Chapter 5 : The Send off
1063 Words
The morning Kate was meant to leave, nobody came to wish her well.
She had not expected them to. She had lived in this mansion long enough to know exactly what she meant to the people inside it, and she had made peace with that knowledge a long time ago. Or rather, the original Kate Chen had made peace with it, in the quiet desperate way that people make peace with things they cannot change. The new Kate — the one carrying a system and a mission and the memories of a whole other life — felt something different when she looked around the small bare room for the last time.
She felt nothing at all.
Not bitterness. Not grief. Not the complicated ache that the original Kate had carried like a stone in her chest for as long as she could remember. Those feelings had belonged to someone who had no other options, and Kate now had more options than anyone in this mansion could imagine.
She picked up the single bundle of belongings that had been packed for her and walked out.
The courtyard was busy the way it always was in the morning. Servants moving between kitchens and quarters, carrying things, calling to each other across the open space. A few of them glanced at her as she passed. Most looked away quickly, the way people look away from things they have been trained not to acknowledge. Kate walked through it all with her back straight and the beauty pill working quietly in her blood, and she did not hurry.
She heard her sister before she saw her.
The laugh came first. High and bright and carrying across the courtyard in that particular way her sister had always laughed, loudly enough that everyone nearby was meant to hear it and understand that she was someone worth listening to.
Kate turned the corner into the main courtyard and there she was.
Mei Chen stood near the entrance with two of her personal maids flanking her like decorations, dressed in a shade of deep rose that she had clearly chosen with care. She was beautiful in the way that legitimate daughters of powerful men often are, well fed and well rested and adorned with things that cost money. She was also smiling, and the smile had an edge to it that Kate recognised immediately.
Beside her stood their stepmother, dressed in green silk with her hair pinned up and her hands folded in front of her in that posture of careful dignity she wore like armour.
They had come to watch her leave.
Of course they had.
Kate stopped walking and met her sister's gaze without expression.
Mei looked her up and down slowly, the way someone examines something they are about to throw away. Her smile widened.
"So you are really going," Mei said. "I thought perhaps you might find a reason to delay. You always did find ways to linger in places you were not particularly wanted."
Kate said nothing.
Mei tilted her head. "You should thank me, you know. I did you a favour. The Duke heir is infertile and dangerous and half the women in the capital want nothing to do with him. But someone has to go, and better you than me." She paused, letting that land. "At least you will have a roof over your head. That is more than an illegitimate daughter usually gets."
Their stepmother made a small sound that was not quite a laugh and not quite agreement but managed to be both at the same time.
One of the maids behind Mei whispered something to the other and they both pressed their lips together, suppressing something.
Kate looked at her sister for a long moment. Then she looked at her stepmother. She took in the green silk and the careful posture and the satisfaction sitting openly on both their faces, and she thought about a package she intended to send in approximately three weeks. A beautiful box, wrapped well, containing two items that would be presented as rare beauty gifts from a caring sister who had not forgotten her family now that she was living in the Duke's estate.
She almost smiled.
Instead she kept her face perfectly neutral and said, simply and clearly, "Thank you for seeing me off."
Something flickered in Mei's expression. She had been expecting tears or anger or at least the particular wounded silence that Kate Chen had always retreated into. The calm response confused her in a way she could not immediately identify.
Kate did not wait for her to identify it.
She turned and walked toward the gates where the Lu estate carriage was already waiting. It was not a grand carriage, nothing that announced importance or celebrated the occasion. It was functional and plain, which suited her perfectly. She did not look back.
Behind her she heard her sister say something to the maids, something sharp and dismissive, the kind of thing people say when they are trying to recapture a moment that has already passed them by.
Kate stepped through the gates.
The General's mansion closed behind her.
She stood beside the carriage for a moment in the morning air, the road ahead of her open and unfamiliar and full of every possibility that her old life had never allowed her. The driver was waiting with the quiet patience of someone who had been told not to rush. Two Lu estate guards stood nearby, not unkind but not warm either.
Kate lifted her bundle and stepped into the carriage.
As it began to move she looked out of the small window at the walls of the General's mansion growing smaller behind her. She thought about Mei's smile and her stepmother's green silk and the sound of the maids suppressing laughter. She catalogued each detail carefully, the way a person catalogues something they intend to return to later.
Revenge, she had learned in her short time with the system, was most satisfying when it was patient.
She had plenty of time.
She settled back against the seat and let the carriage carry her forward, toward the Lu estate and a cold Duke and a mission that was only just beginning.
For the first time since waking up in Kate Chen's body, she felt something that took her a moment to name.
She felt ready
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