She Wanted to Die

Serena Vale was strange.

That became the central fact of my life in the Eastern Palace.

She did not compete properly.

She did not scheme properly.

She did not even receive Leon properly.

For half a month, she claimed to be bleeding.

The physicians said she was perfectly healthy.

The next month, she was ill every other day.

Too dizzy.

Too tired.

Too cold.

Too sad.

Too asleep.

When I conceived my first child, Leon was delighted.

He announced it to the King and Queen immediately.

My parents wrote to congratulate me.

The palace treated me with even more respect.

Yet Leon still visited Serena whenever he could.

Celia told me she once overheard him saying,

“Serena, give me a child too.”

But Serena never conceived.

At first, I assumed fortune favored me.

Then Celia brought me another piece of gossip.

“Your Highness,” she whispered, “Serena takes something called the Dancer’s Elixir.”

“What is that?”

“It makes the skin pale, the body light, the waist slender.”

I looked up.

“And?”

Celia smiled knowingly.

“Women who take too much often cannot bear children.”

I was shocked.

Why would Serena damage her own fertility when Leon favored her above all?

That question followed me for months.

Then came the night of the crane hairpin.

I found Serena sitting alone in the moon pavilion.

She wore her usual pale dress. Under the moonlight, she looked almost unreal, like a woman drawn with water and sorrow.

“Was His Highness not in your palace tonight?” I asked.

“He fell asleep,” she said. “I couldn’t breathe inside.”

We sat together in silence.

Her eyes drifted to my hair.

“Your pin is beautiful.”

I touched it.

“This?”

I removed the crane hairpin.

“My father brought it from the south for my coming-of-age ceremony.”

“May I see?”

I hesitated, then handed it over.

She traced the carved crane with her fingertip.

“This is so lovely,” she murmured. “I never had such luck.”

The sadness in her voice was so plain that I felt awkward.

“If you like it, you may keep it.”

Behind me, Celia stiffened.

Serena shook her head.

“I don’t deserve expensive things.”

Before I could answer, she pressed the sharp end of the pin into her wrist.

Blood welled instantly.

Celia screamed.

I shot to my feet.

Serena blinked as if waking.

She looked down at the blood, then at the pin, then at me.

Panic swallowed her face.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I wasn’t—I didn’t mean—Crown Princess, I won’t tell Leon. I promise. I won’t say you did this.”

My blood turned cold.

No one else had seen clearly.

The wound matched my pin.

If she accused me, who would Leon believe?

The favored consort bleeding from my hairpin, or the pregnant Crown Princess with every reason to fear her?

I stepped back.

Serena reached toward me.

“No, please, I really won’t tell him. Be careful, you’re pregnant—”

I fled.

Celia slammed my chamber doors behind us.

I sat shaking in the summer heat, colder than I had ever been.

That night, I gave orders.

No private meetings with Serena.

No food from Serena.

No gifts used.

No message left unanswered but none accepted without record.

Until my child was born, I would not see her.

I thought then that Serena had tried to trap me.

Only much later did I understand.

She had not wanted to hurt me.

She had wanted to hurt herself.