"The princess has no doubt heard that General Wu Qi has offered ten cities in exchange for your return. Does Your Highness truly wish to remain in Qi?" Jia Xiche sipped his tea.
"Wu Qi is a traitor. Most of Qi's military strength lies in Your Highness's hands. Would you be willing to send troops to join my grandfather, the King of the Southern Border, and purge the usurper?"
"And why would I? What does your dynasty's crisis have to do with Qi?" Jia Xiche laughed.
"Are you content, then?"
"Hmm?"
"Spending the rest of your life in the shadows with the person you love."
"What do you mean by that?!" A nerve had been struck. Jia Xiche's face darkened in an instant.
"Your Highness is the son of our dynasty's fifth prince—a hostage prince—and a princess of Qi. Here, no matter how brilliantly you perform, your bloodline will never qualify you for the throne. But in my dynasty, that same bloodline could place you on it."
Su Jing held his gaze, her chin tilted, every word calibrated to land.
"You love your people. You are just and capable. You would make a fine emperor. And once you sit on that throne, with supreme power in your hands, who would dare question whom you choose to love? Unlike now—even without me, there will always be another queen forced upon you, every move watched, even the number of your heirs dictated."
Jia Xiche fell silent, weighing each word.
A long pause.
"What are the odds? How many troops can the Southern Border King field?"
"I've already written to my grandfather. He'll commit sixty percent of his forces. With the Shadow Guard Token, I have eyes on every move inside the palace. Add half of Qi's military strength, and crushing Wu Qi's new army will be no challenge."
"And what does the princess want in return?"
"One life, one love. Nothing more. I suspect Your Highness wants the same." Su Jing smiled. "If you agree, we can be the finest of partners."
"One life, one love!" Jia Xiche laughed, his eyes glittering in the candlelight.
* * *
Su Jing quietly exhaled. The gambit had worked.
"I am curious, though—how did you and your beloved come together? It can't have been easy." Jia Xiche leaned forward, elbows on the table, the politics forgotten.
"We've known each other since childhood. He's the son of the former Left Chancellor. After his family's downfall, he entered the palace as a eunuch and stayed by my side. He is the kindest person I've ever known."
Su Jing's whole expression softened at the mention of Shen Yuan.
"How enviable, to have a love that goes both ways." Jia Xiche paused, and something bitter flickered across his face.
"Unlike mine. In the end, it's only ever been one-sided."
"The way your shadow guard burst through that window tonight didn't look one-sided to me." Su Jing grinned.
"You don't understand. That's just duty to him. He doesn't like men. I forced him. He had no choice." Jia Xiche's gaze drifted somewhere far away.
"Even so—I want to keep him beside me. Does that make me selfish?"
"Love is selfish."
It was true. Love was a fist closing around the one thing you could not bear to set down—holding tighter the more it cut into your palm.
"By the way—your disguise as a woman that day at the market was flawless. No one would have guessed." Su Jing pivoted, sensing the mood growing heavy.
"Naturally. A face this handsome looks even better in women's clothes." Jia Xiche preened.
"Then shall we call each other 'sisters' from now on?"
Jia Xiche shot her a withering look and swept toward the door.
"Enough chatting with my darling sister—I'm off to find my little shadow guard!"
He sashayed out, leaving Su Jing staring after him in speechless disbelief.
* * *
After that night, Su Jing and Jia Xiche settled into a genuine sisterly rapport. They had no shortage of common ground—from rouge and powder to eyebrow pencils and liner—to the point where Shen Yuan began to feel vaguely threatened.
"Your Highness and the prince seem to be getting along wonderfully. Quite the picture of marital bliss." Shen Yuan's voice was flat, his face sour.
"Are you jealous?" Su Jing grinned.
He gave a soft hmph and said nothing.
"Have you seen the way Xiche hangs off his shadow guard? His eyeballs are practically glued to the man. What is there to be jealous of? He has zero interest in me, and I only have interest in you." She poked his arm.
The assurance smoothed every crease from Shen Yuan's face. His whole posture loosened, as though someone had untied a knot behind his ribs.
That easy to appease, Su Jing thought. That's my man.
* * *
One day, she sat with Jia Xiche for their usual chat.
"You said Huai'en is adopted?"
"Mm. I found him on a hunting trip in the mountains. Someone had left him in the wild. I just felt sorry for the child." Jia Xiche's voice was careful, neutral.
There was another reason he did not say aloud. The baby's eyes looked exactly like A Jin's.
A Jin—the shadow guard's name, chosen by Xiche himself.
The moment he saw the infant, a thought had lodged in his chest: If he and A Jin could have a child, this is what it would look like.
So he claimed the boy as his adopted son, consequences and gossip be damned.
Because A Jin didn't want men, Xiche dressed as a woman whenever they were alone—hoping, just maybe, A Jin might like him a little more.
A little would be enough.
But A Jin would only kneel, cold and distant, and say: "No matter how you dress, Your Highness is still a man. Why deceive yourself?"
He lived inside his own illusion, drunk on a dream he'd built from nothing.
To shake him awake, A Jin had once thrown the child away.
For the first time, Xiche's eyes went red. He whipped A Jin, demanding to know where the baby was. A Jin stood rooted, jaw locked, absorbing every lash without flinching.
In the end the child was found. And Xiche could go back to dreaming, alone on his stage.
* * *
Jia Xiche pulled himself out of the memory, pressed his fingers to his temples, and turned the conversation to military strategy.
Together they marshaled eighty thousand troops and rendezvoused with the Southern Border King's seventy thousand elite soldiers outside the imperial city.
The odds were not in their favor. According to the Shadow Guard intelligence, Wu Qi held a hundred thousand battle-hardened men. He had sealed the gates days ago, and most of the court's power blocs had defected to his side. A frontal assault would drown the city in blood.
Worse, Wu Qi had gathered the families of every imperial guard into a single compound—anyone who wavered would see their entire household executed. The guards had no choice but to fight to the death, even serving a traitor.
"Allow me to infiltrate the city. I'll reconnect with the old Shen loyalists and find a way to turn the gate commander. If we can open the gates from within, the battle is half won." Shen Yuan stepped forward.
"But the danger—if Wu Qi catches you—" Su Jing gripped his sleeve.
"Trust me. The Shen network runs through every hall in that palace and every alley outside it. My father once saved the gate commander's life. He's an honest man, no family to threaten. The odds are in our favor." Shen Yuan squeezed her hand and brushed the top of her head.
"Wait for me, Your Highness."
But three days later, what arrived was not Shen Yuan.
It was a blood-soaked jade pendant—the one he never removed from his body.
"If the princess wants him back, come to the north gate at the third watch. Alone."
The handwriting belonged to Wu Qi.
* * *
The third watch. Su Jing slipped past every guard and climbed into the palanquin waiting at the north gate.
The streets were dead quiet. Not a soul in sight. Only the soft rhythm of the bearers' footsteps, carrying her back to hell, one step at a time.
The palanquin stopped. Maids surrounded her, drew her a bath, dressed her, arranged her hair, then led her into the Hall of Mental Cultivation.
Su Jing pushed open the doors. Wu Qi lounged on the dragon throne, his robe hanging loose, pouring himself cup after cup. When he saw her, his eyes flared bright.
"You were reborn, too."
Su Jing's voice was steady, certain.
Wu Qi smiled.
"Clever girl. Come here, Jing."
"Where is Shen Yuan? What have you done with him?"
"This is a reunion between husband and wife. Why bring up outsiders?" His smile turned dismissive.
"I asked you—where is Shen Yuan?!" Her voice cracked like a whip.
"Behave yourself, and he stays alive." Wu Qi chuckled, crooking a finger. "Come. Don't make me ask again."
Su Jing forced herself closer. He pulled her down onto the throne beside him.
"Try this. Your favorite osmanthus cake. I had it made just for you." He lifted a piece to her lips.
"Just tell me what you want." She turned her face away, refusing his touch.
He wasn't angry. He ate the cake himself, grinning. "What I want? To be king, of course. You'll be my queen. We'll be together forever."
Su Jing laughed, cold as frost.
"A piece of filth like you? On the throne?"
* * *
His face twisted. He swept every cup and dish off the table in a single violent arc, then seized her chin and wrenched her face toward his.
"Why not me? Last time, I was one step from the crown. If that damned eunuch hadn't interfered, it would have been mine!"
Su Jing pressed her lips together. She said nothing, her gaze locked on his, her eyes laced with poison.
"Don't look at me like that, Jing. You have no idea how much I love you."
"Love me?" She laughed. "You seem to have forgotten—in the last life, you killed me."
"No! It wasn't like that!" Wu Qi's composure crumbled.
"Father feared I was too obsessed with you, that you'd become a distraction. He drugged you and set the fire while I was away. I had nothing to do with it. But it doesn't matter now—I've already killed him. Avenged you. This time, nothing stands between us."
"You killed your own father?!" Su Jing stared, horrified.
"Ha! Father?" Wu Qi's laughter rang through the empty hall, unhinged. "I was nothing but a tool to him. A rung on his ladder. I'm not a tool. I'm a person. I have feelings, I have desires. But who ever cared?"
Something fractured behind his pupils. The pupils themselves had gone glassy, the whites threaded with red.