Page 82 of The Blood Orchid

“If I showed them the right paperwork, they’d have to,” I said. “Hong went ahead and preemptively married me.”

Zheng Sili stilled, a grape falling from his hand. “You’re already married?” he said.

I nodded, trying my best to ignore Wenshu, who had gone very still.

Zheng Sili let out a stiff laugh, swiping his discarded grape from the floor and starting to peel it. “Well, that explains why the Empress needs you,” he said.

“Yeah, she needs me to make life gold,” I said, frowning.

Zheng Sili blinked back at me as if I’d spoken a different language. “Oh, you actually don’t understand?” he said. “Sorry, I forget you’re a peasant sometimes.”

Wenshu drove the knife hard into the next pear, stabbing the blade straight through the fruit into the floor, glaring pointedly at Zheng Sili.

“Watch your fingers,” I said to him, then turned back to Zheng Sili. “Why does me being married to a mostly dead prince change anything?”

“Because,” Zheng Sili said, “it changes the order of succession. The wife of the emperor outranks his mother. If he dies and there’s no one else in the House of Li, then the crown goes—”

“To me,” I finished quietly.

That was why it wasn’t enough for the Empress to kill “the prince” and take my sister’s body for herself. She needed proof of my death as well, or her claim to the throne would be illegitimate. Since there hadn’t been a wedding, no one would know at first, but anyone who wanted to challenge her legitimacy wouldn’t have to look very far. She needed me back in Chang’an to die publicly.

But now that the Empress was supposedly dead, what did she expect to do? Have me resurrect her and tell everyone that she’d dabbled in the very life alchemy that she’d forbidden? There would be an uproar.

My next breath caught in my chest. Of course the Empress wouldn’t do something like that. She might have wanted her own body back at first, but now, surely she wantedmine. It was the only legitimate way to keep the throne she’d worked so hard for.

I pictured the red thread of fate tying me to the Empress, pulling me closer across the river plane, drawing my whole soul into her until my bones, my blood, my heart belonged to her.

You and I are tethered, and death can never sever that thread. I will always find you.

Wenshu staked his knife into the ground and rose to his feet. He looked between me and Zheng Sili like he wanted to say something, then turned and grabbed his coat, slipping on his shoes.

“Where are you going?” I said.

“Out,” he said stiffly.

Zheng Sili picked up Durian and carefully edged away as if sensing Wenshu’s temper. I rolled my eyes and hurried to grab my own coat, nearly losing my fingers when Wenshu slammed the door in my face. I yanked it open and hurried after him.

Wenshu was already halfway down the hall, but ignored me when I called for him. I caught up to him just in front of the inn, grabbing his shoulder, but he shrugged out of my grip and pulled up his hood as it began to lightly rain.

“What’s wrong with you?” I said.

He let out a sharp laugh. “What’s wrong?” he said. “Other than the prince marrying you without your consent and making you a target?”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that bad,” I said. “We would have been married eventually, and I was already a target.”

“Do you hear yourself?” Wenshu said, finally turning around, raising his voice so much that nearby merchants paused to stare at us. I grabbed Wenshu’s sleeve and pulled him into an alley, but he yanked out of my grip. “Am I not allowed to be angry for all that he’s done to our family?”

“That’s not fair,” I said. “Nothing that happened at the palace was his fault.”

“No, nothing could ever be his fault,” Wenshu said, glaring down at me. It was strange to see the prince’s face contorted with such uncharacteristic anger.

“Why do you hate him so much?” I said. Wenshu stiffened but didn’t answer. “He doesn’t hateyou, you know. Even though he has every right to.”

“And why would he have that right?” Wenshu snapped.

“Because I chose you over him!” I said. How could Wenshunot understand that? He’d once told me he was scared of losing me to the prince, yet here was the irreconcilable proof that he never would. How could he overlook that so easily?

Wenshu’s expression darkened, his jaw tense. “No,” he said quietly. “You didn’t. I choseyou.”