The Princess of Yan
The procession arrived at the third hour of the afternoon, when the sun hung low enough to turn the palace’s white marble walls the color of old honey. Shen Weiyu stood at the back of the receiving platform, pressed between two minor officials who smelled of sandalwood and sweat, and watched the Princess of Yan descend from her gilded carriage.
She was not what he expected.
The rumors had painted her as a war prize—a political bargaining chip wrapped in silk, sent north to seal an alliance her father had negotiated while drunk on victory and ambition. Weiyu had written those rumors himself, in a way. His prophecy of a “cold union” had been meant to chill the match before it could take root. He had hoped the Emperor would read the omen and hesitate, that the betrothal would dissolve like morning frost.
Instead, the Princess had arrived three weeks early, with a retinue of seventy soldiers and a smile that did not waver when she knelt before the throne.
“Princess Li Hua of Yan,” the herald announced, his voice carrying across the courtyard. “Daughter of King Li Zheng, bearer of the Southern Pearl, bride-elect of His Highness Prince Zhao Yuning.”
Weiyu watched her rise. She was tall for a woman, with broad shoulders and hands that looked accustomed to holding a sword rather than a tea cup. Her robes were Yan silk—deep blue embroidered with silver cranes—but she wore them loose, unbound by the stiff collars and layered sashes that Linyang court fashion demanded. Her hair was pinned simply, a single jade hairpin holding it in place, and her face was bare of powder or rouge.
She looked like a soldier dressed for a banquet she did not wish to attend.
Yuning stepped forward to receive her. He had dressed formally for the occasion—crimson robes embroidered with golden dragons, a jade belt at his waist, his hair bound in a prince’s crown. He looked every inch the heir the court wanted him to be. But Weiyu saw the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers twitched at his sides as though reaching for a sword that wasn’t there.
“Princess Li Hua,” Yuning said, his voice carrying the practiced warmth of a man who had greeted a hundred diplomats. “Welcome to Linyang. I trust your journey was pleasant.”
“It was long,” the Princess replied. Her voice was lower than Weiyu expected, with a roughness that suggested she had spent more time shouting orders than whispering pleasantries. “The roads north of the Yan border are poorly maintained. Your Emperor’s tax collectors have been neglecting them.”
A ripple of shock passed through the assembled courtiers. No one spoke to a prince of Linyang about tax collectors during a formal greeting. No one spoke about tax collectors at all, unless they wished to be accused of sedition.
Yuning’s smile did not waver. “I will make a note to mention it to the Minister of Works.”
“Do that,” the Princess said. She turned her gaze across the platform, scanning the faces of the officials, the eunuchs, the guards. Her eyes stopped on Weiyu.
She looked at him for a long moment. Longer than politeness allowed. Long enough that the official beside Weiyu shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat.
“You,” the Princess said, pointing directly at Weiyu. “You’re the Jade Scribe.”
The courtyard went silent. Weiyu felt the weight of every gaze turn toward him, sharp and curious and hungry for gossip.
“I am Shen Weiyu,” he said, stepping forward. His voice came out steady, which surprised him. “Chief Scribe of the Imperial Archives.”
“I’ve heard of you.” The Princess descended the last step of the carriage platform and walked toward him, her robes brushing the stone. The guards parted to let her pass. “They say you write prophecies that come true. That the gods speak through your brush.”
“The gods speak through many things,” Weiyu said. “Wind. Water. The flight of birds. I am merely the one who writes down what I hear.”
“Modest.” The Princess stopped three feet from him. Up close, he could see the faint scar that ran from her left eyebrow to her cheekbone, pale against her sun-browned skin. “My father’s court is full of men who claim to hear the gods. They charge gold for their interpretations and silver for their blessings. But you—” She tilted her head, studying him. “You don’t look like a man who profits from prophecy.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why do it?”
The question hung in the air. Weiyu felt Yuning’s gaze on him, felt the bond pulse faintly between them—a thread of warmth that had become as familiar as his own heartbeat. He could feel Yuning’s tension, his wariness, his barely concealed urge to step between Weiyu and the Princess and end this conversation.
“Because I have no choice,” Weiyu said.
The Princess held his gaze for a long moment. Then she smiled—a real smile, not the practiced curve of courtly politeness, but something genuine and sharp and knowing.
“Good,” she said. “I hate liars.”
She turned and walked toward the palace, leaving the courtiers staring after her in stunned silence.
---
The banquet that evening was a disaster.
The Princess refused to sit in the women’s gallery, insisting instead on a seat at the main table beside Yuning. She drank three cups of wine to every one the courtiers offered her, ate with her fingers instead of chopsticks, and laughed loudly at a joke that made the Minister of Rites turn the color of spoiled milk.
Weiyu sat at a lower table, watching the chaos unfold. He had been placed among the minor scribes and record-keepers, far from the center of power, which suited him perfectly. From here he could observe without being observed, could track the subtle shifts in posture and expression that told the true story of the evening.
The First Prince was absent. A diplomatic slight, or a strategic one? Weiyu made a note to check the palace records for any official travel that might explain the absence. The Second Prince sat at the Emperor’s right hand, his face carefully neutral, his eyes tracking the Princess’s every movement like a hawk watching a rabbit. The Third Prince had drunk too much wine and was being helped from the hall by two servants.
And Yuning—
Yuning was laughing.
Weiyu felt it through the bond before he saw it—a warmth that spread through his chest, light and unexpected, like sunlight breaking through clouds. He looked up and saw Yuning leaning toward the Princess, his head thrown back, his shoulders relaxed in a way Weiyu had not seen since before the binding.
The Princess had said something. Something that made Yuning laugh like a boy instead of a prince.
Weiyu looked down at his untouched cup of wine. The feeling in his chest was not the cold ache of the curse. It was something else. Something that sat heavy and uncomfortable in his ribs, like a stone he could not swallow.
Jealousy.
He recognized it with a clarity that made him want to laugh. He had spent twenty-four years feeling nothing but the gray numbness of the curse, and now, in the span of a few weeks, he had felt anger, fear, hope, and now this—this petty, irrational jealousy of a princess who had done nothing but be kind to the man Weiyu was bound to.
He was a fool.
“You’re staring.”
Weiyu startled. The Princess had appeared beside his table, a cup of wine in her hand, her eyes bright with amusement. She had slipped away from the main table without him noticing, moving through the crowd like a fish through water.
“Your Highness,” Weiyu said, rising to bow. “I apologize. I was lost in thought.”
“Don’t apologize.” She sat down across from him, uninvited, and gestured for him to sit as well. “And don’t call me ‘Your Highness.’ It makes me sound like my mother. Call me Li Hua.”
“That would be improper.”
“Everything about tonight has been improper.” She took a long drink of her wine and set the cup down with a thud. “I insulted the Minister of Rites, drank the Emperor’s best vintage, and told the Second Prince that his mustache made him look like a caterpillar. I think we’re past propriety.”
Weiyu stared at her. “You told the Second Prince that his mustache—”
“Looked like a caterpillar. Yes. He didn’t take it well.” She grinned. “But he didn’t have me arrested, so I consider it a victory.”
Weiyu did not know what to say. He had never met anyone like this woman. The court of Linyang was a place of whispers and shadows, where every word was weighed and every gesture calculated. The Princess of Yan spoke like a blade—sharp, direct, and without apology.
“You’re wondering why I’m here,” she said, reading his silence with unsettling accuracy. “At your table. Talking to you instead of flattering the Emperor or seducing your prince.”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“I’m here because I’m curious.” She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “You and Prince Yuning. There’s something between you. I saw it the moment I arrived. The way he looked at you when I pointed you out. The way you looked at him when he laughed.”
Weiyu’s throat tightened. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Liar.” She said it without malice, almost fondly. “But that’s fine. You don’t have to tell me. I’m not here to steal your secrets. I’m here to make an alliance.”
“An alliance?”
“I don’t want to marry your prince.” She said it plainly, as though discussing the weather. “I have no interest in being a Linyang consort, sitting in a gilded cage while my husband plays politics. I want to go home. I want to lead my father’s armies. I want to be queen of Yan when he dies, not a footnote in the history of some foreign court.”
Weiyu blinked. “Then why did you accept the betrothal?”
“Because refusing would have started a war.” She shrugged. “My father is old and stubborn. He thinks marrying me north will secure an alliance against the western tribes. He doesn’t understand that Linyang is a snake pit, and I would rather fight a hundred barbarians than spend a year in this court.”
“So you came anyway.”
“I came to find a way out.” She met his eyes, and for the first time, he saw something serious beneath her careless demeanor. “I watched you today. You’re not like the others. You don’t scheme for power or position. You write prophecies that drain the life from you, and you do it because you have no choice. That’s a kind of prison I understand.”
Weiyu said nothing. The bond pulsed faintly, carrying a thread of Yuning’s concern—he had noticed the Princess’s absence, was looking for her across the hall.
“I’m not going to get between you and your prince,” Li Hua said, rising to her feet. “I’m not interested in him that way. But I am interested in survival. And I think, if we’re clever, we can help each other.”
She held out her hand. Weiyu looked at it—calloused, strong, the hand of a warrior.
“What do you want from me?” he asked.
“Information,” she said. “You see the future. I see the present. Together, we might find a path that doesn’t end with either of us dead.”
Weiyu thought of the prophecy he had written—the cold union, the failed marriage, the hope that it would dissolve before it could take root. He had written it to protect Yuning. But perhaps there was another way. Perhaps the Princess was not an obstacle, but a key.
He took her hand.
“I’ll help you,” he said. “But I have conditions.”
“Name them.”
“You will not harm Yuning. You will not use your position to manipulate him. And if you find a way out of this betrothal, you will take it without dragging him into scandal.”
Li Hua smiled. “Fair. And in return, I will teach you something.”
“What?”
“That love can take many forms.” She released his hand and stepped back, her eyes glinting with something that might have been kindness. “You think your heart belongs to one person, and one person only. But the heart is not a locked box, Scribe. It’s a garden. And gardens grow in strange directions when given the chance.”
She turned and walked back toward the main table, leaving Weiyu sitting alone with his cold wine and his tangled thoughts.
The bond pulsed again. Yuning’s warmth, his curiosity, his unspoken question: *What did she say to you?*
Weiyu closed his eyes and let himself feel it—the warmth, the connection, the terrifying possibility that he might not have to face this alone.
For the first time in years, he allowed himself to hope.
She was not what he expected.
The rumors had painted her as a war prize—a political bargaining chip wrapped in silk, sent north to seal an alliance her father had negotiated while drunk on victory and ambition. Weiyu had written those rumors himself, in a way. His prophecy of a “cold union” had been meant to chill the match before it could take root. He had hoped the Emperor would read the omen and hesitate, that the betrothal would dissolve like morning frost.
Instead, the Princess had arrived three weeks early, with a retinue of seventy soldiers and a smile that did not waver when she knelt before the throne.
“Princess Li Hua of Yan,” the herald announced, his voice carrying across the courtyard. “Daughter of King Li Zheng, bearer of the Southern Pearl, bride-elect of His Highness Prince Zhao Yuning.”
Weiyu watched her rise. She was tall for a woman, with broad shoulders and hands that looked accustomed to holding a sword rather than a tea cup. Her robes were Yan silk—deep blue embroidered with silver cranes—but she wore them loose, unbound by the stiff collars and layered sashes that Linyang court fashion demanded. Her hair was pinned simply, a single jade hairpin holding it in place, and her face was bare of powder or rouge.
She looked like a soldier dressed for a banquet she did not wish to attend.
Yuning stepped forward to receive her. He had dressed formally for the occasion—crimson robes embroidered with golden dragons, a jade belt at his waist, his hair bound in a prince’s crown. He looked every inch the heir the court wanted him to be. But Weiyu saw the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers twitched at his sides as though reaching for a sword that wasn’t there.
“Princess Li Hua,” Yuning said, his voice carrying the practiced warmth of a man who had greeted a hundred diplomats. “Welcome to Linyang. I trust your journey was pleasant.”
“It was long,” the Princess replied. Her voice was lower than Weiyu expected, with a roughness that suggested she had spent more time shouting orders than whispering pleasantries. “The roads north of the Yan border are poorly maintained. Your Emperor’s tax collectors have been neglecting them.”
A ripple of shock passed through the assembled courtiers. No one spoke to a prince of Linyang about tax collectors during a formal greeting. No one spoke about tax collectors at all, unless they wished to be accused of sedition.
Yuning’s smile did not waver. “I will make a note to mention it to the Minister of Works.”
“Do that,” the Princess said. She turned her gaze across the platform, scanning the faces of the officials, the eunuchs, the guards. Her eyes stopped on Weiyu.
She looked at him for a long moment. Longer than politeness allowed. Long enough that the official beside Weiyu shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat.
“You,” the Princess said, pointing directly at Weiyu. “You’re the Jade Scribe.”
The courtyard went silent. Weiyu felt the weight of every gaze turn toward him, sharp and curious and hungry for gossip.
“I am Shen Weiyu,” he said, stepping forward. His voice came out steady, which surprised him. “Chief Scribe of the Imperial Archives.”
“I’ve heard of you.” The Princess descended the last step of the carriage platform and walked toward him, her robes brushing the stone. The guards parted to let her pass. “They say you write prophecies that come true. That the gods speak through your brush.”
“The gods speak through many things,” Weiyu said. “Wind. Water. The flight of birds. I am merely the one who writes down what I hear.”
“Modest.” The Princess stopped three feet from him. Up close, he could see the faint scar that ran from her left eyebrow to her cheekbone, pale against her sun-browned skin. “My father’s court is full of men who claim to hear the gods. They charge gold for their interpretations and silver for their blessings. But you—” She tilted her head, studying him. “You don’t look like a man who profits from prophecy.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why do it?”
The question hung in the air. Weiyu felt Yuning’s gaze on him, felt the bond pulse faintly between them—a thread of warmth that had become as familiar as his own heartbeat. He could feel Yuning’s tension, his wariness, his barely concealed urge to step between Weiyu and the Princess and end this conversation.
“Because I have no choice,” Weiyu said.
The Princess held his gaze for a long moment. Then she smiled—a real smile, not the practiced curve of courtly politeness, but something genuine and sharp and knowing.
“Good,” she said. “I hate liars.”
She turned and walked toward the palace, leaving the courtiers staring after her in stunned silence.
---
The banquet that evening was a disaster.
The Princess refused to sit in the women’s gallery, insisting instead on a seat at the main table beside Yuning. She drank three cups of wine to every one the courtiers offered her, ate with her fingers instead of chopsticks, and laughed loudly at a joke that made the Minister of Rites turn the color of spoiled milk.
Weiyu sat at a lower table, watching the chaos unfold. He had been placed among the minor scribes and record-keepers, far from the center of power, which suited him perfectly. From here he could observe without being observed, could track the subtle shifts in posture and expression that told the true story of the evening.
The First Prince was absent. A diplomatic slight, or a strategic one? Weiyu made a note to check the palace records for any official travel that might explain the absence. The Second Prince sat at the Emperor’s right hand, his face carefully neutral, his eyes tracking the Princess’s every movement like a hawk watching a rabbit. The Third Prince had drunk too much wine and was being helped from the hall by two servants.
And Yuning—
Yuning was laughing.
Weiyu felt it through the bond before he saw it—a warmth that spread through his chest, light and unexpected, like sunlight breaking through clouds. He looked up and saw Yuning leaning toward the Princess, his head thrown back, his shoulders relaxed in a way Weiyu had not seen since before the binding.
The Princess had said something. Something that made Yuning laugh like a boy instead of a prince.
Weiyu looked down at his untouched cup of wine. The feeling in his chest was not the cold ache of the curse. It was something else. Something that sat heavy and uncomfortable in his ribs, like a stone he could not swallow.
Jealousy.
He recognized it with a clarity that made him want to laugh. He had spent twenty-four years feeling nothing but the gray numbness of the curse, and now, in the span of a few weeks, he had felt anger, fear, hope, and now this—this petty, irrational jealousy of a princess who had done nothing but be kind to the man Weiyu was bound to.
He was a fool.
“You’re staring.”
Weiyu startled. The Princess had appeared beside his table, a cup of wine in her hand, her eyes bright with amusement. She had slipped away from the main table without him noticing, moving through the crowd like a fish through water.
“Your Highness,” Weiyu said, rising to bow. “I apologize. I was lost in thought.”
“Don’t apologize.” She sat down across from him, uninvited, and gestured for him to sit as well. “And don’t call me ‘Your Highness.’ It makes me sound like my mother. Call me Li Hua.”
“That would be improper.”
“Everything about tonight has been improper.” She took a long drink of her wine and set the cup down with a thud. “I insulted the Minister of Rites, drank the Emperor’s best vintage, and told the Second Prince that his mustache made him look like a caterpillar. I think we’re past propriety.”
Weiyu stared at her. “You told the Second Prince that his mustache—”
“Looked like a caterpillar. Yes. He didn’t take it well.” She grinned. “But he didn’t have me arrested, so I consider it a victory.”
Weiyu did not know what to say. He had never met anyone like this woman. The court of Linyang was a place of whispers and shadows, where every word was weighed and every gesture calculated. The Princess of Yan spoke like a blade—sharp, direct, and without apology.
“You’re wondering why I’m here,” she said, reading his silence with unsettling accuracy. “At your table. Talking to you instead of flattering the Emperor or seducing your prince.”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“I’m here because I’m curious.” She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “You and Prince Yuning. There’s something between you. I saw it the moment I arrived. The way he looked at you when I pointed you out. The way you looked at him when he laughed.”
Weiyu’s throat tightened. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Liar.” She said it without malice, almost fondly. “But that’s fine. You don’t have to tell me. I’m not here to steal your secrets. I’m here to make an alliance.”
“An alliance?”
“I don’t want to marry your prince.” She said it plainly, as though discussing the weather. “I have no interest in being a Linyang consort, sitting in a gilded cage while my husband plays politics. I want to go home. I want to lead my father’s armies. I want to be queen of Yan when he dies, not a footnote in the history of some foreign court.”
Weiyu blinked. “Then why did you accept the betrothal?”
“Because refusing would have started a war.” She shrugged. “My father is old and stubborn. He thinks marrying me north will secure an alliance against the western tribes. He doesn’t understand that Linyang is a snake pit, and I would rather fight a hundred barbarians than spend a year in this court.”
“So you came anyway.”
“I came to find a way out.” She met his eyes, and for the first time, he saw something serious beneath her careless demeanor. “I watched you today. You’re not like the others. You don’t scheme for power or position. You write prophecies that drain the life from you, and you do it because you have no choice. That’s a kind of prison I understand.”
Weiyu said nothing. The bond pulsed faintly, carrying a thread of Yuning’s concern—he had noticed the Princess’s absence, was looking for her across the hall.
“I’m not going to get between you and your prince,” Li Hua said, rising to her feet. “I’m not interested in him that way. But I am interested in survival. And I think, if we’re clever, we can help each other.”
She held out her hand. Weiyu looked at it—calloused, strong, the hand of a warrior.
“What do you want from me?” he asked.
“Information,” she said. “You see the future. I see the present. Together, we might find a path that doesn’t end with either of us dead.”
Weiyu thought of the prophecy he had written—the cold union, the failed marriage, the hope that it would dissolve before it could take root. He had written it to protect Yuning. But perhaps there was another way. Perhaps the Princess was not an obstacle, but a key.
He took her hand.
“I’ll help you,” he said. “But I have conditions.”
“Name them.”
“You will not harm Yuning. You will not use your position to manipulate him. And if you find a way out of this betrothal, you will take it without dragging him into scandal.”
Li Hua smiled. “Fair. And in return, I will teach you something.”
“What?”
“That love can take many forms.” She released his hand and stepped back, her eyes glinting with something that might have been kindness. “You think your heart belongs to one person, and one person only. But the heart is not a locked box, Scribe. It’s a garden. And gardens grow in strange directions when given the chance.”
She turned and walked back toward the main table, leaving Weiyu sitting alone with his cold wine and his tangled thoughts.
The bond pulsed again. Yuning’s warmth, his curiosity, his unspoken question: *What did she say to you?*
Weiyu closed his eyes and let himself feel it—the warmth, the connection, the terrifying possibility that he might not have to face this alone.
For the first time in years, he allowed himself to hope.