MTLNOVEL Chapter 214: An Empress in Her Garden
I didn't realize how long I'd been standing until my knees stiffened.
The last of the warlords had left. The tea had gone cold. And the scent of pine resin from the scrolls had faded into the ash of candle smoke. I rolled the last map tight and slid it into its case, then turned toward the corridor.
The hall outside was dim, the tapestries still shifting faintly in the winter breeze that snuck through the roof beams. I should've gone to my quarters to prepare for the feast. I should've called for the tailor. Should've eaten something.
Instead, I turned left.
Toward the garden.
It wasn't the one near the banquet courtyard—the one with pavilions and stone lanterns for the nobility to pose beside. This garden was older, tucked behind the northern wall of the Empress's private quarters. There were no formal paths here. No trimmed hedges or koi ponds. Just snow-dusted winter grass and bare plum trees curling toward the sky.
The scent of smoke lingered. Someone had lit incense.
At first, I thought the garden was empty.
Then I saw her.
The Empress sat on a low bench near the edge of the clearing, her cloak draped around her like black ink, her hands resting lightly in her lap. A copper brazier burned at her feet. No guards. No servants. Just her.
And a knife.
It lay on the bench beside her—small, ceremonial, sheathed in black silk with a tassel of red thread. Unthreatening at first glance. But I knew that blade. I had seen it once before, in a time when I didn't think that we could get along as well as we do.
I guess I wasn't the only one feeling somewhat melancholy today.
She didn't look at me when she spoke. "I wondered how long you'd take to come here."
"I wasn't sure if I should," I admitted, taking a seat beside her.
"Because of what I asked earlier?" Her voice was calm. "Or because of the boy?"
"Both," I admitted. "Neither." The snow was already melting through my cloak, soaking the silk lining. But I didn't care.
"I was five when I first saw a knife like that," she said quietly. "My grandmother used it to cut her own hand during the spring rites. Just a drop of blood, she said. Enough to remind the gods we still remembered sacrifice."
"That sounds like something Hattie would say."
She gave a soft breath of a laugh. "The difference, I think, is that my grandmother meant it."
We sat in silence for a while.
Not companionable, but not hostile either. Just… tense. Like a bowstring drawn, but not loosed.
"I asked about the boy because I needed to hear it from your lips," she said at last.
"I know."
"I believe you."
"I didn't say it to be believed."
She nodded once, slowly.
"Do you ever wonder," she asked, "what kind of women we would've been, if we weren't born into this?" She didn't gesture to the knife, or the garden. She didn't need to. "If we'd had soft lives. Gentle ones."
"No."
She blinked. "Why not?"
"Because I would've clawed out of softness the first chance I got. Even when I first arrived, I tried the soft life… and now look at me. I guess peaceful and relaxed isn't a good look on me."
Her lips twitched. "That's why you survive."
I didn't answer.
She reached down and lifted the knife. Not as a threat—just turning it in her hand. Her fingers moved lightly across the silk cover.
"This isn't for anyone else," she said. "It was never meant to be drawn. Not by me. Not by the Emperor."
"Then why keep it?"
She turned it once more. "Because memory matters. And because one day, someone may ask me what I was willing to sacrifice. If that day comes, I'll need something to point to."
I looked at her.
Really looked.
And for the first time in weeks, I saw her—not just as the Empress, not as my ally—but as a woman who had once been a girl with no power and no name. Who had fought her way into the highest seat in the world with nothing but teeth and patience.
"I don't want to become you," I said softly.
She didn't flinch. "I wouldn't wish it on anyone."
"But I'm going to, aren't I?"
She didn't answer.
She didn't have to.
The snow began to fall again. Light. Silent.
She sheathed the blade and tucked it back beneath her cloak, then stood.
"I won't be at the feast," she said. "They'll ask why. You'll say I'm ill."
"Are you?"
"No." Her voice held no weakness. "But I'm tired of performing. And I think you're capable of standing alone now."
I stood with her.
"We never really stood together," I said. "Not how everyone thinks that we should have."
She turned to me, her expression unreadable. "No," she agreed. "But we will fall together, if it comes to that."
She left before I could answer.
The wind picked up behind her.
I stayed behind in the snow-choked garden, my eyes fixed on the place where her knife had lain.
And when I finally moved, it was only because I heard footsteps approaching from the corridor behind.
Boots on frost.
Not court boots.
Military ones.
"You're late," I said without turning.
Zhu Mingyu stepped into the clearing, dressed in dark formal robes with his hair tied back in court fashion. He looked like a prince again. Not a weapon.
"I was waiting for you to be alone," he said.
I turned.
He held out a small box—lacquered black with a pale green ribbon.
"For the feast," he said. "You'll wear what's inside."
"I didn't ask for a gift."
"It's not a gift," he replied. "It's a warning."
I lifted the box slowly, weighing it in my hand. "A warning for who?"
Mingyu's smile didn't reach his eyes. "For anyone wise enough to recognize power when it enters the room."
He stepped closer, his voice low and unwavering. "But you don't need to worry. Tonight, I'll be beside you. Every word, every gaze, every threat that dares rise—will be met with both of us."
My fingers curled around the box.
"We are no longer two people, Xinying. We are one throne. One nation. One promise to the world."
He didn't need to say the last part.
But he did anyway.
"A promise that no one stands against the Daiyu Empire and walks away whole."