Chapter 4
The Shen household transformed overnight into a flurry of wedding preparations.
Servants scurried through corridors with bolts of fabric, artisans arrived with sketches and samples, and messengers delivered gifts from well-wishers eager to seek favor with both the Chancellor and the newly elevated General.
Yun-yao stood perfectly still as the seamstress draped crimson silk over her shoulders. Three women circled her, pinning and measuring, while Lady Shen supervised from a nearby chair.
“The underskirt must be heavier brocade,” her mother instructed. “And the phoenix pattern should be more prominent on the outer robe.”
“Yes, my lady,” the head seamstress murmured, adding another pin.
If they add any more layers, I'll need a team of oxen to pull me to the wedding sedan, Yun-yao thought, maintaining her serene expression. Perhaps I'll just roll down the aisle like a silk-wrapped dumpling.
“The General’s household has sent word,” Lady Shen continued. “The Emperor has instructed the Imperial craftsmen to fashion a gold and jade phoenix bridal headpiece as his favor.”
Of course the Emperor is personally invested in my headpiece. Why wouldn't the Son of Heaven concern himself with my wedding accessories? Next, they'll tell me he’s hand-stitching my fan.
“Such honor,” she replied instead, tilting her chin at the exact angle of modest appreciation that had been drilled into her since childhood.
“Hold still, miss,” the seamstress muttered, wrestling with a stubborn fold of brocade. Then finally, it was done.
The seamstress stepped back, and Yun-yao caught her reflection in the polished bronze mirror. The wedding robe was undeniably magnificent—rich crimson silk embroidered with golden phoenixes that seemed to dance in the lamplight.
At least as his widow I'll have higher status than as an eternal spinster, she thought darkly. Assuming he doesn't kill me first for pouring tea incorrectly. “General Wei executes wife for improper ceremony” would make quite the court gossip.
“Sister!” Yun-jia burst into the room, ignoring their mother’s frown. “You look like a goddess! Is that real gold thread?”
“Yun-jia,” Lady Shen sighed. “A proper young lady does not barge in like a stable boy.”
Yun-si glided in dreamily after, barely disturbing the stillness. The sisters couldn’t have been more different: Yun-jia, all exuberance and restless energy at twelve years old, while Yun-si, nearly sixteen, moved through the world like a gentle breeze.
Yun-yao watched their reflections in the bronze mirror: Yun-jia’s cheeks still flushed from whatever mischief she’d been up to, her fingers twitching as if itching to touch the wedding robes. Yun-si, meanwhile, stood quietly with her hands folded just so.
Lady Shen’s lips thinned as Yun-jia reached out to finger the gold thread.
“Yun-jia, posture.” The word was sharp, but familiar—one in an endless litany of corrections that had yet to stick.
Yun-si, by contrast, required no reminders.
She simply was poised, her spine straight, her expression serene.
The elders always commended her for her decorum, but Yun-yao has always recognized this as a mask for her sister’s wandering mind, as Yun-si invariably startle and blink when addressed during these moments, like someone suddenly pulled from an unseen world.
“The phoenixes are beautiful,” Yun-si said softly, her eyes meeting Yun-yao’s in the mirror. “Though they look as though they might take flight and carry you away.”
If only they could, Yun-yao thought. Preferably to that mountain nunnery I've been fantasizing about.
“Is it true what they're saying about the General?” Yun-jia asked excitedly, “That he’s nine feet tall and has arms like tree trunks?”
“Yun-jia!” Lady Shen exclaimed. “Such gossip is beneath you.”
“I'm only repeating what Cook heard from the market vendors,” Yun-jia defended herself. “They say he can split a man in half with a single sword stroke.”
Wonderful. My future husband’s most notable quality is efficient bisection.
“The General is a distinguished military commander,” Lady Shen said firmly. “His achievements have brought peace to our borders.”
The seamstress had just removed the final pin from Yun-yao’s sleeve when a maid appeared at the chamber door. “Lady Shen,” she said with a bow, “the Chancellor requests the Young Lady’s presence in his study.”
Silence pooled like spilled ink across the room. Yun-yao’s fingers froze mid-air where they'd been adjusting her sash. In twenty years, her father had summoned her to his private sanctum only once—to inform her of her betrothed’s demise at age fourteen.
“At once,” Lady Shen said, her voice betraying nothing as she smoothed non-existent wrinkles from her skirt. The motion left faint streaks of gold embroidery thread across the dark silk.
Yun-yao followed the maid through corridors she'd only glimpsed during childhood games of hide-and-seek. The study door stood slightly ajar, exhaling the smoky scent of pine soot ink and paper. Her slippers left no sound on the polished wood as she entered.
Chancellor Shen stood before a landscape painting of mist-shrouded mountains, his hands clasped behind his back. “Sit,” he said as he turned.
She lowered herself onto the edge of a rosewood chair, back rigid.
The room was already lit with lamps, but the last strands of dusk still filtered through the rice paper windows, gilding the dust motes swirling between them.
Her father’s desk held no personal effects—only neat stacks of string bound books, an inkstone worn smooth from use, and a black lacquer box inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
Chancellor Shen stroked his beard, eyes narrowed like a scholar examining a questionable text. The silence stretched between them, punctuated only by the faint scratching of a bird on the tiled roof above.
“It has come to my attention that the General asked for your hand in marriage directly from the Emperor.” His voice sharpened, “Have you met him before?”
Yun-yao’s eyes widened. “Me? No! He went to battle ten years ago, and I have never left Shangjing.” Her composure momentarily faltered before she recovered. “You know that, Father.”
The Chancellor turned back to the landscape painting, contemplating the mist-shrouded peaks as though they might reveal political secrets.
“Hmm, he may have been looking for someone more... mature to look after his estates, or it is a political alliance he sought and he thought it would be easier for the Emperor to agree to a marriage to a...” his voice trailed off before he finished, “...to you.”
The words struck like tiny daggers, each one finding the tender spots beneath her perfect exterior. Mature. Leftover daughter. Inauspicious. Yun-yao’s face remained impassive, the mask she'd perfected over years of pitying glances and whispered comments.
“Perhaps,” she replied, the single word carrying just enough agreement to satisfy propriety while revealing nothing of the hurt beneath.
Chancellor Shen moved behind his desk, fingers trailing over the black lacquer box. “The General’s petition to the Emperor was... unexpected. This alliance complicates certain political calculations.”
Yun-yao caught the unspoken concern beneath her father’s words. This marriage wasn't just unusual—it was politically dangerous. The Chancellor’s family allied with a military upstart. Power balanced too heavily on one side of the scale.
Yun-yao kept her gaze fixed on a scroll rack behind his shoulder. “This daughter regrets causing inconvenience.”
“Regrets are for those without purpose. The Emperor’s decree stands, and we shall abide by it,” Chancellor Shen stated as he passed her the lacquer box he’d been trifling with. “These were your grandfather’s bequest to you.”
Yun-yao lifted the box lid. Inside lay nine smooth river stones, their surfaces etched with archaic symbols that seemed to shift under the light.
She reached out automatically, then froze as the nearest stone pulsed warm against her fingertips.
A foreign sensation washed over her—earthy warmth, the scent of mountain forests, streams bubbling over moss-covered rocks, fragrant incense smoke curling upward.
Something ancient stirred within her blood, resonating with the symbols that danced across the stone’s polished surface.
“Father, what are these?” she whispered, her perfect composure momentarily forgotten.
“These are casting stones,” he said gravely. “Passed down from your great-great-grandmother to your great-grand-aunt, then to your grandfather—my father.”
“Father never spoke of...” Her throat tightened around the words.
“Of our family’s shame?” The Chancellor’s mouth twisted. “Wu blood brings more trouble than honor. Our generation did not have any awakenings, and we had hoped that the blood had been diluted enough.”
The stones hummed against her palm now, vibrations traveling up her arm like plucked zither strings.
Memories surfaced—childhood fevers that painted the walls with shadow puppets, dreams of running through forests she'd never seen.
She'd hidden the visions beneath layers of propriety, smothered them with perfect embroidery stitches.
“Did he...” She swallowed. “Leave something for all of us?”
“Only you...” His voice lowered, “...and Yun-hai.”
The revelation struck like a thrown dagger. Her ten-year-old brother—laughing as he chased butterflies through the courtyard, tumbling into her lap with grass-stained knees—carried this same cursed inheritance. She closed her hand around the stones, their edges biting into flesh.
“The General’s household will expect order.” Her father’s voice regained its customary detachment. “Keep these... curiosities hidden.”
Yun-yao stood on legs gone numb, the box’s weight disproportionate to its size. At the door, she turned. “Why tell me now?”