Chapter 3:
Whispered Scrolls
It began with a whisper in the bathhouse.
Sira had been soaking quietly in a pool of lavender-scented water, her limbs aching from a day of slow walks and stiff silence, when she heard two voices distant, but echoing off the marble walls.
"They say the jade woman carries it already."
"So soon?"
"They chose her well. Wide hips. Bright eyes. The priestesses said her spirit was too stubborn to break. Perfect vessel for the Emperor's fate."
Sira stiffened.
They weren't speaking Mandarin.
They spoke an older dialect clipped, staccato one that barely survived among the oldest court women. But Sira had learned enough from Xiao to follow the edges of their meaning.
"And the Empress?"
A pause.
"She waits. Watches. She has not forgotten the last one."
"The girl from the west?"
A scoff. "There have been many girls. But this one glows."
A splash of water. Footsteps retreating.
Silence.
Sira stared into the water.
What did they mean glows? And the last one?
Had there been others?
She rose from the bath and wrapped herself in her robe, water dripping from her skin, but her thoughts were already on fire.
She needed answers.
That night, she waited until Xiao slept.
Then she crept through the corridor barefoot, hugging the shadows. She had learned the rhythm of the guards by now when they rotated shifts, when they stood half-awake in the moonlight. She slipped past two patrols and a cluster of sleeping servants.
Her destination: the inner scribe's wing.
She'd overheard a priest mention it once "the Emperor's private archives," they'd said. "Where the old scrolls go to die."
That meant forgotten knowledge.
And forgotten knowledge often meant truth.
The scribe's quarters were colder than the rest of the palace. Old. Carved stone instead of painted wood. The doors didn't creak, but the paper lanterns burned lower here, casting long shadows over towers of scrolls, stacked by subject and sealed with wax.
Sira scanned the rows, uncertain what she was looking for. She moved by instinct, drawn toward a shelf marked with a faded symbol:
龍骨記
"Dragonbone Chronicles."
She opened the nearest scroll, breath shallow.
It was written in high Mandarin but with careful strokes and footnotes beside each line. The record of a royal lineage, perhaps. She scanned the family names until she saw it:
> Empress Wen Xiu died in childbirth, the third month of the 5th year. Infant stillborn. The cause is unknown.
Then again:
> Lady Pei Lin, surrogate to the Red Lotus throne, died one day after delivery. Child healthy, but marked with red rash.
Again:
> The Western woman's name withheld showed signs of madness after the second moon. Removed from the palace.
The entries went back decades. Centuries.
All variations of the same fate: women used to bear royal heirs and then discarded. Some vanished. Some were accused of sorcery. Some simply died.
Sira's heart pounded.
They didn't survive.
They were chosen.
But they didn't survive.
She took a second scroll, hands trembling, and unrolled it halfway down.
There, penned in dark ink, were the words that changed everything:
> In the Year of Jade Fire, the Oracle of the Mountain Temple delivered a warning: "A child born from cursed blood shall tear the throne asunder. But born of a foreign womb, the curse shall sleep."
A note followed in red ink:
> The Empress's bloodline carries the mountain curse. The heir must be born of another. A surrogate.
Sira staggered backward.
They had lied.
The surrogacy wasn't mercy.
It was a necessity.
She wasn't chosen because she was strong.
She was chosen because the Empress couldn't risk the curse.
Her womb foreign, untouched by royal lineage, was their only protection.
A shield.
A sacrifice.
"Looking for something?" a voice asked behind her.
She whirled.
Dr. Han Xiu stood at the door, arms crossed, expression unreadable. He didn't look surprised to see her —only tired.
"Your Mandarin has improved," he noted.
Sira didn't respond.
Han stepped forward. "You are not the first to come here," he said. "But you may be the first to survive what you now know."
She stared at him. "You knew?"
He nodded. "Of course. The curse is not a myth. In my grandfather's time, three royal infants died within the womb. Their mothers lost their minds.
The Emperor was desperate. So he turned to the East. To science. To prophecy. To women like you."
"I'm not a prophecy," Sira hissed. "I'm a woman. I bleed. I breathe."
Han's gaze softened.
"Then survive," he said. "Use what you've found. Learn what the others never lived long enough to tell."
By the time she returned to her chamber, dawn was breaking.
Xiao was already awake, waiting on her knees.
She held out a cup of warm rice water and a note.
Sira opened it with shaking hands.
The Empress sees everything.
There was no signature.
But the message was clear.
She was not invisible anymore.
***
That morning, the Emperor visited her chambers.
Without announcement. Without guards.
She stood in silence as he stepped inside, his robe a simple charcoal hue, his hair tied loosely at the nape of his neck.
He didn't greet her like a ruler.
He sat beside her on the edge of the divan, eyes searching hers.
"You were in the scroll wing last night," he said quietly.
Not a question.
She said nothing.
Liang sighed. "What did you find?"
She looked at him, lips trembling. "The truth."
He flinched. Just slightly.
"Then you understand why I chose you."
Sira rose. "You didn't choose me. You needed me."
A pause. Then: "Both are true."
She turned away, fists clenched. "I read their names. The ones who came before. You let them die."
"They were not meant to die," he said softly. "I did not want this."
"You let it happen," she spat.
A long silence.
Then the Emperor did something she didn't expect.
He knelt.
Slowly, deliberately, he knelt on the floor before her.
"I cannot erase what has been done," he said. "But I will not let you vanish. Not like the others. I swear it."
Sira's heart stuttered.
She wanted to believe him.
But she remembered the scrolls. The red ink. The dead women.
She could not afford hope.
Only strategy.
That night, Xiao pulled back her robe and carefully inked a line of symbols across her lower belly.
The first read: fire.
The second: mother.
The third: storm.
A silent prayer.
A word.
A promise.