The Day Mother Flew Free

Mother died on the day of my coming-of-age ceremony.

The emperor had broken ancestral rules and built me my own palace before I was even engaged.

The Hall of Jade Jiao opened that day.

Ink-jade pearls from the Undying Sea.

Hetian jade from the western frontier.

A resurrection herb bought with countless lives.

Objects others could beg for and never receive were merely toys in my hall.

Mother stood at the top of Hehuan Palace, looking at my newly built hall beside hers.

Gold glittered.

Gifts poured endlessly.

She knew her hawk had grown sharp enough to fly.

“Noble Consort has died!”

The ceremonial music stopped.

The red curtains were removed.

The emperor stumbled into Hehuan Palace.

Mother had cut her own throat.

Her eyes looked toward the light beyond the doors.

The emperor held her corpse and cried until the palace shook.

I followed the direction of Mother’s gaze.

The steppe.

She was finally free.

The palace women said I had a hard fate.

That I had killed my mother on the day I became a woman.

They called me a lonely star descended from heaven.

I did not care.

Mother was free.

And I could begin.

The emperor washed his face with tears day and night.

Whenever he visited me, I placed Mother’s gifts around the room.

A pouch she embroidered.

A steppe knife.

A faded ribbon.

He saw my increasingly pale face and those old things, and fell silent.

I knew he was seeing her through me.

Mother had taught me to resemble her.

Not only in face.

In posture.

In expression.

Even the angle of my eyes when I spoke.

“Jiao.”

The emperor looked at me with tears.

I did not avoid his gaze.

I met it with the same burning intensity Mother once had.

“Forgive me,” he whispered.

He was old now.

White-haired.

When I was small, he had held me on his knees and shown me every corner of the palace.

I had played the proper princess.

Never overstepping.

Gentle and obedient, as Mother had once been to him.

I knew I had succeeded when his hand slowly approached my cheek.

I gripped my sleeve tightly.

Forced down the nausea rising in my stomach.

Just before he touched me, I spoke.

“I am Jiao.”

He jerked back as if struck by lightning.

Awake.

He saw me again.

Not the Jiao he wanted.

The emperor retreated several steps, horrified by the improper desire that had risen in him.

He fled.

For a long time, he did not come to my palace.

So I went to him.

“Your Majesty, Princess Jiao requests an audience.”

I carried the best tonic from the imperial physicians.

I had personally watched it boil.

“Your Majesty, the weather is cold. Jiao worries for your health.”

I acted perfectly obedient.

He accepted the bowl.

Drank it all.

In court that day, the star official knelt and said,

“Princess Jiao has reached marriage age. I request Your Majesty choose a worthy husband soon.”

The emperor looked at him.

“Do you have advice?”

“Your Majesty, the princess has a destiny of extreme nobility. She should be paired with a noble son.”

The emperor’s hand paused.

A noble son?

One of his sons?

He was old.

His suspicion had deepened.

Even when meeting his own sons, he constantly warned them not to grow ambitions they should not have.

The star official and I exchanged one glance.

He lowered his head again.

“The princess’s fate can suppress the realm.”

The emperor panicked.

The realm was his.

I knelt.

“Your Majesty, I already have someone I favor.”

“Who?”

“Prince Ling.”

Everyone was shocked.

Prince Ling had been exiled to a bitter borderland thousands of li away.

A disgraced royal relative.

How could he match my status?

Besides, he was nearly seventeen years older than me.

“When I was young, I met Prince Ling once,” I said. “Since then, I have admired him.”

“Please fulfill my wish.”

I knocked my forehead to the floor.

Almost begging.

After a long silence, the emperor said,

“Granted.”