Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My father's victories had earned him the title Prince of Pingnan.

Along with the imperial decree came an edict from the Empress Dowager. She said the palace was lonely, and she wanted a child to keep her company.

Father was so troubled that he lay awake all night.

When he opened his door the next morning, he found me sitting on the stone steps.

I looked up at him and asked haltingly, “If I go to the capital, the Empress Dowager and His Majesty won't make things difficult for you anymore, will they?”

He held me and wept, promising to bring me home when I came of age.

And so, just after my seventh birthday, I set off for the distant capital with a small bundle on my back and the little horse Father had raised for me.

Years passed within the palace walls.

Every year, Father sent letters, treats and toys from home. But as I approached the age when he had promised to fetch me, the parcels stopped coming.

Afraid something had happened to him, I asked to see the Empress Dowager.

She hesitated, pity in her eyes.

“Has the Prince of Pingnan not told you?”

“You were switched at birth. He has found his biological daughter. Soon he will bring her to the capital and petition to have her made a princess.”

1

It was a hot day, and I had only just come in from outside. Yet a cold sweat broke out over me.

The hall was so quiet that I could hear my heart pounding.

For a moment, I thought I must be dreaming.

“Switched? What do you mean?”

The Empress Dowager could not bring herself to continue. The matron beside her answered instead.

“The prince found his daughter in early spring two years ago. He said he wasn't certain at first, so he kept it quiet. He only reported it to the throne a few days ago.

“He plans to bring the young lady here soon to request her title.”

I lowered my head, suddenly remembering the day I had left home.

There had been no great downpour to mark our parting, as there always was in the storybooks. Rain was common in Zhenjiang, but that day the sky had been unusually clear.

I had sat in the jolting carriage with my little bundle in my arms, listening to the wheels roll over the stone road.

Unable to help myself, I lifted the curtain and looked back.

The wet nurse stood at the door with my baby brother, not yet a year old. Father stood beside them, watching me go.

As the carriage turned the corner, that strong man, who had never bowed to anyone in half a lifetime, bent under his grief. For a long while, he could not straighten.

It had been an ordinary day.

I had stepped out of the house and never gone back.

The capital was far away, beyond mountains and long roads.

When I was brought before the Emperor, I knelt alone in the great hall. Cold seemed to rise from the floor and seep through my knees.

My forehead touched the ground.

I could see nothing. I only heard what sounded like a laugh from His Majesty.

That vast, chilly hall belonged to him, as did the realm. No matter how many battles the Prince of Pingnan won, the daughter he treasured still had to tremble at the Emperor's feet.

The capital needed a hostage.

Only then could Father remain secure in Zhenjiang.

Seeing how distraught I was, the Empress Dowager could not bear it. She had raised me for all these years.

She patted the little chair beside her and called me over.

“You and your father have years of affection between you. You've grown up here in the capital, too. He won't abandon you.”

I sat beside her, with no idea where I belonged now.

In a dream, if you missed your footing and woke with a start, you could reassure yourself that none of it was real.

But what was I to do if I had truly fallen into an abyss?

Without thinking, I clutched the hem of the Empress Dowager's robe as though it were my last hope of rescue.

Everything I had hoped for had been doused in cold water.

I knew she was trying to comfort me.

If Father still cared, he would not have concealed the truth for so long. He would not have left me without a letter for three years.

Someone else had already taken my place at home.

The Empress Dowager put her arm around my shoulders and drew me close.

She sighed.

“Cry if you want to.”

I buried my face in her shoulder, afraid to make a sound. But the pain did not ease.

If they no longer wanted me, they could simply have said so. I would have left.

Why torment me like this?

Only after eight years away did I learn that Zhenjiang, the prince's household, the home I could return to only in dreams, had long since cast me aside like a worn-out shoe.

Secrets never stay secret where there are crowds.

Word of the prince's petition for his biological daughter spread quickly through the capital. Overnight, my world was turned upside down.

Everywhere I went, I heard whispers. My name vanished from invitations to banquets. People who had once called themselves my friends stopped visiting.

Only in the Empress Dowager's quarters could I find a little peace.

I said nothing for days.

At last, I dragged myself to my desk. My hand hovered above the paper, brush poised, until a drop of ink fell and startled me out of my thoughts.

We had not seen each other in years. Now even our bond as father and daughter existed only in name.

For a moment, I did not even know what to call him.

2

After a long hesitation, I finally began to write. As the words appeared, tears blurred my sight. They fell before I could stop them, smearing the ink.

I did not dare mention the other girl. All I could ask was:

When will you come to the capital?

I sent the letter, but no reply came.

I waited until the flowers blooming in my courtyard had withered. The fire in my heart went out, leaving only cold ashes.

At first, the Empress Dowager waited with me. Each evening after supper, she asked her matron, “Has a letter arrived from the south?”

She believed, as I did, that even if I was not his biological daughter, I had spent years suffering as a hostage on his behalf. Surely that bond could not be severed so easily.

The matron would shake her head.

After too many disappointments, the Empress Dowager stopped asking.

Three months into my wait, as summer gave way to autumn, the Prince of Pingnan finally returned to the capital under imperial summons.

The night before his arrival, the Empress Dowager called me into her room. I rested my head on her knees while she stroked my hair.

“I owe you an apology, too, for what has happened,” she said.

The candlelight was dim. Looking up, I saw that the hair at her temples had turned white.

She had raised me for years. Somewhere along the way, those years of relying on each other had worn away the political calculations with which it had all begun.

The grief in her eyes unsettled me for a moment. It was as though I were truly her own child.

“I regret summoning you to the capital. If I had let you stay safely with your father, how could things have come to this?”

Her eyes reddened.

“Yinshuang, you ought to resent me.”

The late-autumn night was cold, but I felt no chill. With my head on her lap, I might have been nestled in my mother's arms.

I took her hand and smiled.

“I've been with you for eight years, and you've never complained that I was a nuisance.

“I know who has been kind to me.”

People say a person's worth lies in their deeds, not their hidden thoughts.

For the Emperor's sake, the Empress Dowager had brought me into the palace as a hostage. She had had little choice.

But she was also the one who had protected me all these years.

Father had sent me here for the same reason. He, too, had had little choice.

Yet once he learned that we shared no blood, none of it seemed to matter anymore.

That night, I tossed and turned without sleeping.

At first light, the Qin family from Zhenjiang entered the imperial city.

I had barely opened my door when a palace maid arrived.

“My lady, His Majesty's eunuch has come to escort you to the Hall of Supreme Harmony.”

The Emperor had already met Father. He had left a side hall for us to speak in private.

They say the mind goes blank when you see someone again after a long separation.

Instead, I found myself strangely calm. Last night I had been full of hurt and anger. Today, as I looked up across more than half the hall, Father and I met each other's eyes.

The years seemed to pass silently between us.

He had grown old.

The face that had once been so spirited was weathered now. Silver threaded his temples.

“Yinshuang.”

He gave me an awkward smile, distant and polite.

The girl beside him raised her brows and nudged him with her elbow.

“Father! We agreed before we came that you would greet my sister properly. Why are you acting as though she's a stranger?”

I had meant to return his greeting politely. At those words, my smile faded.

Father pinched the tip of her nose with helpless affection.

“You little thing!”

When I left home, my younger brother, Qin Ruoheng, had not yet turned one. Now he stood close to the girl, a boy who would not spare me so much as a glance.

I watched in silence.

The warmth in the hall had nothing to do with me.

A happy family of three.

3

The girl came toward me and reached for my hand, her smile bright and lively.

“Sister, I'm Hanzhu. Qin Hanzhu.”

For some reason, hearing that name felt like a weight settling on my chest.

Qin Yinshuang. Qin Hanzhu.

Father had named us both, but the difference was immediately clear. She was the true jewel in the palm of the prince's household.

There had never been any comparison between us.

Instinctively, I drew back my sleeve.

Her hand missed mine. She stood there awkwardly, her eyes reddening. Lowering her head, she spoke in a wounded voice.

“I didn't mean anything by it... I only thought that even if we hadn't seen each other for years, a family shouldn't be so distant.”

Ruoheng stepped forward and rammed his shoulder into me.

I staggered back, almost striking the corner of the table behind me. When I regained my footing, I saw him holding Hanzhu's hand, as if afraid I might fail to notice how close they were.

Though a little frightened, he glared at me like a small animal baring its teeth.

“If my sister didn't want us to be kind to you, do you think we'd even bother? You made my real sister spend all those years away from her family, and now you can't even be grateful. You're heartless!”

Father's expression changed. He snapped, “Be quiet!”

Then, seeing the sudden coldness in my eyes, he stepped in front of Hanzhu and Ruoheng to shield them.

The anger caught in my chest faltered. Bitterness rose until even my tongue felt numb.

So many feelings tangled together.

That stance was familiar.

I had been away too long. The years in the palace had been longer still. I had turned over my memories of Zhenjiang before the age of seven countless times, carefully storing every scrap of sweetness.

Only when I hurt most did I take out a little to comfort myself. Those rare traces of warmth were treasures I hid away again and again.

I tried to smile at Father. It probably looked worse than crying.

He looked pained.

“You stood in front of me like that when I was four,” I said.