The Emperor's Night

Meeting The Dragon

The Southern Hall felt colder than usual as the first gray light of dawn filtered through the high windows. Yanmei didn't sleep. She spent the night staring at the ceiling, the roster slip hidden beneath her floor mat. Someone had tipped the scales. In a palace of a thousand flowers, being plucked first was rarely a sign of favor, it was a death sentence draped in silk. By mid-morning, the candidates were lined up in the long, echoing corridor that led to the Imperial Gardens. The atmosphere was brittle. Girls who had been friends just days ago now looked at one another with suspicion, their eyes darting to see who had spent the most time on their makeup or whose posture was the most refined. "Silence!" Mistress Lin’s voice cut through the nervous whispers like a whip.

The line of girls straightened instantly. As they began their slow, rhythmic march toward the inner sanctum, Yanmei felt a presence beside her.

A woman was moving against the flow of the servants, dressed in the deep blue robes of a high-ranking palace attendant. She was older, her movements fluid and silent, like a shadow even. This was Lihua, or rather, the woman Yanmei had seen on the dais during the ritual. Up close, her beauty was even more predatory. Her skin was like polished porcelain, but her eyes held the weary coldness of someone who had watched empires rise and fall from behind a fan. As Lihua passed Yanmei, she didn't stop. She didn't even look at her. But as her sleeve brushed against Yanmei’s, a hand gripped Yanmei’s wrist with surprising, bruising strength. "Do not stand out," Lihua whispered, her voice so low it was almost lost to the rustle of silk. Yanmei’s pulse spiked, but she kept her expression a mask of porcelain. "Every girl here seeks to be seen, My Lady."

Lihua finally turned her head, her gaze piercing through Yanmei’s facade. There was no kindness in her eyes, only a sharp, clinical warning. "The others seek a crown. You seek a grave," Lihua murmured. "You carry the scent of the North. It is the scent of burnt wood and old blood. Do you think the Emperor cannot smell it? Do you think he does not know exactly what a Yan daughter carries in her heart?"

Yanmei felt the shard of glass in her sleeve press against her skin. "I am only a tribute, My Lady. My heart is whatever the Emperor commands it to be." Lihua’s grip tightened for a second, her nails digging into the soft skin of Yanmei’s inner wrist, before she abruptly let go. She stepped back, smoothing her robes as if nothing had happened. "Many have entered that chamber with a blade in their mind and ice in their veins," Lihua said, her voice returning to a formal, distant tone as a group of eunuchs approached. "None of them survived the dawn. If you are chosen tonight, Yanmei of the North... do not try to be a hero. A hero is just a corpse that people remember for a week."

"And what is a survivor?" Yanmei asked. Lihua paused, a shadow of something, regret, perhaps, or a dark irony flickering across her face. "A survivor is someone who learns to love the cage," Lihua replied. She leaned in one last time, her breath cold against Yanmei’s ear. "Listen to the walls tonight. They scream for a reason. If chosen… you don’t survive the morning." Before Yanmei could respond, Lihua turned and vanished into a side corridor, leaving behind only the faint, metallic scent of her perfume.

The line of candidates moved forward again, led by the rhythmic thump of the eunuchs’ ceremonial staves. They reached the Great Hall of Heavenly Purity, a space so vast the ceiling was lost in a haze of incense smoke. At the far end, atop a throne of black basalt and gold, sat a silhouette.

The Emperor.

He didn't look like the monster of the North's nightmares. From this distance, he looked like a statue...motionless, draped in robes of heavy, dark silk that seemed to absorb the light around him. He didn't speak. He didn't gesture. He simply existed, a vacuum of power at the center of the room. Chief Eunuch Zhao stepped forward, holding a golden tray. On the tray sat a single sandalwood slip, already pulled from the vessel. The selection had been made before they even entered the room. The "ritual" was for the public; the choice was for the Emperor alone. Yanmei kept her head bowed, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She thought of Lihua’s warning. "You don't survive the morning." She thought of her father’s severed tongue and her brothers’ unburied bodies. If she died tonight, the Yan Clan died with her. If she lived, she would be the thorn in the Emperor’s side that eventually festered into a killing wound. The Chief Eunuch cleared his throat, the sound echoing off the marble pillars.

"By the grace of the Heavens and the Will of the Dragon," Zhao announced. "The companion for the Emperor’s Night has been found." He turned the slip over.

Yanmei felt a sudden, sharp pain in her palm where she had clenched her fist too hard. She looked toward the dais. Lihua was there, standing in the shadows behind the throne, her face a mask of cold anticipation.

"The girl of the North," Zhao called out. "Yanmei. Step forward and receive your destiny." The other girls let out a collective, ragged breath, partly out of relief that it wasn't them, and partly out of a morbid curiosity to see the girl who had been marked for the "Night."

As Yanmei stepped out of the line, her sandals clicking softly on the polished stone, she looked up. For the first time, she saw the Emperor’s face clearly. He was younger than she expected, his features sharp and handsome, but his eyes were ancient and hollowed out by a weariness that didn't belong on a man in his prime. He didn't look at her with lust. He looked at her with a profound, terrifying boredom. Yanmei knelt, pressing her forehead to the cold floor. In the silence of the hall, she heard a faint, sharp cracking sound.

She glanced sideways. Lihua, still standing in the shadows, had clenched her hand so tightly around her jade ornament that the precious stone had shattered, the green fragments falling silently onto the silk carpet.

The High Consort wasn't just warning her. She was terrified for her.