Resentment at Changmen Palace - Chapter 3

In my second year of merely existing at Changmen Palace, an old acquaintance came to see me.

Chang Qi wore close-fitting black, a long saber strapped to his back. His eyes and brows were as stern as those of the young man I remembered. Time seemed to have left no mark on him.

“I can take you away,” he said without preamble.

“Why would you want to?” I knew the answer already.

“Because Your Highness is unhappy.” He took a step closer. For once, something stirred in those pale eyes that were usually so cold.

Looking at him brought the past back to me.

A-Zhi had been only twelve when we married. The struggle for power was at its fiercest, and I had married him so young in order to plan and maneuver on his behalf.

Bloodshed was inevitable. A-Zhi was still a child, so the dirty work fell to me. Chang Qi was my sharpest blade.

He had seen the darkest, most shameful parts of me. He had also seen my weakness and my pain. Twelve-year-old A-Zhi was too young—but how old, really, was I at sixteen?

Once, there was an elderly minister from the crown prince’s maternal family. He used his rank and influence to sway loyalties, gathering talented men under the crown prince’s banner.

He was far too much of an obstacle.

He was not a good man. He had done plenty of sordid things. But when I was little and often went to play at the former crown prince’s residence, he had truly been fond of me. I still had a pair of luminous pearls he had given me in my jewelry box. They still shone at night.

I possessed evidence that could destroy his entire family. Yet I was not ruthless enough to use it. I wanted to leave him some dignity, so I sent Chang Qi to assassinate him instead.

A senior minister caught in the heart of a struggle for the throne had no shortage of guards. Killing him would not be easy.

I never knew how fierce the fighting was that night. I only knew that Chang Qi took our ten best covert guards, and he alone returned.

Three full days later.

He was covered in blood and wounds. Still, bracing himself on a saber whose edge had curled, he went down on one knee to report to me.

For all I had done, I was still a sheltered young woman. He looked as though he had come back from hell, and I recoiled two steps.

He looked up, confusion flickering in his eyes. Then he hastily drew the torn scraps of his clothing together to cover the raw sword wound across his chest.

“I frightened Your Highness. Forgive your servant.”

“Wipe the blood from your face. Don’t let it get into your eyes.”

I remembered my imperial grandmother’s lesson: never chill the heart of someone loyal to you. Fighting my fear, I stepped forward and offered him a handkerchief.

He accepted it with great care.

Then he collapsed.

The physician told me that he was lucky to be alive. Regaining his former skill at arms was out of the question.

Before I could speak, Chang Qi struggled out of bed and knelt before me.

“I will recover,” he swore. “I will still be Your Highness’s sharpest blade.”

“I believe you.”

And I did. The feeling burning in his eyes was too fierce for me to doubt him.

I never gave him an answer. Nor would I encourage a hope he should not have cherished.

But if I searched my own heart, I could not call my feelings for him entirely innocent.

I was only sixteen. Married though I was, I had never truly known romantic love.

As for A-Zhi, he was still a little boy. What I felt for him was an older sister’s tenderness toward a younger brother, along with the hope that he would one day take the throne.

In those first two years at the prince’s residence, Chang Qi was the only person who fought at my side.

Later, as A-Zhi grew older, I gave him every covert guard under my command—including Chang Qi—as a gift for his fifteenth birthday.

His first act was to send Chang Qi alone to assassinate a general from an enemy state.

The man was said to be so formidable that he could take the head of one of our commanders from the midst of a hundred thousand soldiers.

The mission was certain to be perilous.

By the time I heard about it, Chang Qi had already gone to the frontier and entered the enemy camp alone.

When he returned, A-Zhi and I were talking by candlelight. Chang Qi stood outside the window, his silhouette bent. He must have been badly wounded; even inside the room, I could catch a faint smell of blood.

Instinctively, I moved to open the door.

A-Zhi caught my wrist.

By then, he stood a head taller than I did. There was something oppressive about the way he looked down at me.

“When he accepted the mission, I made him a promise. Once it was over, whether he succeeded or failed, he could go wherever he pleased. No one would ever command him again.

“If you insist on opening that door, he will no longer be free to leave.”

I knew how bitter a covert guard’s life was. They lived by the blade, with no power over their own lives. Their greatest wish was to be free.

I did not know whether Chang Qi wanted to leave the prince’s residence.

But I wanted him to.

I did not open the door.

Outside the window, his silhouette bent lower and lower, until he seemed almost folded in two.

At last, the fourth watch passed, roosters crowed, and dawn began to break.

He left.