JINGYI
Outside, the afternoon air had turned crisp, the early winter chill turned every breath into a faint plume. The cold here never cut deep. It crept, sly and dry, threading through the folds of her robe.
The gardens, though still green in places, were paling. Pink and light green plum blossoms provided the colours. The lake beyond the inner court shimmered under a film of cold, its surface touched by falling leaves, golden carps moving sluggishly beneath.
So different from Tremore, she thought. There, the skies had deepened to slate when she left, and the first frosts had turned the ground brittle beneath horse hooves. Parandor must be cloaked in white by now.
It was strange how often her thoughts returned to that northern fortress, to its worn stone and rough woollen tapestries. To communal meals taken beside a crackling hearth. To a certain kind of robust productivity she hadn’t known she missed—until it was gone.
“Shall I call for a palanquin, Princess?” Ying asked, falling into step beside her.
JingYi shook her head. “No. Let’s walk.”
“But it’s so cold today. You’ll catch a chill!”
A small smile touched JingYi’s lips. What would the girl say if she knew she missed the cold? That she craved the bite of the northern wind? The air here merely pinched, raising gooseflesh. She welcomed even that. It reminded her of . . .him.
Funny, how the thought of frost could warm her more than any brazier.
“Seasons change,” she said. “Cold and warmth come and go. Letting the wind touch your skin helps the body learn how to bear both.”
They strolled along the paved path, JingYi’s pace naturally slower. The garden stretched ahead in interwoven terraces: gazebos standing over small ponds, bridges of red lacquer crossing narrow streams. She was turning a corner when soft laughter cut through the bamboo. Three women stepped into view, their silks a bright foil to this muted landscape.
LánYàn, RenHua, and MeiYün.
JingYi stopped, keeping her expression serene as their gazes swept over her, sharp as a fan tipped with needles.
“Well. If it isn’t the phoenix reborn,” LánYàn said, delicate and mocking. Nothing much had changed here, it seemed. “How fortunate you are. Not every fall ends in a rise.”
“Yet some are more fragrant than others,” JingYi replied calmly. “I do recall the last time we shared a path, you were deep in manure. Have you recovered fromthatfall?”
Colour flared across LánYàn’s face. RenHua’s eyes were alight with faux concern. “Have you heard the court whispers? Some wonder if you’ll remain unmarried forever, as if your name were of no consequence. Just another tile to shuffle.”
“Cruel,” JingYi concurred. “But then, I’ve had plenty of experience with cruelty. Don’t you agree?”
Their smiles faltered. MeiYün reached out as if to touch JingYi’s arm, then thought better. “Did you miss us after we left?”
JingYi looked at them, remembering the bandit attack, the shove out of the carriage, then put on a mild smile. “Does a stone miss the hand that casts it out, I wonder?”
The silence, the shock in their eyes, broughtsomesatisfaction. Then, murmurs rose among the gardeners and attendants nearby. Gazes dropped. Bodies parted. A sedan chair approached—elegant and austere in black lacquer and silver trim, borne on the shoulders of four indigo-robed footmen.
The silk curtains were drawn aside just enough to reveal the woman seated within, upright and composed, her hands resting on a fur-lined lap cover.
The Dowager ShunMin—the new emperor’s mother.
She had been moved to the Silver Court—the place where consorts went to retire, to tend gardens and fade into comfortable obscurity. But JingYi knew now what retirement meant for women like her:nothing. Power like the Dowager’s didn’t fade. It went underground, where it could simply watch from a hiding spot.
The procession stopped before JingYi. Along with the others, she stepped aside and curtsied. In unison, they greeted, “May a thousand years of peace grace Your Imperial Highness, the Dowager Consort.”
JingYi saw her then. A face carved from pale marble and years of unchallenged command as the most powerful woman in the harem. The Dowager’s stony gaze passed over LánYàn, RenHua, and MeiYün and settled on her. There was no welcome in it, no disdain. Only a leisurely, meticulous calculation.
A cold ripple spread beneath her skin. This was the woman whose words had sealed JingMei’s fate, and by extension, JingYi’s own.
It had all begun here.
With this face. With this gaze.
“I was told you still practice medicine,” the Dowager said. Her voice was neither loud nor soft, but the garden seemed to quiet itself to hear. “Come to my palace before the Hour of the Phoenix. I would like you to take my pulse.”