The last pin slid into place with a musical click.
"Done," the maid whispered, stepping back so the light could take its turn at admiring. The red bell–sleeved gown lay on Lian An like a poem that had finally found the right reader—silver cloudwork at the collar, a quiet blaze along the hems, and a fall of silk that moved as if it remembered the river.
Lian An drew one breath to test its weight, another to steady her heart. The bronze mirror returned a woman she knew and did not know: the same spine that had endured the ancestral hall, yet cloaked now in a radiance that made endurance look effortless.
"Your Majesty…" The maid's eyes shone. "Today, even the wind will stand up when you pass."
"Let's make it bow instead," Lian An said dryly, but a smile touched her mouth.
She lifted the door screen and stepped into the corridor.
