‘This was a trap.’ The princess’s chest heaved with tremors. ‘We’ve got to run. We need to leave, now —’

  Three didn’t wait.

  She sprinted to the locked door, regretting her decision to obey the princess earlier. It was locked from the outside — gritting her teeth, she drew a knife and wedged it into the door’s gap, her bde sinking into the pnk over and over.

  Then, she yanked it out and smmed a foot into it.

  Once —

  Twice —

  The door groaned, the snapping of splintered wood rippling into the air. One more kick and the whole thing colpsed, swinging wide open as bck chips went flying. A maid screamed not too far away.

  They fled, footsteps echoing behind them. Did someone go into the study, dusted with splinters? Did they find out?

  How could they even run from this?

  But before they could escape, before they could leave the terrible corridors, a man came from the halls, Eight and Ten right behind him.

  He reached out and seized Three’s pels — she didn’t dare move, didn’t dare offend him, in case he set those two guards on her princess like hounds on a fox — and roared as though his heart was ripped out of his chest. ‘Where is she? WHERE IS MY WIFE?!’

  ‘Your Majesty —’ Three spluttered, her hands gripping the empress’s iron cws, ‘she was —’

  ‘Let her go!’ Xi Qian’e bolted to them, ripping the empress’s hands off her. She stumbled back, gasping for air. ‘The emperor was in her quarters —’

  ‘The emperor is dead!’ A maid cried out from behind them, ‘THE PRINCESS KILLED THE EMPEROR!’

  Those words —

  Oh, how they locked around the empress’s throat.

  Face framed by terror, the empress whispered, ‘What have you done?’

  ‘It wasn’t us,’ Three cried. ‘Your Majesty, I cannot harm my emperor, I do not lie! My mistress is being framed —’

  ‘Then plead your case ter,’ the empress hissed. ‘And you, little guard — don’t think that I’ve forgotten you serve two masters!’

  Then he turned and roared to Eight and Ten, ‘Seize them!’

  ‘Eight, Ten, no — she struggled, trying to shove them away, but their enhanced strength was a terrifying one, a force that scattered bruises across her skin as Xi Qian’e watched with horrified eyes. ‘Why are you even listening to him? We serve the throne —’

  ‘Keep struggling,’ the empress snapped, ‘and I’ll kill your fucking princess where she stands. My wife is no longer here to keep me in check, after all.’

  Xi Qian’e yelled, ‘Three, stand down!’

  She nearly snapped her neck turning around. ‘You —!’

  The princess’s head hung low. ‘We can’t fight this.’

  ‘Sorry, kid,’ Eight whispered, his hands locking Three’s behind her back, ‘but orders are orders. Ten, grab the princess, would you?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  She stopped struggling and let herself be taken out of the emperor’s pace hall. Terrified blood coursed in her veins — her unease mounted as they came to the Hall of Heavenly Harmony.

  The empress turned to a eunuch and said, ‘Summon the ministers and princes.’

  He left in duck-footed haste.

  The princess was pced in chains, the ends held in Ten’s hands like a damned dog leash — the frustration, the anger, the panic, it boiled in her like a pot of oil about to explode. She and Three were made to kneel beside the empty dragon’s throne.

  ‘You can’t keep me here,’ Three hissed. ‘If the emperor is dead, we must return to the head shadow —’

  Eight cut her off as he pced cuffs around her wrists. ‘We’re following her orders. Posthumously, that is.’ He rapped her head, hard. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll stand with us soon.’

  She fell silent.

  The ministers trickled in like apples bobbing along a river. Prince Qianzhong and Xi Chanzui were like cranes in a flock of chickens — they had an eerie calmness to them, a stillness reminiscent of a decaying bog.

  The blind prince seemed to feel her gaze but turned away; his son, Xi Chanzui, didn’t bat an eye at his sister’s chains. It was as though the bitter expression on Xi Qian’e’s face was no more interesting than pickled cabbage.

  He just gave an irritated snort.

  What a shitty family you have, little princess.

  The empress stood on the steps of the throne as he addressed the whispering ministers. ‘Dear officials, I have a terrible, terrible announcement to make to you all.’ He spread his arms wide as though to embrace the trails of incense smoke in the air. With a tone gentler than a grieving lover’s, he murmured, ‘The emperor was assassinated.’

  So soon?

  Shock exploded on her face.

  Impossible.

  Was the empress crazy?

  ‘In her quarters, the Sixth Prince and Third Princess inherited their mother’s ambitious greed and committed treason by tricking Shadow Guard Three.’ His head turned down to her with a compassionate look, ‘Don’t worry, child. I know that you are a faithful guard, forced to obey your second mistress’s orders…’

  Her mouth dropped open.

  Then mud-like emotion smmed down on her. ‘No! I didn’t — we didn’t kill the emperor —’

  Laughter exploded into the air. ‘You think I’d help that bitch?’ The Sixth Prince was raved with a huge grin on his face, each of his words split apart by chuckles and maddened giggles. The lone earring on his right swung, the finger-long piece of gzed wood catching the light like a stick of dried blood. ‘That most foolish princess, that elder sister of mine, you think she’d have the gall to kill the emperor?!’

  He ughed and screamed, ‘Empress, you’re an imbecile if you believe so!’

  The empress snapped, ‘Impudent! Guards, seize him!’

  Men poured in from behind dark pilrs. They weren’t shadow guards — Three could tell at a gnce — but rather imperial soldiers.

  Soldiers from the Northern Army.

  The ministers fell silent as the Xi Chanzui was dragged away to the throne.

  Only then did Prince Qianzhong speak up. ‘Your Majesty,’ he called, his blindfolded gaze somehow more piercing than the sharpest of arrows, ‘where is your evidence proving my children’s treason?’

  ‘Do you recall Eunuch Meng? He went missing a little over a month ago, though his disappearance was kept under wraps.’ The empress waved his hand, two guards pulling in a rge bck box. ‘He was assassinated. Eight?’

  ‘He was killed by Three. That, I have no doubt; both Nine and I can swear on our servitude.’ Eight walked over to the coffin and pried up the lid — a rancid stench of rot and the reek of strong salt and vinegar came from it as an attendant wheeled in a huge mirror.

  The gss was tilted down to face the coffin’s open top — nausea cmbered into Three’s throat as the dead eunuch’s shredded body filled the mercury mirror’s reflection.

  The body, once ripped apart beyond recognition, had been sown back together. Fine stitches, more delicate than even the embroidery on the imperial dragon robe, held the dead eunuch’s skin together in a patchwork. The dead man’s complexion was of varying hues, stained red around the eyes and ears, all a pasty greyish yellow from embalming treatments and thick yers of salt and makeup.

  Maybe his rotting eyes would split open right then, and he would stand to roar at her like a monster.

  ‘Eunuch Meng was the emperor’s right-hand man and the st to deliver the edict of succession to the Head Shadow. The Third Princess and Sixth Prince, knowing that they had no chance of competing for the throne, killed Eunuch Meng and stole the edict of imperial succession.’

  A thin man came over. In his hands was a leather bag. He opened it with scarred hands; from his rough handling fell a pair of red plum blossom earrings, a bckwood hairpin, a tumble of coins and a rain of jade flowers. He lifted out a scroll, discarding the empty bag on the floor, the jade and wood crushed under his feet as he walked.

  Ah.

  The empress had never pnned to hear them out.

  And so her hairpin, her earrings, were scattered away like ash on the passing wind.

  The attendant handed the scroll to the empress, who slid it from its golden case and unfurled it. He held it to the air for all to see, decring, ‘In the case that the competition was to fall through, the emperor had decreed for First Prince to succeed the throne. Unfortunately, only three heirs remain: the treasonous siblings and Prince Qianzhong. With none of them suitable for the throne, the Prince should take his duty to father another heir while the position of Imperial Regent —’

  ‘Incorrect.’

  Three nearly flinched from fear.

  The head shadow slid into the hall with a composed yet rexed manner. The sea of officials parted before her — there was a terrifying air about the elder, as though she were not a woman, once a mother, but rather some creature beyond human understanding.

  ‘There are four heirs, my empress,’ the head shadow said. Her smile spread wide as she lifted a hand to point at the throne. ‘You are the fourth candidate and the Crown Prince.’

  The hall was silenced by shock.

  ‘…Head Shadow, I don’t quite understand what you mean,’ the empress said. His voice was strained beyond compare as he argued, ‘In the case of a ck of suitable heirs, the empress only has the right to command the throne as Regent…!’

  ‘Yes.’ The head shadow chuckled — Three almost couldn’t believe her ears. How could such a creature be capable of ughter, of amusement? ‘But your te wife did something no other ruler had ever done — upon your marriage, she gifted you her surname. The imperial surname that all heirs have, “Xi”.’

  And now, shock had frozen the empress into silence. ‘That’s…’

  ‘Don’t doubt me.’ The head shadow reached into her robes, bringing out another golden case — with a gentle touch, she slid the new, snow-white scroll from its case. ‘I, the Head of Shadows, the Mistress of Imperial Guards, thus brings the imperial edict of succession,’ she decred, ‘and demands that all heed these divine words: Empress, Xi Jinmeng, Lord of Illusions and Gold, is the Crown Prince, decreed to succeed the throne of Xian as rightful emperor, the only worthy heir.’

  Those words chipped away at something in the empress’s heart. Three watched it with a strange quietness, even as her heart beat louder and louder.

  The empress was terrified. Panic, thick like tar, a confused dread that couldn’t be hidden even by the thickest of masks, submerged the petrified man. He was drowning on dry nd, and when Three realised that fact, she somehow couldn’t hate him as much, somehow couldn’t condemn him anymore, even after all he’d done to try kill her and Xi Yu.

  …He looked too lost.

  Like a child whose favourite story had suddenly been torn from their hands.

  ‘Written and stamped with the imperial seal this morning, by the hand of Emperor Zixin, Lady of Mirrors, previously titled Princess of True Ambition.’ The head shadow smiled. Her smile was like a monster’s as she slid down, down and down and down into a kneel. ‘This lowly subject greets His Majesty, Emperor Jinmeng.’

  With the head shadow’s lead, every minister knelt, every compint silenced with the woman’s overpowering authority, indomitable identity and blood-tested loyalty.

  And the new emperor had lost all colour on his face.