The silk felt heavier than it should.
Not the embroidered weight of the robe itself, but the meaning woven into it. Every stitch, every thread, carried the word of what Daiyu would call me after today.
Empress.
It should have felt like a victory. Instead, I felt like a woman standing in the middle of a road, knowing the storm rolling toward her wasn't going to slow down just because she was wearing gold.
The months since Baiguang's fall had been… busy, if I wanted to lie about it. Exhausting, if I didn't.
Mingyu and the ministers had played their games… cutting roads, tightening supply lines, making sure the "royal" prisoners stayed quiet in their gilded cage. I stayed out of it for the most part. I didn't want more war. I didn't want to have to be war. But every now and then, something would shift in the air, and I'd be dragged in before someone made a decision I'd have to clean up later.
