Chapter 19 The Sparrow Turns
I opened my eyes. The red candles were burning high.
The slip of paper had gone yellow and old.
I pinched it up. It drooped, soft, and looked spent.
Like me, dying over and over.
I tucked the slip into my hairpin. The door creaked open.
Everything was as before.
Soon the former emperor fell gravely ill and died. The Crown Prince took the throne, and I became Empress again.
Three months after the new emperor ascended, I confirmed a pregnancy without trouble.
Of course it went that smoothly.
Xiao Yan had arranged it long ago.
In the imperial garden I touched my belly and listened to Lan Zhi chatter about making clothes for the child I carried.
Her brows danced. Light sat in her eyes. Her face was full of expectation.
As if the child I was going to bear were hers.
"Aiya." She cried out.
The cat she kept had come with a sparrow in its mouth.
Half the sparrow's wing was broken. Blood marked the feathers. It flapped on the ground.
The white cat's mouth was full of blood, red at the lips like its owner.
"Good child. So clever." Lan Zhi tapped its head.
The cat raised its head, walked to the sparrow, licked its bloody claws, and looked ready to end the game.
The half-dead sparrow flew up on one wing and pecked straight at the cat's eye.
The prey turned on its attacker.
Feathers and fur filled the air. The cat yowled and clawed, but the bird seemed set and would not let go.
Lan Zhi screamed with her cat and tried to help it catch the sparrow.
The cat thrashed too hard. It bounced, ran wild, and fell into the lake.
When it was pulled out, it had drowned.
The sparrow lay quiet in the grass nearby.
It was so small. It had lost so much blood. Its chest still rose and fell, faint.
Prey that looked weak needed only one opening to turn life and death.