Shen Qingque of Phoenix Bone

In the twelfth year of Yong'an under the Southern Qi, Shen Qingque, commander of the Azure Sparrow Guards, once the sharpest blade in the empire, fell from grace overnight and became a prisoner. Her family had been framed, and she was consumed by a blood feud. With her sinews and bones crippled, she was discarded and given as a gift to Xiao Changyin, a disabled prince rumored to be sickly and ill-tempered.

Everyone thought she would die in disgrace within the silent walls of the prince's residence. None could imagine how the hands that once wielded the sharpest blades in the land would now set the capital in turmoil. He was a frail prince in the eyes of the world, but his shadowed eyes concealed an ambition to overturn the realm. She was an Azure Sparrow with broken wings, her heart aflame with vengeance.

When a good-for-nothing prince meets a deposed commander, is it a contest between a pawn and a player, or an attraction between kindred spirits? In this game of political intrigue, with the realm itself as the board, they probe and use each other, yet the trust they place in one another at the edge of death gives rise to the most dangerous feelings. As the layers of truth are gradually revealed, Shen Qingque discovers that her greatest enemy may also be her only salvation.