Alexander’s jaw tightened.Lies.
ShunLi turned to MeiYün. “And you?”
“I saw little—the carriage was dark—we were pulling her back when the door gave way?—”
“It did not give way,” ShunLi said, voice hardening. “She was pushed. The High Princess said it. Lord Wulfbane’s men saw it.”
The colour drained from MeiYün’s face. She looked frantically at LánYàn—a silent plea for a unified story that would never come.
It was RenHua who broke first. “We were afraid! We thought they would take her and leave the rest!”
The court erupted. ShunLi silenced them with a look. “I see. Your solution was to offer the High Princess to traders?”
“No! I never touched her!” RenHua pointed a trembling finger at LánYàn. “She pushed her!”
“You lying viper! You said we’d be safer without her!”
“And you agreed!” MeiYün shrieked. “You said your father would protect us!”
Alexander watched, mesmerized and disgusted, as their alliance crumbled.
Then a new voice cut through, calm and clear.
“But you’ve always been that way, haven’t you?”
All heads turned. High Princess LinXin stepped forward, her gaze fixed on the emperor.
“Your Majesty,” she said, her voice resonating in the hushed hall. “Today’s crime is not an anomaly. Their cruelty is a practice honed over years within these palace walls.”
She turned her cool gaze upon the trio. “I have witnessed it since childhood. The whispers about the High Princess’s birth. The ‘accidental’ ruin of her belongings. I saw Lady LánYàn trip our sister during the dysentery outbreak—vials of medicine she’d formulated herself shattered on the stones. Precious resources, wasted for petty amusement.”
LinXin looked back to the throne. “Tremore was merely the final, logical extension of a lifetime of impunity. Their guilt is not for a single act, but for a lifetime of them.”
She descended into a formal kneel. “May Your Majesty punish them accordingly.”
A profound silence followed. A soldier’s testimony was one thing. A High Princess’s was the final, unassailable truth.
“The grievance is yours, Sho Meisha,” the emperor said. “What punishment do you ask?”
Alexander felt the shift in JingYi before he saw it. Her voice, when it came, was not loud but absolute. A blade of ice.
“The law is clear, Your Majesty. The punishment for treason is death.” A collective gasp rippled through the court. “They calculated my life was worthless. I ask you to answer them with a logical conclusion. I ask for their lives.”
The effect was instantaneous. One lady crumpled in a dead faint. The other two broke into ragged sobs. The fathers fell to their knees, voices rising in desperate chorus.
“Your Majesty, I beg you!”
“Please have mercy!”
“She is my only child!”
Alexander watched, blood running cold at the steel in his wife’s voice. He studied JingYi’s serene face and understood: she wasn’t asking for vengeance. She was building a pyre to make mercy burn brighter. His eyes found ShunLi next. A spark of amusement flickered across the emperor’s face before vanishing. Hetoohad seen it.
Just as despair reached its peak, the Dowager Empress rose from her seat. Alexander expected a counterstrike. Instead, he saw something far more interesting: a look of stark, unmistakable approval.
“The High Princess is correct,” the Dowager declared. “By law, death is the only answer.”
She let the weight of those words settle, watching the fathers’ faces crumple further. Then, with the precision of a master strategist, she continued, “But, we are architects of a dynasty. A life spared forges loyalty far stronger than fear. A debt of lifelong service is a greater asset than three graves.”
