After a Political Marriage, I Became the Empress’s Beloved

[Two female leads | A story of redemption | Political intrigue and personal growth]

A marriage alliance sends me tumbling from the grasslands' blazing sun into the cold depths of the imperial palace.

On my wedding night, the emperor never came. Instead, the empress arrived, the one who had long been ill and fallen out of favor.

She had been ordered to “teach” me the rules.

Later, we became the palace's biggest joke:

one of us was a foreign princess who had been rejected, the other a frail empress no one cared about.

The consorts bullied us, the servants neglected us. Like two wounded cubs, we licked each other's wounds in a corner.

I thought we would quietly rot away like that.

Then someone framed me, trying to put me to death. She had always been silent, but for the first time, she stepped in front of me.

The weariness in her eyes shattered, revealing a cold sharpness I had never seen before.

From that day on, she taught me to read, taught me how people think, and taught me to hide my claws up my sleeves.

“Since this palace has no room for even a little warmth,” she said, brushing the wound on my face. Her voice was as soft as snow, yet heavy as a vow.

“Then I will take you to the highest place, where we can find warmth.”