“I wish I had said more earlier,” JingYi confessed. “When he spoke as he did.”
“Sometimes silence speaks the loudest.”
“He thinks Omegas are only good for breeding. Not a radical idea, I suppose.”
Yrenna scoffed. “He also thinks his tailor can hide his pettiness in a mountain of brocade, so I wouldn’t put too much stock in his opinion.”
JingYi couldn’t help but laugh.
Yrenna’s smile softened. “I think you carry yourself more regally than any woman I’ve ever seen.”
With a final, reassuring glance, she stood and slipped out of the room, leaving JingYi stunned in the fire-warmed hush. The compliment lingered—pleasant, warm . . . and oddly suffocating.Regal. It was praise she’d never thought she’d wear, yet now itwas being draped over her shoulders by the one person here who felt like a sister.
She rose and crossed to the washbasin. The window above it reflected only her silhouette—the faint glimmer of her veil, the curve of her frame. She lifted the gauze and studied her face. The blemish remained, unchanged, yet she looked serene. Composed. A mask she had long ago learned to wear.
Tomorrow she would stand before strangers, reciting vows she had never been taught, playing the role of a noble lady she wasn’t born into.
Her fingers gripped the basin’s cool stone. What if her leg failed her? What if those villagers, who had smiled so warmly today, looked at her tomorrow and saw only her flaws? What if her husband, finally seeing her, turned away?
Her fingers touched the birthmark—the rose-dark, mottled stain that spread from her left cheekbone down to her jaw like a spill of brownish ink frozen on her skin.
She remembered the exile manor with its warped shutters, perpetually dusty floors, and lacquer flaking in strips. Her mother’s rings snagged in her hair, jerking her face toward the oil lamp.‘Hold still.’
The rag had been soaked with wine-and-coarse-salt mixture. It rasped over the mark—again, again—until her skin burned. She could still smell the stale osmanthus perfume on her mother’s robes. The cloth would come away with a wet red streak—blood and wine—smeared across it, beside older rust-brown swipes that never quite faded.
Her stomach lurched. Her grip hardened until her knuckles blanched. She forced a breath, then another, counting slowly as Wu Ma had taught her. The cold stone under her palms, the scent of beeswax in the air—these were real. This wasnow.
Whatever happened to her before wouldn’t happen here.
But . . . she didn’t know whatwould.
Backing away from the window, she reached for Alexander’s cloak. Warm, heavy, smelling of spruce and hearth smoke, it steadied her as his hand had earlier.
She wrapped it around her shoulders, the comfort of borrowed wool holding fast—like a secret promise, guarding her against the chill of what lay ahead.
CHAPTER 15
JINGYI
Her morning passed without event.
After breakfast, she sat at the desk in her borrowed room and unwrapped her writing kit. The paper was blank. She needed to write to LinXin, but the words—the words wouldn’t come.
Where did she sit with her half-sister? Would her correspondence be welcomed or discarded? But she needed information, and she’d promised Alexander she would ask.
She dipped her brush and began.
Princess Xûen LinXin,
I write with hope this letter finds you in good health.
This may come as a surprise. I am aware I am in no position to ask for favours, yet I must.
I am investigating a mysterious death in Blackwood-Veyrde. All signs point to chronic purplelimyerite poisoning. I have brought some textbooks with me, but details are limited.
If you can access the Physicians’ Archive, I need other textbooks that contain information on the stone. You can speak to Wu Ma or Feng in the Royal Dispensary. They will help you.
This request concerns a matter of life and death. It may yet help others who do not deserve to suffer.
