The Emperor let his gaze sweep the room one last time: over Eleana, pale with swallowed rage; over the knights who had watched and done nothing; over the slight form on the bed, eyes closed, breath thin.
He spoke without turning back. "For now, no one will disturb the Fourth Princess. Not with scolding. Not with questions." A pause. "She is to rest."
On the bed, Elara did not move. Her lashes didn't flutter. Her breathing stayed small and uneven.
Inside, her mind filed each piece of new information where it belonged.
Direct imperial guard.
Resident physician.
Confirmed diagnosis of "too weak to handle stress."
An emperor who had just tied his own reputation to her continued survival.
In her old world, it would have been called something simple: leverage.
If she played the invalid, they could not push her too hard without risking his wrath. If she played the quiet observer, they would underestimate how much she saw. And if she ever needed to act… she now knew exactly how little force this body could take before it broke.
The Emperor turned at last and walked toward the door. As he passed Eleana, he did not slow, did not look at her again.
Slowly, as the Emperor left, Eleana followed him. Knights and servants filed out in his wake, and the heavy doors thudded shut.
Silence settled.
Elara's eyes opened a narrow slit. She lay still, listening—no footsteps, no rustle of silk, no clink of armor. Only when she was sure the room was empty did she let her eyes open fully and push herself upright on the bed. Her muscles shook, but her mind was very clear.
Today's gamble had worked, but she hadn't been certain it would. The girl who'd owned this body before her had been completely different. Elara herself could not feel emotions the way others did; she could mimic reactions, but that didn't mean she could 'be' the old Yue Lian. She had no memories of these people, no shared childhood, no secret codes—only scraps of information the servant had whispered. She could guess at siblings. She would not guess at an emperor.
If she'd stayed "awake" and he'd started asking about the past, she would have had nothing to offer but a blank face and clumsy lies. Better to collapse, to let the weak body take the blame, than to reveal she didn't even know who she was supposed to be.
Elara sat still for a moment after that thought about the Emperor, letting the quiet settle into her bones. This body's memories were gone; all she had were scraps from a nervous servant and her own guesses. That wasn't enough. She needed data that belonged to the 'previous' Yue Lian, not just what others said about her.
If you're alone long enough, you talk to someone, she thought.
If there's no one you trust, you talk to paper.
It was the most efficient assumption. An unfavored, quiet princess with no mother, no faction, and too much time in her own rooms… high chance she would keep a diary, notes, something. And if that girl had written anything honestly—about sisters, about rules, about dangers—then Elara could stop guessing and start calculating.
She swung her legs off the bed. The floor was cold against her bare feet; her muscles protested, a thin ache running up her calves, but she ignored it. One thing at a time. First: where would a lonely princess hide thoughts no one was supposed to read?
She moved through the room methodically, as if running a search algorithm. Desk first: drawers opened and closed, fingers skimming over brush sets, ink sticks, neatly stacked blank paper. No personal notebook in sight. The shelves behind the desk held rows of stiff, unread classics—too formal, too clean. She checked behind them anyway. Nothing.
Next, the bed. She felt along the underside of the frame, then under the mattress, then along the carved headboard for any uneven line that might mean a hidden compartment. The vanity: jewelry boxes, hairpins, jars of powder. Useless. She scanned the room again, eyes narrowing. A girl who didn't play politics but loved "experiments and strange tools"… she wouldn't choose the obvious spots.
Her gaze landed on a low side table by the window, half-hidden behind a silk screen. A simple piece of furniture, but the lacquer on one drawer's edge was slightly more worn than the others, as if fingers had tugged it open a thousand quiet times. Elara crossed the room, heart steady, and reached for the handle.
As she slid open the drawer with a soft scrape.
Inside were the things anyone was meant to see: folded handkerchiefs, a small pouch of coins, a half‑finished embroidery hoop. Harmless clutter. The kind of surface mess that said "ordinary princess" to anyone who bothered to look.
Elara didn't stop there. She lifted each item out and lined them up neatly on the table, watching how they'd been arranged. The cloth at the bottom lay too flat, its corners too sharp, as if someone had smoothed it more often than the others. She pinched the edge between two fingers and peeled it back.
Beneath the cloth, the wood was different—slightly raised along one side, with a hairline gap where there shouldn't be one. A false base. Of course. She pressed lightly at one corner. It didn't move. She shifted pressure to the opposite edge and, with a tiny click, the panel popped up.
There was no book.