Morning came quietly to the imperial palace.
The first sunlight slipped across the tiled roofs, turning the golden ridges of the palace buildings bright beneath the pale sky. Servants had already begun their morning duties. Guards changed shifts at the gates, maids carried breakfast trays through the corridors, and the distant sound of bells announced the beginning of another day.
Yet the Emperor had barely slept.
The threatening letter from the previous night remained on his mind.
He had read it again and again.
Punish the Empress.
Those words were simple.
But behind them was something far more complicated.
Someone wanted him to turn against his own wife.
Someone wanted him to believe that the Empress was responsible for the danger surrounding the palace.
And the Emperor could not understand why.
He had spent most of the night thinking about it.
By sunrise, he had made a decision.
There was only one person he wanted to speak to first.
The Dowager Empress.
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