She was the most dependable blade in the Duke of Zhenguo’s arsenal. Sent to the Eastern Palace at twelve, crowned empress at sixteen, and deposed and banished to the cold palace at twenty-two. Everyone thought she was finished: stripped of favor and power, tossed into a drafty shack in the Yong Lane to wait for death.
But they didn’t know she was waiting for the wind.
The nights in the cold palace were long, long enough for her to send her own younger sister to the emperor’s bed as bait; long enough for her to watch her sister die after being forced to miscarry, her hand hanging in midair, never coming down. If she had, she would have softened, and if she softened, she would lose. She cut away the last piece of herself called “familial love,” and from then on, nothing could hurt her.
Her grandfather said the daughters of the Shen family had no need for hearts. The emperor said her calculations were so precise they sent a chill down his back. The regent said, “I will be the blade in your hand.” She gathered every one of their words into her sleeve and ground them to dust, turning them into steps beneath her feet. The snow of the northern frontier, the rain of Jiangnan, the palace walls of the capital: she walked over them one step at a time, treading on blood. Behind her lay everyone she had sacrificed. Her sister’s death brought down Consort Chen; Consort Chen’s death brought about the ruin of the Liu family; the Liu family’s ruin won her the throne.
Later, she took her seat upon it. She renamed the dynasty Zhao, and the whole court knelt before her. At their head knelt the man who had killed the emperor for her. Looking down at them, she suddenly remembered something her grandfather had said many years ago: “There are only two things in this world that are real: the cards in your hand and the board before you.”
She opened her palm and studied the crisscrossing lines, then slowly clenched her fist. The world was hers now, but there was no one left she could talk to. Her sister was buried among the osmanthus trees of Jiangnan
