Page 73 of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

Xifeng’s hands were clasped so tightly, the knuckles turned white. Guma’s cards had warned her about the Fool, and it seemed thetengaruhad warned the Empress about Xifeng. This would seem to make Empress Lihua the Fool beyond the shadow of doubt.

The Fool.She recalled a high-pitched whistling, a wicked scythe splitting a man in half, Shiro stabbing an attacker to save Wei’s life—and presumably hers as well. Perhaps Her Majesty had taken thetengaru’s threat seriously. Perhaps she had sought to nip her enemy in the bud with a band of masked killers. Xifeng’s breath came in short, painful bursts, remembering how she had once longed for this womanto be her mother. This woman who may have tried to end her before they’d ever met.

“You’re pale,” Empress Lihua said flatly.

“I’m fine, Your Majesty.” Xifeng forced herself to remain calm as the Empress studied her, as though searching for something objectionable in her manner or dress. It seemed not even Her Majesty was above the jealousy and desperation that had plagued Lady Sun. She, too, was part of this game in which women could only hope to survive by keeping each other down.

“Let us return to our previous subject. You would be welcome to remain in my service, if you chose not to wed.” The Empress paused. “For me, it was inevitable. I was my parents’ only child. Daughters can rule in their own right if their parents deem them worthy, but mine thought me too gentle to be anything more than a consort. Perhaps they were right.”

Weak, in other words.Xifeng relished the scorn she felt. It made it easier to accept that she had lost all hope of ever winning this woman’s love.

“But even if I’d had the choice, I would have chosen to marry anyway. There is something sacred in the binding of two lives, in the love a couple joined in such a manner may bring to this world.”

Xifeng pushed away the image of Wei’s face. “Love does not always come with marriage, Your Majesty. Marriage may strengthen a woman, but love weakens her. She has more to lose.”

“But in weakness, you find your strength. It takes no small amount of courage to open yourself up,” the Empress said gently. “You leave pieces of yourself in the ones you love. Is that not the greatest power, to endure in that way?”

“I don’t know,” Xifeng said in a low voice. “I may never know.”

Something of the mother returned to Empress Lihua’s face, though she did not take Xifeng’s hand as she would have before. “I’ve been drawn to you since you came because I felt you truly cared about me. You needed me like I needed you, and no one at court has ever made me feel that way. They all want somethingfromme—notme,myself. We two have been honest with each other as best we could.”

And in her voice was a farewell that confirmed where Xifeng stood. There was now a distance between them that could never be bridged.

The Empress pointed to a beautiful bronze chest in the corner of the room. “There is something in there that belongs to you. Open it.”

Xifeng obeyed, curious when she found a pouch tied shut with gold cord. She gasped at the riches inside: a gold-and-ivory hairpin shaped like a flowering tree, a necklace of interlocking jewels that shone like drops of blood, brooches inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and a scroll in the Imperial colors with Emperor Jun’s crimson seal, unbroken.

“Those are gifts from His Majesty. To you.” The Empress fixed her eyes on the wall. “They’ve arrived regularly for months, but I asked the eunuchs to bring them to me. I hope you’ll forgive me, and I hope you understand why. But my conscience can no longer bear it.”

In spite of herself, Xifeng’s eyes stung at the pain in the woman’s voice. She blinked as she replaced the items in the pouch, fingers lingering on the Emperor’s seal. The girl she used to be, the one who might have understood that slipping, jealous fear, seemed a distant memory. That girl was gone, and the Empress knew it, too.

It was why she was saying goodbye.

Empress Lihua turned her attention back to her belly as though it were the only thing that could comfort her.

The scroll asked for the honor of a private audience with her. Asked, and not commanded. Xifeng accepted, pleased the Emperor would approach her from a position of respect. She pulled her hair into a plain knot, adorned with only the ivory-and-gold pin he had given her, and wore the simple gold silk under a fur-lined tunic, as the winter days had grown colder.

“Did you see how the other ladies stared at us?” she asked Kang, who escorted her across the Empress’s walkway into the main palace.

“Can you blame them? You are the vision of a queen.” The eunuch gave a sarcastic bow to the women peering at them from the Empress’s windows. The ladies scowled and retreated behind the opaque screens.

It felt strange and natural all at once to use Empress Lihua’s entrance, to see eunuchs greeting her courteously where they had once ignored her. Strange and natural to walk down gilded halls in silk and ivory with a loyal servant by her side, to have whispers and admiration follow in her wake.

“The noble families already know you,” Kang murmured. “They’re wondering whether they ought to spurn you or court your favor.”

“If they’re clever, they will choose well,” Xifeng said haughtily, and he grinned at her. “I’m going to ask the Emperor for something. Master Yu has fallen from favor since Lady Sun left court. He won’t be leader of the Five Tigers for long. I will ask that you take his place.”

Kang looked at her with fierce pride and bent low from the waist as if she were already Empress. He was still bowing when she swept through the doors of the Emperor’s apartments.

A pair of heavy brocade curtains sheltered the main room. The guards hurried to part them for her, wiping away smirks. No doubt they expected to hear interesting noises from behind the drapes in a moment, assuming she was like all the others. Easily used, easily discarded. That was their mistake, and if Emperor Jun thought the same, that was his mistake as well.

She made that clear with her modest clothing, the brisk manner in which she strode into the room, and the restrained bow she gave. There would be no fluttering of her eyelashes, no coquettish tilt of the neck. She looked the Emperor of Feng Lu in the eye like an equal.

His Majesty swept a hand toward one of the ornate chairs. “Thank you for joining me, Madam Xifeng. Please sit.” His formal tone perfectly matched her manner.Perceptive man,she thought as she sat down. And then a gleam came into his eyes, and she knew he had seen his gold-and-ivory pin in her hair. “I’ve ordered tea for us,” he added.

He sat down several chairs away, meticulously adjusting each fold of his simple dark blue robe. He appeared as he had when they had first met: too masculine to be a eunuch, too well kept to be less than a nobleman, and too young and unassuming to fit her idea of Emperor Jun.

Xifeng suddenly realized he was staring back at her, but did notbreak her gaze. She only lowered her eyes for her betters, and such a concept no longer applied to His Majesty.

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