The Wild Seed Princess

The world says I am a poisonous woman.

A woman who killed her mother, her husband, and her son.

Even the historians trembled before me, unsure where to begin writing.

I accept it.

From the moment I entered Hehuan Palace, the words wild seed filled my ears.

My mother had once been the greatest falconer on the steppe.

In a falcon-hunting tribe ruled by men, she stood alone at the top.

For years, no one defeated her.

My father was one of those defeated men.

Later, he became her lover.

Then they had me.

From the time I became sensible, I often saw Mother sitting by the window.

She never spared a glance for the gold the emperor sent.

Later, the knife hidden in her sleeve cut into the emperor’s arm.

Court officials and the empress joined hands to confine her in an outer villa beyond the city.

And I became the thing spat upon in the palace.

The emperor personally brought her back from the villa, wound still fresh, and made me a princess.

Mother only said,

“Thank you for Your Majesty’s grace.”

She had once been the most unforgettable flash of brilliance on the steppe.

My father was the heir of an allied tribe.

Mother told me many times that when Father married her, the whole steppe celebrated.

Meat and wine continued for days.

Thousands of cattle and sheep were slaughtered.

Gold and silver piled like little mountains.

Wine flowed endlessly.

Dancers from foreign lands spun beneath the stars.

The happy people of the steppe did not know danger was already brewing.

For a few years, Father, Mother, and I lived freely on the grasslands.

Then, when I was four, Father was taken to the imperial capital in chains.

For many years, the steppe tribes had already submitted to the central empire.

We sent cattle.

Sheep.

Wine.

Yet still we could not protect ourselves.

Mother and I were taken as spoils of war.

To give the survivors of the steppe a path to live, we were offered to Hehuan Palace.

The emperor had personally demanded us.

Mother became one of many women in the imperial harem.

Trapped in a cage of glazed tiles and golden roofs.

Forced to endure the loss of freedom.

When Mother entered the palace, her belly had already begun to show.

To hide the truth, the emperor declared to the outside world that I was his child.

The child in Mother’s belly too.

He gave us endless honor.

Inside Hehuan Palace, Mother held a knife to her own throat and forced him to agree:

The child would not bear the emperor’s surname.

He agreed.

Later, on a night of thunder and lightning, Mother gave birth to a boy.

But because sorrow had eaten through her pregnancy, my brother was born dead.

That night, the emperor held the dead infant and cried until his face twisted.

Mother was left with only me.

After that, the emperor renamed me.

Jiao.

Only much later did I learn that Jiao had been Mother’s childhood name.

The emperor could not obtain Mother’s love.

So he raised me into her shadow.

He loved me more than his own daughters.

Because I had her face.

I carried the wildness of steppe daughters, yet had grown within palace walls.

A mixture of open sky and imperial silk.

Once, the emperor said,

“Jiao, Father will one day find you the best husband. You and your children will enjoy endless imperial wealth.”

I played the obedient daughter.

My eyes brightened.

My face filled with expectation.

I let him believe I truly longed for the future he promised.

Mother once told me:

“To answer tooth with tooth is the best counterattack.”

From the day we entered this palace, I became Mother’s last falcon.

She spent the rest of her life sharpening my claws.