When I was seven, my brother brought home a slave he'd found.
His name was A Shi. He was quiet and obedient. If I told him to kneel, he wouldn't dare stand.
If I told him to warm my bed, he wouldn't dare get dressed.
When I was sixteen, I grew tired of how meekly he put up with everything. In front of the entire household, I smashed the jade pendant he'd given me.
“Get out. What gives a slave like you the right to say you love me?”
He really did leave, going off to the bloody borderlands. He never came back.
Helian Zhuo, the new king of the grasslands, arrives at the border with a hundred thousand cavalry and demands one person by name.
The consort of Princess Yong'an, Shen Zhao.
At the banquet, I cough up blood as they help me to my seat. I look up and see a familiar face on the throne.
My A Shi, now dressed in wolf fur, his eyes sharp as a blade, with the most beautiful woman on the grasslands in his arms.
Right in front of me, he crushes his wine cup.
“Consort, long time no see.”
That night, I cough up three pints of blood. The imperial physician says my heart has stopped. I won't live to see winter.
My memories return to when I was sixteen. I tug on his sleeve and plead, “A Shi, stay with me tonight. I'm cold.”
I see pain and madness surging in his eyes.
He pins me against the wall and kisses me, then shoves me away and slaps himself hard across the face.
“Shen Zhao, open your eyes and look. Who's the one kneeling here like your dog now?”
The interactive pull is so strong...