In her previous life, Su Zhao donned armor as a woman and helped her older brother claim the throne, only to be poisoned by the man she loved on the eve of his coronation. When she opened her eyes again, she had returned to the year she came of age, and vowed to shatter the fate of women being used as pawns. This time, she would no longer hide her destiny as a phoenix. Making the empire her board and its people her pieces, she would drag every scumbag official who had once trampled her underfoot from their lofty pedestals. But the cold-faced regent, who was supposed to have died young, slipped into her bedchamber every night and whispered coaxingly, “Your Majesty, give me half your imperial bed, and I’ll bring the realm to heel for you.” She smiled as she drank the poisoned wine, pressing a knife to his heart. “I want the realm, and you, your heart and all, belong to me alone.” Phoenix fire blazes across the land as she defies fate and becomes empress. This time, she will claim both the empire and love.
