She was once the noble daughter of the prime minister's household, raised in luxury. Then, in a single stroke, her family was destroyed, and she fell into the dust.
The ninth day of the first month, in the twenty-third year of Jingyuan.
The city of Zhongdu was decked out in festive lights, yet the rear courtyard of the prime minister's residence was so quiet you could hear the snow melt.
Shen Luan stood before a bronze mirror, looking at her soon-to-be fifteen-year-old self, unaware that this would be the last of her good days.
The moment the Brocade Guard broke through the gate, she fell from the clouds into the mire.
Treason and collaboration with the enemy. The entire household sentenced to execution.
She watched with her own eyes as her younger brother was dragged away, as her grandmother fainted on the spot, as all their former glory vanished.
She confessed.
She took the blame alone to give her family a chance to live.
Exiled three thousand li to the northern frontier, never to return to the capital.
The former daughter of the prime minister's household became a prisoner in a bitterly cold land.
But she refused to accept her fate.
In a prison cell where daylight never reached, someone secretly plotted on her behalf.
On the snowbound road to exile, someone secretly escorted her.
In the bitter cold of the Northern Frontier's Frozen Ridge, she concealed her identity and bided her time.
She said:
"One day, I will walk back into Zhongdu openly and proudly."
"I will make everyone know that the Shen family was framed."
But what she did not know was this:
What secret did the childhood friend who reached out to her at her lowest point keep in his heart?
What ties did the seemingly spoiled young master of the Northern Frontier have to Zhongdu?
And what did her mother's dying words, "You are different from everyone else," really mean?
Was she a pawn or a player? Was she the orphaned daughter of the prime minister's household, or was there more to her story?
A game of political intrigue, a love that cuts to the bone. See how she uses her wits as a blade, claws her way out of the mire, and takes the world in hand.
