The carriage stopped. A hand pulled back the curtain, and Su Yuxiao blinked in the sudden light.
They were at the palace gates.
She stepped out and looked up. The walls were tall but plain. The gates were carved with phoenixes, the wood old and weathered. Nothing here was trying to impress anyone.
A young eunuch waited for her. His robes were deep blue, and his face looked like he was trying not to smile.
"Miss Su," he said, bowing. "Her Highness is in the garden. Follow me."
She did.
Inside the gates, the courtyard opened up. It was nothing like her father's house. Her father's home was all sharp corners and straight lines. Everything in its place. Everything watched.
Here, the paths curved. Old trees spread their branches wide, casting shade over the walkways. Flowers grew in clusters that looked like they had appeared on their own. But Su Yuxiao could tell someone had planned it. Nothing that pretty happened by accident.
They passed through courtyard after courtyard. Servants moved in the background, quiet, not staring. No one whispered. No one pointed.
The eunuch stopped at a wooden gate covered in wisteria. The purple flowers hung down like curtains. He pushed it open.
"Through here, miss." He bowed and left.
Su Yuxiao stepped through.
The garden was small. Walls on all sides. A lotus pond sat in the center, the water dark and still. White stone paths wound through beds of flowers. Nothing too bright. Nothing too loud.
Murong Qian sat on a stone bench by the pond.
She wore grey robes today. Plain. No fancy embroidery. Her hair was loose, falling past her shoulders. She looked younger like this.
But her eyes were the same. Sharp. Watching.
She wasn't smiling. She just sat there, still as the water, waiting.
Su Yuxiao stopped at the edge of the garden. She bowed.
"This humble one greets Your Highness."
Murong Qian said nothing for a moment. Just watched.
"You came," Murong Qian said. Her voice was flat.
"You summoned me."
Murong Qian tilted her head. "I heard you collapsed in your courtyard. Three days unconscious. When you woke, they say you were different."
So that's why she called me here.
"That's what people say," Su Yuxiao said.
"And are you? Different?"
Su Yuxiao thought about it. "I see things more clearly now."
"What things?"
That you're lonely. That the man you love is using you. That this whole court is a game and I don't know the rules yet.
She couldn't say any of that. "Myself. My father. This city."
Murong Qian studied her for a long moment. Her eyes moved up and down, like she was reading something written on Su Yuxiao's face.
"Sit," she said finally, pointing to the bench.
Su Yuxiao sat.
They sat in silence.
The water didn't move. The flowers didn't rustle. Su Yuxiao could hear her own breathing, and she could hear the princess breathing too slow, even, like she was counting each breath.
She's waiting to see what I'll do, Su Yuxiao thought.
Finally, Murong Qian spoke.
"You don't talk much."
"You don't either."
A pause. Then Murong Qian's lips curved. It wasn't quite a smile. "No. I don't."
Another silence. But this one felt different. Less like a test. More like two people sitting in the same space, not needing to fill it with words.
---
Su Yuxiao looked at the lotus pond. The flowers were just starting to open. Pale pink against the dark water. Pretty.
She almost said something about them. Stopped herself.
But Murong Qian noticed her looking. "You like the lotuses."
"They're nice."
"My mother planted them."
Su Yuxiao waited. Murong Qian didn't say more.
She wanted to ask. What was your mother like? What happened to her? Why do you keep her garden so quiet?
But she held back.
"They look healthy," Su Yuxiao said instead. "Someone takes good care of them."
Murong Qian glanced at her. There was something in her eyes. Not warmth. But not cold either.
"I do," she said. "I take care of them."
---
After a while, Murong Qian spoke again.
"You were at the banquet. You sat with your father. You didn't talk to anyone. Then you came to my table and talked to me like we'd known each other for years."
Su Yuxiao's heart beat faster. "I wanted to meet you."
"Why?"
Because I know your story. Because I cried when I read what happens to you. Because I wanted to see if you were real.
She couldn't say that. "Because everyone was afraid of you. I wanted to see for myself."
Murong Qian laughed. Short. Dry. "And what did you see?"
"You watch everyone. But you don't let anyone watch you."
The princess's eyes narrowed. For a moment, Su Yuxiao thought she had said too much. Then Murong Qian looked away.
"Your father is careful," she said. "He's spent years avoiding me. Staying away from anything connected to me. And here you are. His daughter. Sitting in my garden."
"He told me to stay away from you."
"And you came anyway."
"He also told me to stay in my rooms. I'm tired of staying in my rooms."
Murong Qian studied her for a long moment. Then she smiled. Not warm. Not cold. Something in between.
"You're either brave," she said, "or stupid."
"Maybe both."
"Hm."
---
The sun was setting when Su Yuxiao stood to leave. The garden had turned gold, shadows stretching long across the pond.
She wasn't sure if she should say anything. If she should ask to come back. If she should wait to be summoned again.
*She called me here because she was curious. That doesn't mean she wants me to come back.*
She bowed. "Thank you for your time, Your Highness."
Murong Qian didn't move. Her grey robes looked silver in the fading light. Her face was hard to read.
"You came here expecting something," she said. "What was it?"
"I wanted to understand you," she said. "The real you. Not what people say."
"And do you?"
"No." She smiled. "But I understand a little more than I did this morning."
Murong Qian's face didn't change. But something in her eyes shifted. Not warmth. But something. Curiosity, maybe. Or surprise.
"You're strange," she said.
"I've been told that a lot lately."
"By who?"
"Everyone."
For a moment, Murong Qian almost smiled.
"Go," she said. "Before it gets dark."
Su Yuxiao bowed again and walked toward the gate. Her hand was on the wisteria when Murong Qian's voice stopped her.
"Su Yuxiao."
She turned.
The princess was still on the bench, still watching her. The last light of the sun caught her face, made her look less like a princess and more like a woman sitting alone in her garden.
"If you come again," Murong Qian said, "don't expect me to talk so much."
She didn't invite me. But she didn't tell me not to come back.
Su Yuxiao smiled. "I'll keep that in mind."
She stepped through the gate and walked back through the courtyards, past the curved paths and the old trees, past the servants who didn't stare, past the gates with the weathered phoenixes.
She didn't say no, she thought. She just said if I come again
That was enough.
---
The carriage ride back was quiet. Su Yuxiao sat in the dimness, going over every moment of the afternoon. The long silences. The short answers. The way Murong Qian had given her almost nothing and yet, somehow, had given her something.
She told me her mother planted the lotuses. She told me she takes care of them. That's not nothing.
She smiled in the darkness. She said I was strange. She almost smiled. That's not nothing either.
---
When she returned to her father's compound, the guards at the gate looked at her strangely but said nothing. The servants in the courtyard kept their eyes down. The air felt heavier than before.
Chun Tao was waiting in her rooms, her face pale.
"Miss! The Prime Minister returned early. He asked where you were. I said you went to visit Miss Wei Ling. He didn't look convinced."
Su Yuxiao sat on the bed and pulled off her shoes. "He'll ask me about it tomorrow."
"What will you tell him?"
"The truth," she said.
Chun Tao looked unconvinced but said nothing.
Su Yuxiao lay back on the bed, staring at the painted ceiling. Her mind was full of lotuses and princesses.
"I'm going back. Not because she told me to because I want to. And she didn't say no."
She closed her eyes. Sleep came faster than she expected.