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“Well, work faster or I’ll give you something else to have nightmares about.” The woman turned to scold another girl nearby.
Today, Xifeng was on cleaning duty with a dozen maidservants, scrubbing Lady Sun’s lacquered wood floors. She dipped her rag in a bucket of water, splashing a few drops on her face to help her stay awake. Madam Hong had rushed them through the morning prayers and meal to clean the concubine’s apartments from top to bottom.
Xifeng stifled another yawn. She hadn’t slept a full night since finding the hot springs a week ago. She kept dreaming about the mirror-water and the creature’s whisper:fairest.In some of the dreams, Guma came to her, bleeding from a wound in her chest. In others, a man too tall to be human rose from the water and spoke to her, but when she awoke the next morning, she could never remember what he had said.
“Stupid, useless thing!” Madam Hong shouted at another girl.
Xifeng scrubbed harder, not wanting to be the woman’s next victim. Her mind wandered back to the hot springs as she worked. It had been difficult finding a way out of the tunnel. She had scraped her hands climbing up slippery rocks to the main passageway, and she’d had to lie to the guards about being on an errand for Lady Sun so they would let her back into the city of women, but it had been worth it. She would do it again in a heartbeat, just to see that image of herself—beautiful, queenly, and invincible—in the strange mirror-water.
I took action once, for Wei,she thought.Now I must do so again for myself.
Boldly putting herself before the Crown Prince had gotten her access to the palace. This time, she needed to do the same with Emperor Jun.
It was time to meet her destiny.
“You don’t look like a servant,” a maid whispered, eyeing her with suspicion when Madam Hong’s back was turned. “Are you new?”
“You could say that.” Xifeng didn’t offer any more information. No one, least of all an ugly maidservant, needed to know she was here on a mission. Lady Sun hadn’t summoned her today, so she’d made sure to volunteer for scrubbing duty in order to be in the apartments.
Madam Hong clapped her hands for attention. “Stop your work. Take your buckets and go. Hurry.” She darted a glance at the lanterns, which burned low. The maidservants scurried to obey, and she turned in time to see Xifeng pick up a tray of persimmons and walk toward the concubine’s inner chambers. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Lady Sun is hungry,” Xifeng lied, holding up the tray she’d stolen from the kitchens, and left without another word.
A eunuch snapped to attention in the corridor when he heard her footsteps, relaxing when he saw her. “She’s sulking in her bedchamber,”he said, not bothering to hide his delight. “She’s warming up for another argument with the Emperor. You’d best come back another time.”
“I’ll leave this with her and be on my way.”
She had no desire to see the concubine in a temper. She just needed a place to hide while she waited for the Emperor to arrive. All week, she’d been asking subtle questions here and there about when His Majesty would visit the concubine. A few well-placed queries had informed her that today was the anniversary of Lady Sun’s arrival at court, and the Emperor would be coming to dine with her; all of the cleaning had been for his benefit.
She passed a procession of frazzled maids bustling in and out of the bedchamber where Lady Sun wailed loudly. It sounded like she was breaking things, too, from the shattering that punctured the air every few moments.
“You are all useless!” the concubine shouted, her voice growing louder with each word as though she were pursuing the fleeing maids.
Xifeng deposited the tray on the floor and dashed down the corridor, ducking into a random doorway just as Lady Sun emerged, screeching for the eunuchs’ help. No doubt His Majesty’s visit would be short today. Xifeng would wait until he was leaving and put herself before him. She had to cross his path, see his face and hear his voice.
She needed to glimpse her future.
The very idea made her palms dampen, and Wei’s face appeared in her mind.He’s happy where he is,she told herself determinedly. And when she became Empress, she would again be able to see him whenever she wanted; their fates would still be entwined as the cards predicted. She would be able to do anything she wished.
Xifeng studied her surroundings. The room she had entered didn’t seem to belong in these apartments. It was elegant in a sparse, simpleway, with a few paintings and a heavy rug that muffled her footsteps. But what attracted her was the mahogany table in the center of the room. It held a magnificent map of the continent and its surrounding islands, painted on a sheet of paper so large she wondered at the tree from which it had come.
There had been a few maps in the volumes at home, but this was Feng Lu as she had never seen it. The artist had sketched the trees of the Great Forest with such exquisite detail, she could almost hear them rustling in some unfelt breeze. A red pin marked the Imperial Palace, from which she retraced her journey through the city and back into the forest.
According to this map, she had traveled the distance of her two hands placed palm to fingertip. She marveled at the immensity of the world in which they lived. Truly, they were nothing more than mere specks in a landscape of mountains and grasslands, oceans and rivers.
What might it be like, to be Empress of all these lands? She ran her fingers across the sea, imagining the waves stirring beneath her touch. Her heart soared.
“Do you like it?” a voice asked, and she jumped and spun around.
A man sat in the corner, his face partially hidden from view by an ivory folding screen. He was neither young nor old and wore a simple tunic of dark blue. He reminded her of painted mountains she had seen in books: sharp and jagged, with a bleak beauty honed by wind and struggle. He rose and came closer, observing her as intently as she did him. He seemed familiar somehow, like someone she had once known, though she was certain they’d never met. He could not be a eunuch, with that starkly masculine face and rich, dark voice. Nor was he a prince, for she had met the eldest, the Crown Prince, and this man seemed older than he was.
“I’ve never seen a more beautiful map,” Xifeng said cautiously.
He approached her with confident dignity. His chin was upturned and the lines in his face were hard, strong, as though he were used to giving orders that were obeyed without question.
All at once, it struck her: this was the man for whom she had been waiting—the Emperor of all Feng Lu. It could only be him—what man, aside from a eunuch, would be allowed in the women’s quarters? And she had never seen anyone with a more commanding presence. He walked as though he owned not only the palace, but the entire world.
He must have come in, unseen, from a different entrance.
