months."
He tilted his head. "Limo doesn't understand."
The longer I spent with him, the more patience I seemed to find.
"For these two months — whatever you want to do, wherever you want to go, whatever you want to eat — Sister will go with you. All of it."
Smack. That was how he showed delight.
"Go bring me some tea." I had trained him well.
I rested against him, sipping unhurried, and thought: Not so bad, this moment. If only he were anyone other than Xiao Limo. His fingers found mine and wound loosely through them. "Sister, take me out on the lake tomorrow. Limo has never gone."
"Alright. All of it, as you like. Is there anywhere else you want to go?"
* * *
Before Xiao Limo could answer, Hua Ling burst through the door. "Sister! Sister!"
Her face was flushed, her hair half-undone from running. She seized my arm and pulled. "Come to the palace, quickly."
I caught her hands. "What happened?"
Hua Ling was many things — dramatic, impulsive — but not reckless. Not like this.
She swallowed. "Imperial Father is going to beat the Crown Prince to death."
The blood left my face. "Why?"
The Crown Prince was measured, calm, steady as river water. What could have provoked this?
"He took a new secondary consort." Hua Ling's voice dropped to something barely audible, and she watched me with every word. "The consort looks... eight parts like you."
Something splintered in my chest. The teacup slipped from my fingers and shattered on the floor.
Hua Ling grabbed my arms to steady me. "Let's go."
Xiao Limo's hand closed around my sleeve. His face had gone quiet — still in a way I had never seen before.
"Limo, let go."
"You are not going." His voice had lost all warmth. I stared at him — and then his expression dissolved back into perfect innocence. "Sister promised to take me on the lake."
I exhaled. "As soon as Sister has taken care of this, she will take you on the lake. I promise."
Then — someone called my name. "Hua Shu."
I turned. No one was there. Like something out of a waking dream.
* * *
I dragged Hua Ling into the carriage and was immediately lost inside my own skull. The Crown Prince. The Crown Prince.
Fragments surfaced — broken images, scattered voices — pieces of memory slotting back into place one by one.
"Shu'er, don't cry. My Mother is your Mother now."
"If I ever see them bully you again, I'll tell Father. Whoever says Father doesn't love you — Father told me himself that you are his favorite."
"Father, look at this poem Hua Shu wrote. Didn't you always say Shu'er was destined for greater things?"
"Father, Hua Shu can do it too — Consort Zhen taught her polo herself."
"Shu'er, from now on I am your shield. Don't cry."
"Sister, don't be afraid." Hua Ling's warm hands closed over my icy ones. "We'll plead for the Crown Prince together. Father will listen."
* * *
Outside the Imperial Study, only Eunuch Li stood guard.
"Your Highnesses — His Majesty is in a fury. You cannot go in."
The shouting from inside carried through every wall.
"You wretched child! I told you long ago — you and Hua Shu have no future together!"
"Father, why must you be so cruel?"
"I gave Hua Shu boundless favor and endless glory. She is my daughter — she must sacrifice for the empire."
"Boundless favor. Endless glory. You have three daughters. Eldest Princess Hua Yao has never been made to marry. But you chose Hua Shu — because you are a father, and you could not bear to send your own blood to an idiot. So it was Hua Shu."
"I would have cherished Hua Shu her whole life. But this — all of this — is your fault. Che. You let yourself feel what you should not feel."
"Father, Hua Shu has called you Father for more than a decade."
"A ruler must care for all beneath heaven — not be a slave to sentiment. Everything I do is for your sake, for Da Qi. Where have I gone wrong?!"
The shouting stopped. The sound of a whip, then silence.
I stood there, weightless, legs unreliable beneath me. My shoulders shook without permission.
Whose daughter am I? Am I not Hua Shu?
Hua Ling's warm palm covered my hand. "Sister..."
* * *
I sent Hua Ling away and pushed open the Imperial Study door with the calm of someone who had already made up their mind to die.
The Crown Prince knelt on the floor, blood at the corner of his mouth. His eyes, finding mine, were somehow warm.
Imperial Father looked me over. "When did you arrive?"
How much did you hear?
"Half a shichen ago," I said, meeting his gaze without flinching.
He clasped his hands behind his back. His expression was complicated.
I knelt before him. "Imperial Father, I would like a word with you alone."
"Take the Crown Prince out."
* * *
The study swallowed all sound. Neither of us was in a hurry.
"Hua Shu. You have always been the clever one."
Consort Zhen died young. I learned early how to please him.
When the door closed behind the Crown Prince, I sank to the floor. So this is what it was. All those years of boundless favor, endless glory — threads of a lie, woven around me so carefully I had never felt the loom.
My chest split open. I curled into it, one hand pressed to my heart. "Imperial Father. All these years — have I only ever been a piece on your board?"
* * *
The night had barely begun to cool, but I could not stop shaking as I made my way to the Eastern Palace. I waited in silence until the Crown Prince woke.
Long minutes passed. His eyelids shifted. The moment he saw me, something in his face climbed — relief, and a different kind of warmth. He struggled upright. "Shu'er."
"Don't move. They only just dressed the wounds." I kept my voice flat, too spent for inflection.
"Alright." He tried to put brightness into the word.
I watched him smile that broken smile. Something hollow gathered in my chest. "Since Consort Zhen passed, you have never stopped watching over me. I have no way to repay that, except to hope—"
He cut me off, voice low, a coaxing humor to it: "Then repay me with yourself. How does that sound?"
"Brother." I turned away sharply. "Don't joke."
He said nothing. His fingers closed around my arm.
We were still like that when Xiao Tao appeared at the door, Xiao Limo behind her.
"Princess." She pointed to the shadows under her own eyes. "I've run out of ways."
"Limo. Come here."
"Sister." His pout was aggrieved, and his gaze slid deliberately to the man in the bed. "Sister has been gone two nights. Limo hasn't had anyone to sleep beside."
The Crown Prince's face shuttered. The look he turned on Xiao Limo was blade-thin. "The once-feared Young General of the Xiao Family Army — reduced to this."
Something flickered in Xiao Limo's eyes. His arms tightened around me, but his gaze stayed level on the Crown Prince. "Sister. I don't like it here. Let's go home."
"Wait outside for me."
When Xiao Tao had led him out, I tucked the Crown Prince's blanket back into place. "Brother. Da Qi needs you."
He rolled toward me, urgent. "What about you? Do you need me?" A fresh bloom of red stained the bandage around his ribs.
"You have cared for me for years. That is more than enough."
He smiled — pale, paper-thin — and turned to the window. "As you wish."