I wake to the taste of metal and stale tea.
My tongue is heavy.
My mouth won't shape a proper word.
Light cuts through slatted shutters.
The room smells of boiled lotus and soap.
"She's awake," Xiao Mei hisses, relief short as breath.
"Don't move," I manage, voice a broken thread.
"You're bleeding," she says, fingers sharp and clumsy.
"Where?" I ask, eyes rolling like coins.
"Your wrist," she says. "You bit it."
I find the damp cloth under my cheek.
It smells of sweat and river water.
My fingers fumble the linen.
My limbs are mud.
"What happened?" I ask.
"Consort Li's guests," Xiao Mei whispers.
"She fainted during dinner," a girl adds from the doorway.
"Poison?" someone guesses.
"Maybe," Xiao Mei says, voice small. "But the eunuch said rest."
"Rest," I echo, tasting the word like rust.
The bed is a pallet, straw thin.
My robe is coarse.
A worm of cold crawls my spine.
I test my legs.
They wobble like young bamboo.
Xiao Mei bristles when I move.
"You're not to walk," she snaps.
Her face is a map of nights without sleep.
Her hands shake whenever she reaches.
She ties my hair with stiff fingers.
She tucks the robe tighter.
"Eat," she orders, putting a bowl to my lips.
I sip broth that tastes of lotus and oil.
It slides like a question.
My throat keeps the answer.
"Do you remember anything?" Xiao Mei asks, not stopping.
I close my eyes to the ceiling slats.
Flashes strike.
Silk slipping between fingers.
Sand and a stick drawing lines.
A cup emptied on a stone floor.
A blade's reflection.
"No," I say.
"Fragments," I add.
"Bring them," Xiao Mei commands. "Say them."
I cough and patch images into words like a torn ribbon.
"Silk," I say.
"Battle lines in sand. A bitter potion."
"Too many," Xiao Mei breathes. "You poisoned again?"
"Not poison," I correct, slow. "Memories."
"Memories?" she repeats, teeth on the word.
She drops her head into her hands.
"Are you cursed?" she whispers.
"Maybe," I say, the word a coin I can't spend.
My jaw folds.
The room spins a careful orbit.
The bowl slides from my fingers.
Xiao Mei snatches it like it might run away.
"You spoke in the night," she says. "Name after name. Counts on fingers."
I bite my lip until the pain is sharp and clean.
It grounds me.
"Trade. Silk," I murmur.
"Sand. Lines. Spoon of forget."
She stares.
"You mean..."
"Silk contract. War lines. A potion to forget."
"All in flashes?"
"All at once," I answer.
Xiao Mei wipes her face with the back of her hand.
"Tastes like the poison," she says. "But you lived. So maybe it's the venom's ghost."
"Or the cycle," I whisper, the word low.
"Cycle?" she asks.
"Keep it," I tell her. "Don't speak of it."
She nods like a soldier obeying an order.
Footsteps down the corridor.
The smell of steamed lotus sharpens.
Someone knocks, light and clipped.
"Consort Li calls the low concubine," a voice says.
"She requests her," Xiao Mei snaps a thread of panic and composes it like fabric.
I sit up.
My hands press into the pallet.
Pain screams along the bite on my wrist.
I hide the wound under the sleeve.
"Go," I tell Xiao Mei. "Tell her I'll come."
"No," she says. "You stay."
"I will not be dragged like a sack."
Xiao Mei opens her mouth, then closes it.
She leaves, jaw tight.
The corridor is a river of powdered doors and slippers.
Consort Li waits like a statue with a smile honed for peeling skin.
Her dress smells faintly of camphor and wine.
She inclines her head.
"Li Mingyue," she says, voice silk over an iron edge. "You look ill."
"I am ill," I answer, plain.
She lifts a cup as if to toast.
"A shame," she says. "One can die so easily now."
"You're saying..." I start.
"Not saying," she cuts, a blade of amusement. "Not saying anything at all."
A eunuch hovers behind her, face like smooth stone.
He watches my hands.
"Why me?" I ask, the words more question than plea.
Her smile thins.
"Why anyone?" she replies, slow. "Court is a garden. Some plants have to be pruned."
"Pruned?" I repeat, cheap laughter on my tongue.
A cold trickle runs down my spine.
I press the wrist where the skin split.
"Your robe," she says, then softer, "You were lucky. The Consort has mercy tonight."
"Mercy?" I ask.
The syllables break.
"Mercy," she repeats. "A nap, a rest, nothing more."
Her eyes glide to the hair ribbon at my throat.
"Why do your eyes look so still," she asks.
Their color is a calm enemy.
"Eyes..." I start.
She laughs, a small, sharp sound.
"Careful, Mingyue," she says. "Eyes bring attention. Attention brings danger."
Her voice shifts like weather.
"You must understand," she continues, almost confessional. "I keep my place because I plan. Men do not forgive slights. I do not offer them opportunities."
I swallow.
Blood tastes faint and metallic.
"You fear losing the Emperor's favor," I say, a stone thrown too far.
Her fingers find a grey hair at her temple.
She plucks it with deliberate cruelty.
"Fear," she repeats. "Trespasses. I have a life to keep. My clan. My name."
She breathes out, like letting smoke away.
"Do you know what losing an heir looks like?" she asks.
My mouth stays shut.
"People die with quiet things on their lips," she tells me, voice soft. "I will not be one of them."
Her hand slides over the cup's rim.
"Pruning," she says again. "A dangerous flower blooms and the root threatens the wall. Cut the flower."
"You're afraid," I say.
"Fear keeps us sharp," she replies.
"Sharp keeps us alive?" I counter.
She laughs, low and satisfied.
"Sometimes," she says. "Sometimes it keeps the ones above alive. The garden must not topple the wall."
I want to spit.
I want to throw empty bowls.
I want to choke on her phrase mercy.
Instead I fold my hands and speak small.
"What will you do if I speak of this?"
"Speak?" she repeats, incredulous. "You speak and I cut deeper. You keep quiet, and you live a small life."
"Small," I echo.
She steps closer.
Her perfume is lavender mixed with something metallic.
"Look at me," she orders.
My shoulders tense.
Her face is a mask of careful lines.
She leans in, close enough that I can smell the wine on her breath.
"I am not cruel out of heart," she murmurs.
"I am cruel out of need," she corrects, as if rehearsal.
"Do you want to keep the Captain's favor?" she asks suddenly.
"Captain?" I blink.
"The Emperor's captain," she clarifies. "He is old and fickle. A son changes everything."
I bite the inside of my cheek, the taste of iron sharp.
"Then do not cause trouble," she advises.
"Then don't poison people," I say.
She smiles, and the smile does not reach her eyes.
"Pruning," she repeats, patient as a tide.
I study her face.
Lines deepen when she smiles.
She searches my eyes for fear.
She finds something else.
"Your eyes are unnervingly calm," she says.
"Calm?" I echo, and my voice cracks.
"Calm can be a blade," she says. "Keep them soft, Mingyue."
She straightens.
"A suggestion," she offers, like a bribe. "Eat lotus tonight. Appear grateful. Bow low."
"Bow," I mimic.
"Yes," she says. "Bow and smile. Keep the Emperor's ear friendly."
"Why?" I ask.
"Because the wall needs no cracks," she answers. "Because the wrong crack becomes a canyon."
"How many cracks?" I ask, blunt.
She studies me with tired eyes.
"Too many," she says. "That is why I cut."
Her laughter flutters, thin and satisfied.
She turns to leave.
"One more thing," she says at the threshold.
I look up.
"Do not trust the Prince Merchant," she says, voice flat and small as a stone dropping into well.
I blink slow as thinking.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because curiosity is a merchant's tool," she says. "And merchants trade everything."
The door whispers closed.
Silence returns like a waiting dog.
Xiao Mei's steps are quick as knives on the floor when she returns.
"She left," Xiao Mei reports, breathless.
"What did she want?" I ask.
"To mind you," Xiao Mei says. "To warn you to be small."
"Small," I repeat.
She sits by the pallet and takes my hand.
"Don't talk," she says. "No names. No nights out."
"Promise," I murmur, voice thin.
"Promise," she replies.
I stare at the bunched linen and the small bowl of lotus.
A single tear slips without the drama of sobs.
It tracks my cheek and falls to the straw.
Xiao Mei catches it with a finger, as if catching a coin.
"Don't," she whispers.
"Too late," I say.
In another wing, Consort Li faces a mirror.
She plucks a grey hair.
Her hand is steady.
Reflection trained to obey.
"No more losses," she says, not loud.
Forty winters map her face.
No son.
No anchor.
The Emperor cools.
She practices a smile.
Smile as armor.
Sleeves smoothed.
A servant tightens a ribbon.
"Prune the garden," she whispers to herself.
She counts on a finger.
One.
Two.
Three.
Names she severs before rot.
Clans matter.
Dowries buy silence.
A child would buy time.
Blankets turned back, no proof.
Fear is a ledger.
She balances accounts with scissors.
Call it carefulness.
Call it ruthless.
She watches the courtyard light.
A merchant shadows the river.
A concubine's glance crosses the hall.
She files each look.
"Cut early," she tells herself.
Cut before rot becomes ruin.
She drinks a small cup.
The tremor in her fingers hides behind a gesture.
At night she perfects patience.
A smile for the Emperor.
Hands polished until blank.
She keeps the garden tidy.
She keeps the wall strong.
She rehearses rumors into silence.
She practices bending favors.
She remembers alliances like ledgers.
A nephew's marriage, a bribe, a quiet promise.
She will not gamble.
She will cut what threatens the nest.
Every action is an account settled.
She sleeps with one eye slightly open.
She counts breaths before making any move.
She reminds herself: alliances are currency.
She will not be sentimental.
Loyalty bought, favors returned, debts collected.
A cut must be clean.
No hesitation.
No remorse.
Only the ledger balanced and the walls still standing tonight.
I stand, slow as a hinge.
My wrist aches where blood dried like a map.
I cup water in a wooden basin and tilt it to my face.
My reflection is a stranger.
Eyes older than the rest of the face look back.
"How many more times will you let them kill us?" I whisper to the girl in the water.