The Emperor had left.

The same Emperor that Nai had spent the past three years of her life devoting herself to, whose good graces she had fought and clawed herself into, whose entertainment and pleasure she had been made to see to—that emperor had left.

And he hadn't taken her with him.

Other concubines, ones who had been here far longer, who had born the Emperor's sons and poisoned jealous rivals and been dutifully brought naked to his bedchamber each night, were packing their bags. Well, they were ordering around the eunuchs, who were in turn filling their lacquered trunks with embroidered hanfu and silk slippers, but it didn't matter.

They were going with him. And Nai wasn't.

She hadn't been trusted enough, hadn't charmed him enough, hadn't plied him with enough sweetness and sultry venom and coy seduction to complete her mission.

Nai had failed, and she would pay dearly for whatever mistake she had committed during her tenure as one of the Emperor's concubines.

Sitting on her bed, she felt the blankets shift, hearing the telltale creak of the mattress dipping beside her as her best friend, Yuming, sat down.

Nai looked over at her longtime companion, the woman who had been by her side since they'd both joined the harem within days of one another, as scared sixteen-year-old girls with bowlegged knees and dirt under their fingernails. As almost-children, playing at being something they were not, donning bejewelled hairpins and swanning around as though they were great beauties; kissing a man they hardly cared for and pretending being an Emperor made him a god rather than a sadistic tyrant.

Now, with her skin the palest shade of beauty and her lips and round cheeks rouged, Yuming had become the Emperor's favourite. Nai, however, was clearly far from it.

"Should you not be preparing to leave? I thought the Emperor would be taking you with him. You are his favourite, after all." Nai raised an eyebrow as Yuming wrapped her arm around Nai's shoulders, squeezing slightly.

Yuming sighed, and Nai tried to read beneath the exasperation in her friend's expression. Scrutinizing her features, she saw things she hadn't noticed before: the pale blue of dark circles beneath her eyes, the faint crinkle between Yuming's brows, the hollows of her cheeks more pronounced than usual.

"Are you ill?" asked Nai. "You look as though you haven't been sleeping. Or is it the flurry of packing for the trip that has you looking so exhausted?"

"I..." Yuming clapped a hand over her mouth to hide her yawn. "I am fine. And why are you saying trip like that?"

"Like what?" Nai leaned her head on her friend's shoulder, knowing how Yuming hated when Nai pretended not to know what she was talking about.

Yuming rolled her eyes in a mien of unladylike frustration. "The trip."

"Oh, you mean the Emperor's..." she dropped her tone to a whisper, and continued, "exile?"

They both knew that the Emperor was not merely taking a holiday to the Summer Palace, or leaving the Forbidden City to survey his troops. No, he was being replaced.

Meaning, all of Nai's years of work had gone down the drain.

"That." Yuming rested a hand on her abdomen, her figure dwarfed by her hanfu. The loose clothing did nothing for her figure. "Is the reason he isn't taking you. You're too shrewd. You know too much, and you let on that you know too much."

Nai frowned at her friend's words. Though she couldn't deny the truth in them, she had hoped that no one else would notice that she was far from a typical scheming concubine, vying for power or position within the harem. Seeking sons and fortune. No, Nai was not here to be loved by the Emperor, which she knew had been quite fatal for many of the women who had suffered that affliction.

"What's the matter with that? Would he rather I pretend to be insipid and vain? I'm sure that would irritate him a great deal less." She stared into the painted silk screen dividing her bed from her washstand, decorated with images of cranes and peach trees, wishing for a moment that she could be transported to that magical paradise. The harem would be so dull with no one else around. Nai rested her chin on her hands, her elbows on her knees, and Yuming's arm dropped from her shoulders. "I'm going to miss you terribly."

"I have no idea why you would do that, considering I'm not going anywhere."

"You're not leaving with the Emperor? But Yuming, you are his favourite. Why would he not want you with him?"

"Nai..." Yuming leaned in, cupping her hand around her red lips. "I am carrying his child. Likely a son, if the midwife is correct."

Nai of all people understood why such information would be deadly. Better that the Emperor leave her behind, than bring her with him and bear the risk of her child being drowned or her being poisoned by one of the other envious concubines.

"That is wonderful." A lump formed in Nai's throat as she said the words, though she wasn't sure why. Of course, she was happy for her friend. Of course she was. "Simply wonderful news. We shall have to celebrate and tell the cooks to make something special for you—after everyone has left, of course."

"Nai," Yuming said, squeezing Nai's hand. "You aren't upset, are you?"

"Upset?" Nai repeated, laughing. "Why should I be upset?"

She had certainly never wished to bear a child for a man she did not care for, who cared nothing for her, and saw her merely as a vessel to continue his family lineage. Had she, as a carefree girl living in Sichuan, chasing tadpoles and being dared by her brother to eat mala chilli peppers, once dreamt of being a wife to a kind, strong, and loving man, and having his children?

Perhaps. But those days were past now. No men existed here.

Here, there were only a tyrant, and the eunuchs.

"That... that you aren't going with the rest of the girls." Yuming bit her lip. "Or that I told you the reason the Emperor isn't taking you with him."

"How do you know why he isn't taking me with him? Or is it mere conjecture?" Nai's brows knitted together as she turned to face her friend. "Such a conversation would hardly be suitable for pillow talk, I think."

Beneath the cosmetics, her friend blushed a deep red. She never was able to tell lies or keep secrets. "He did tell me. He was drunk, and he said you reminded him of his mother."

"His mother?" Even as she repeated the words, she understood them. The Emperor's mother was a concubine whose reputation notoriety was an insufficient word to describe. She had been rumoured to strangle her own child to gain the sympathy of her Emperor; to hack her rivals into pieces and soak their limbless torsos in vats of wine... Well, the mere thought of that made Nai shudder. "I don't know if I've ever killed my own daughter or tortured my enemies in so gruesome a fashion, but I suppose I should be grateful for the compliment."

"Nai!" Yuming's tone was chastising, like that of a tutor catching his student dozing off in a lesson. "I am sure he was only spewing intoxicated foolishness. You are nothing like that... that witch."

Nai chuckled at her friend's inability to curse. The sweet, wide-eyed, round-cheeked girl from Suzhou may have grown in some ways in the three years since they'd become concubines at the Emperor's palace, but in other ways she was still innocent in ways that Nai envied. "I am only joking. Let us move onto more interesting topics. Who do you think will replace the Emperor?"

Before Yuming could open her mouth to suggest a successor, or to tell Nai not to speak of such matters lest they be smeared as traitors to the monarch, the rosewood door flew open and the chief eunuch stood there with a missive in hand.

"The Emperor's replacement has arrived!"

***

The last place Sou Hei, former advisor to the previous Emperor of the Middle Kingdom, wanted to be, was back in the Forbidden City.

The doors of the palace flew open, shutting behind him with a final-sounding thud that boomed throughout the small, dimly lit hall. Terracotta soldiers lined the walls of the foyer, and a servant hurried toward him to usher him forward. "They are waiting for you in the throne room, Your Excellency."

He did not correct the man on his title, given that he would have to grow used to the bowing and scraping soon enough. Not to mention the kowtowing. "Thank you."

His robes swished against his trousers as he took brisk, purposeful steps toward the cavernous chamber, where the emperor's councillors were gathered.

As the guards pulled the heavy wooden doors aside, the golden whiskers on the dragons hanging from the door's handles winked at him, gleaming in the light of the setting sun. He felt the strangest urge to wink back, but refused it, not wanting these men of good repute and honour to think he had taken leave of his senses.

No, the only thing he had taken leave of was his post. When he should be at home, still grieving the loss of his wife and their stillborn child, observing the appropriate mourning period for the second year in a row, he had been called in to do work. Work that seemed to never end: the onerous task of keeping the Middle Kingdom in some semblance of functioning order.

"Your Excellency." All the men stood at once to greet him, and his nerves already tensed at the sound of chairs grating against the tiled floor. This one bore a mosaic of a peach orchard, the pinks and oranges of the fruit and its blossoms calming him somewhat as he glanced at the floral motifs. "Thank you for joining us on such short notice."

The tallest and oldest of the six men gathered around the table cleared his throat, causing his wispy moustache to bob up and down with his Adam's apple. Sou Hei recognized him as Luo Yuan Ping, a nobleman who had given his life in service to the kingdom. "We appreciate your presence here, Advisor Sou. We all know the previous Emperor found your advice invaluable, and that he would be distraught at the state that his son, long may he live, has left the kingdom in."

"As am I," Sou Hei said, standing at his seat at the head of the table before gesturing for them all to sit back down. "I am not a man for pleasantries, nor do I enjoy standing on ceremony. I do my best to be a man of action. I will not pretend that things are as prosperous as they once were, in the Tang Dynasty, but that does not mean the fate of the kingdom is irreversibly in disrepair."

He unfurled a scroll on the lacquered table, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and pinned down the map's curling corners with a handful of jade knickknacks. "We have enemies encroaching on our borders. The Mongols have been driven back for now, but we cannot allow those barbarians any more territory than they have already gained. But worse, yet, is the enemies within the palace."

The men eyed one another uneasily, Yuan Ping included, but said nothing, either too intimidated by him or already conspiring wordlessly against him.

This would be good for him, he told himself. After his months of grieving, the distraction would settle his soul, firm up the infirmities in his mind.

"Before he left, the Emperor wrote letters, telling me he suspected that someone in the palace was a mole. Military secrets were being leaked to our enemy... the Yellow Dragon. That butcher and his beast somehow know every last one of our military encampments, and he has learned the locations and times of our troops' movements. We will not allow traitors in our midst. We must root out every last one of them." He remained standing, surveying the faces of each and every man at the table. Some shifted beneath his gaze; others, still, sat erect with shoulders back and arrogant expressions. "And then, when we have found the spy among us, we will execute them."

"Very well, sire, but how do you intend on finding the spy?" Yuan Ping asked, his moustache trembling once more as he spoke.

"All correspondence in and out of the Forbidden City must be monitored. All visitors, guests, servants, and anyone else who passes through those gates will be subject to thorough investigation. I do not care how insignificant anyone or thing entering the palace is; they must be scrutinized."

He planted his hands on the table, feeling the stability of it, yet also sensing a slight imbalance in the legs. A crack ran through the tiled top, indicating wear and tear. It looked like a solid foundation to rest things upon, but one wrong move, and that fissure would lead to all-out civil war. One improperly timed step, one inappropriately placed pawn, and the game would be over for him.

"Your Excellency, though we all agree with what you have said..." This time, Li Yi Fei spoke, a younger, portlier man than the wiry, moustachioed Yuan Ping. His eyes were earnest, though red-rimmed. "We must bring to your attention a small matter of the harem."

"The harem?" He repeated. "Did not the Emperor take all his concubines and consorts with him into exile?"

"Most of them were sent for," Yi Fei said. "However, two of them remain. He left his favourite behind, because she is carrying his child."

The mention of pregnancy and its ensuing complications and dangers no longer pained him as it once had. Perhaps the grief had hardened his heart over time.

"And the other?" Sou Hei had neither the time nor patience for these petty harem squabbles or the constant contending of frivolous women.

"Well, he left his least favourite concubine behind with his favourite. We are unsure of what you would have us do with her." Yi Fei's expression cemented into a sneer. If she was unloved and unwanted by the Emperor, that was a fate worse than death for a woman in the harem.

Rejection could only be followed by a life shut up in a Buddhist nunnery, or worse yet... death. For though the Emperor did not want her, no other man could have her.

Such a fate had never sat well with Sou Hei. Yet the fate of one concubine was of no consequence to him.

"Bring her in to dine with me tonight." He would welcome the change of pace from a typical dull meal alone in the Emperor's chamber, supping on wild rice and vegetables, as was supposedly healthful, according to the imperial doctors. "I will decide whether she is to stay, or to go."