11. First Contact
First Contact
The new tenant has settled in.
Made demands. Rearranged the furniture without asking.
My bladder has been evicted to make room for expansion.
My stomach has been informed that its preferences are no longer relevant.
My emotional regulation has been replaced by something that cries at sunsets and wants to murder anyone who chews too loudly.
But this morning—this morning I can think.
For the first time in weeks, my brain belongs to me again. The nausea has eased to a manageable simmer. The fog has lifted. I have thoughts, and they’re not all about food or violence.
This is dangerous. Thoughts lead to plans. Plans lead to action. And I’ve been sitting on my hands for far too long.
Someone tried to poison me.
Inconvenient. More inconvenient: I’ve been too useless to do anything about it.
Weeks. Weeks of morning sickness and wedding chaos and hormonal disasters that turned me into a weeping, raging mess.
Weeks of lying in bed while whoever tried to kill me and my daughter walked free through this palace, wearing a servant’s face or a noble’s smile, confident that the pregnant assassin was too broken to look for them.
I cried at a cloud last week. A cloud. It was shaped like Dumpling. Dumpling looked at me like I’d betrayed everything he stood for.
That ends today.
I roll to the edge of the bed. My body protests—everything protests now, my spine has opinions, my hips have filed formal complaints, my center of gravity has relocated without leaving a forwarding address—but I make it upright. Progress.
Ren is already gone. His side of the bed holds the faint impression of where he lay, the pillow still carrying traces of sandalwood. He rises before dawn. Works constantly. Runs an empire with one hand while the other reaches for me in his sleep.
The man has problems. Specifically, he has me as a problem, and he refuses to treat that with appropriate concern.
I want to go straight to the archives. Pull records. Hunt.
Instead, I reach for the formal robes laid out on the chair.
Today’s court session. Trade negotiations with the northern provinces.
The kind of essential imperial business that requires visible unity—the emperor and his pregnant consort, presenting a united front to anyone who might be calculating the stability of the throne.
I can’t skip it. My absence would be noted, analyzed, weaponized by half a dozen factions before lunch.
And Ren needs me there. Not because I’m useful in trade negotiations—I’m spectacularly useless in trade negotiations—but because my presence says something.
Says we’re solid. Says the assassin he kept is still at his side.
Politics. I hate politics. Give me a clean kill any day.
The archives will wait. They’ve been waiting for weeks. A few more hours won’t change anything.
I dress carefully. The formal robes are heavier than my usual clothes, layers of silk that announce my position to anyone with eyes. Dark green embroidered with gold phoenixes. Imperial consort attire. The weight of it settles on my shoulders like a judgment.
Five months ago, I was an assassin in borrowed shadows.
Now I’m wearing phoenixes to court.
The universe has a sick sense of humor.
The Jade Throne room smells like incense and political maneuvering.
I take my position at Ren’s shoulder—the spot I’ve claimed, the spot the court is still learning to accept. Close enough to whisper. Far enough to suggest respect. A perfectly calibrated distance that says I belong here.
The courtiers have arranged themselves in the usual configuration of grudges and ambitions. Chancellor Feng stands three paces behind Lord Wei, two ahead of Lady Mei—a geometric statement of displeasure that would be invisible to anyone who hasn’t spent eight centuries reading rooms.
I’ve spent eight centuries reading rooms.
Feng’s jaw could cut glass. Whatever Ren’s doing with the northern trade routes, Feng doesn’t like it. I file this away. Enemies with obvious tells are a gift.
Shen’s faction has repositioned again. Three of his people have drifted closer to the front of the audience hall, their robes freshly pressed, their expressions carefully neutral. Testing boundaries. Checking if the political winds have shifted.
Lady Mei’s fan moves in slow, measured arcs. She’s watching everyone else watch us.
I catch her eye. She inclines her head a fraction of an inch.
The minister begins speaking.
“The matter of the northern provinces trade agreement requires Your Majesty’s attention. The tariff adjustments proposed by the Ministry of Revenue would affect grain storage quotas across six districts, with particular implications for the winter surplus allocation...”
I stop listening.
The minister has been at this for ten minutes, and he’s still on his opening preamble. I’ve died faster than this. More pleasantly, too.
I watch the room instead. Exits: three, if you count the ceremonial entrance that’s technically blocked by protocol.
Guards: twelve visible, probably more behind the screens.
Weapons: mostly ornamental at this distance, but General Wei’s sword is real, and his lieutenant’s dagger is positioned for a quick draw.
The minister drones on. Rice yields. Import quotas. Something about Xiang’s merchant class and trade concessions that would require amendments to existing treaty provisions. The words wash over me like background noise while my mind wanders to more important things.
Ren is listening. Or at least, he’s giving an excellent impression of listening—spine straight, eyes forward, that particular stillness that means he’s processing multiple layers of information simultaneously. He does this well. Rules an empire while looking like he’s made of stone.
I know he’s also tracking my breathing. Noting when I shift my weight. Probably counting how many times I’ve checked the exits in the past hour.
“—therefore, the adjustment to Xiang’s import restrictions would require a revision of the existing treaty provisions, specifically regarding—”
Something flutters.
Low in my belly. Not pain. Not the nausea I’ve grown used to battling. Something else entirely.
Like bubbles rising. Like wings beating against water from the inside.
My hand goes to my stomach before the thought completes itself.
Oh.
That’s—that’s her. That’s the baby. Moving.
Of course it’s happening now. Of course my daughter’s first hello comes during a droning recitation of grain storage quotas. Typical. She’s already got my timing.
The minister keeps talking. “—the grain storage protocols established in the third year of Your Majesty’s reign—”
It happens again. Stronger. A ripple of movement that isn’t mine, a presence making itself known.
Hello, that movement says. I’m here. I’m real. Notice me.
I’m noticing. I’m noticing so hard my vision blurs at the edges.
“Lián?”
His voice cuts through the minister’s droning. I look up. Find his eyes.
He’s not looking at the minister anymore. He’s not looking at the court, the trade agreement, the empire that demands his attention every waking moment.
He’s looking at me. Only me. The emperor disappears. Something younger takes his place, something raw and wondering.
“What’s wrong?”
The entire court is watching.
I should lie. Deflect. Make a joke about my lunch disagreeing with me and let him return to matters of state.
“Nothing’s wrong.” The words come out strange, too soft for this room. “Something moved.”
His face does something I don’t have words for. The stillness breaks. The mask cracks. Beneath it—
Beneath it, I see him. Not the emperor with three thousand years of dragon wisdom in his head. Just a man, watching the woman carrying his daughter, understanding what I mean.
“May I—”
I take his hand. The court can’t see from this angle—the throne’s arm blocks the view—but I don’t care. I pull his fingers to the spot where the movement happened.
We wait.
The minister has stopped talking. The silence stretches.
And then—
She kicks.
Stronger this time. A proper kick, deliberate and emphatic, like she’s announcing herself to someone new.
His breath catches. Just once. Just barely.
“That’s her,” I say. Stupid. Obvious. Unnecessary. I say it anyway.
“That’s her,” he agrees. His voice isn’t quite steady.
The silence stretches. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m aware that we’re in the middle of a formal audience. That every noble in this room is watching. That the political implications of this moment will echo through faction meetings for weeks.
I can’t bring myself to care.
She’s moving. She’s real. Not just nausea and mood swings and the slow betrayal of a body I’ve known for eight centuries. A person. Learning to kick.
I’ve been alive for so long. So long and I can’t remember the last time I experienced something new. But this, this is new. I’ve never felt this flutter before, this impossible intimacy with someone I haven’t met yet.
I’ve felt what comes after—the loss, the grief, the hollow years of outliving everyone I’ve ever loved.
I know better than to want this.
I want it anyway.
“The tariff adjustment,” the minister ventures, his voice climbing with uncertainty, “would require—”
“Approved,” Ren says.
“Your Majesty, I haven’t finished presenting the—”
“Approved. All of it.” His hand hasn’t moved from my stomach. His eyes haven’t moved from my face. “This session is concluded.”
Silence.
The kind of silence that happens when an emperor does something unexpected. The kind that ripples outward, touching every noble, every minister, every faction leader in the room.
Chancellor Feng’s expression could curdle milk.
Lady Mei’s fan has stopped moving entirely.
Lord Shen’s faction exchange glances that I’ll want to analyze later, when my brain isn’t currently dissolving into a puddle of feelings I didn’t authorize.
Ren stands. Offers me his arm. His voice carries to the far walls, pitched for the audience.
“The future empress requires rest.”