The Concubine Who Was Supposed to Die in Chapter Three novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: The Decree
Zhiyao ran to the window with a sheet around her.
The writing was gold, and each character was taller than a pagoda.
It unrolled slowly over the cloud sea, line by line, and every line was in the old script that only scholars could read.
She could read it.
Of course she could.
She had read it on a night bus, in a different font.
"On the seventh dawn from this one," she read aloud, "Heaven's Emperor shall be joined with Heaven's Chosen before the court, and the Ascension Rite shall bind them for ten thousand years."
Behind her, the bed creaked.
Wuyan came to stand at her shoulder.
He had put on his trousers and nothing else, and his face was very still.
"It is the Rite," he said. "I have stood at it nine times."
"Do you remember it?"
"Only the end. Her hand in mine. Then the gold comes down and everything I wanted stops being a question."
His jaw tightened.
"I would not have thought a thing could be worse than sentencing a woman. This is worse."
"What does it do to you?"
"It makes me glad."
The sky went on unrolling.
At the foot of the writing, in smaller characters, was a line she had not seen in the novel.
She read it twice.
"The court shall be of one heart."
Wuyan flinched.
There was a sound from the corridor, a long soft noise, and it took Zhiyao a moment to understand that it was singing.
Chunxi burst in without knocking.
She was in her night robe with her hair coming loose, and her face was white.
"My lady, the kitchens. The whole kitchen stopped. The cook stood there with the knife in his hand and sang a song about the Maiden's eyes, and then they all did it together, and they were smiling."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Concubine Who Was Supposed to Die in Chapter Three are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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