Chapter 2: Still Breathing
The porcelain tray shattered against the floor.
My maid stared at me like she'd seen a ghost. Maybe she had.
"Your Highness… are you alright?"
Her voice trembled. Her hands were already reaching for me, brushing the sweat from my brow, adjusting the blanket as if trying to convince herself I was real.
I knew this girl. Jiu'er.
She was loyal once. She died for me, years later. Silenced in a hallway she wasn't supposed to be in. I remembered the blood on her sleeve. The fear in her eyes when she realized she had overheard too much.
I blinked. It was hard to keep my breathing steady.
"I'm fine," I said. My voice was hoarse.
Jiu'er nodded quickly, tears welling in her eyes. "I'll fetch water. Just rest, please. Don't scare us like that."
She ran from the room, slippers slapping the wooden floor.
---
I sat up slowly, holding the edge of the bed with shaking fingers.
Everything was so quiet. The wind outside. The rustling curtain. My own heartbeat.
It wasn't a dream.
This was real.
I got up and opened the drawer beside the bed. My fingers moved without thinking, pulling out an old hairpin tucked in the lining beneath the silk. I'd hidden it here when I was sixteen, afraid the other girls would steal it. No one ever found it.
Until now.
I stared at it for a long time.
This wasn't just my old life.
This was my second chance.
---
Later, as Jiu'er poured tea and chattered nervously about summoning the physician, I stared at her in silence.
She had no idea who I was anymore. What I had become. What I had seen.
"Tell me the date," I said.
She paused. "Today? It's the twenty-third day of the Second Moon."
My chest tightened.
That was the day before the palace announced I would be selected as Crown Princess.
They would send the summons tomorrow. The gold seal. The Imperial decree.
I had one day.
One day to remember what I lost. One day to choose what I would protect this time. One day to decide whether I would play the same quiet, obedient role…
Or write a new script altogether.
---
Jiu'er placed the cup in front of me. Her hands were still shaking.
"Everything's going to be alright," she whispered.
I didn't answer.
Because everything would not be alright.
Not for them.
Not this time.
---