Under the emperor’s cold stare, Prince Yuan Zhen’s pupils contracted. He scrambled for words, voice breaking with urgency.
“Your Majesty, it’s not mine—I'm innocent! That package was planted in my rooms. Someone framed me!”
He turned pleadingly toward the Empress Dowager, as if she were the last tether keeping him from falling.
“Your Majesty, Mother Dowager—please! You must know I am innocent. Tell him—defend me!”
But the Empress Dowager could not be relied upon. The scandal of her maid remained unresolved; she could not risk provoking the emperor’s wrath for the sake of one son. Even now, she wondered with a chill whether the emperor had begun to suspect her at last.
When Prince Yuan Zhen cast his eyes to his elder brother Yuan Qi and to Princess Yuan Zhu, begging them to intercede out of clan loyalty, Yuan Qi rose and crossed the hall in heavy, decisive steps.
Before Yuan Zhen could react, Yuan Qi’s hand shot up and struck his cheek. The blow was so fierce it sent the kneeling prince tipping to the side—and two of his teeth flew from his mouth.
The hall spun around Yuan Zhen. He had never expected Yuan Qi to strike him in public. His ears rang; for a moment he was stunned into silence.
Princess Yuan Zhu rushed forward, panic and fury on her face. She helped her brother to his feet, lips bleeding, and fixed Yuan Qi with a stare of cold outrage.
“Brother—what are you doing? Why did you hit Third Brother?”
Yuan Zhu and Yuan Zhen were of the same mother. Their mother’s high standing in the Kokchin court had always shielded them—given them privileges the eldest prince had never enjoyed. Yuan Zhu had been cherished by the Kokchin Khan since childhood; she wore that impropriety like armor and looked down on Yuan Qi without bothering to hide it. Even as she called him “Brother,” contempt and burning anger shone through.
Yuan Qi held them both with a steady, ruthless gaze.
“Fifth Sister, do you really need me to explain?” he said coldly. “Yuan Zhen had always been arrogant in Kokchin—insolent even to our Khan. He arrived in the capital and showed no remorse. He’s been acting on someone’s instigation and now he commits a crime the likes of which endangers our whole clan. He has placed the Kokchin people on a spit over a fire!”
He stared at Yuan Zhen as if each word were a brand.
“I always wondered why he collected poison before leaving Kokchin. Why he kept ten warriors hidden in his courtyard to train them secretly. Now I see—he meant to kill the Crown Prince.”
“You know what this means?” Yuan Qi’s voice rose. “Your stubbornness could doom our entire tribe!”
Spoken by anyone else, such accusations might have been dismissed. Spoken by the Kokchin eldest prince, the emperor’s expression changed; everything cooled into terrible understanding.
“Yuan Zhen,” Emperor Qi Hong said through clenched teeth, “you used the pretense of marriage to hide your intent to poison the Crown Prince?”
Yuan Zhen’s protests turned thin. Part of him had been prepared to lie, to say the poisons were for warfare, or for some petty revenge; but the true purpose—his darker plan—could not be named. If he spoke his real scheme, it would be labeled fratricide; the Empress Dowager would be dragged into fury and might turn against him. So he stammered, flailed for explanations, and every pause looked like guilt.
At that moment Chen, one of the palace inspectors who had examined the package, stepped forward with a new breathless report.
“Your Majesty, I found one more substance in the package—a highly rare toxin. It’s the very kind that nearly killed the Crown Prince before.”
He glanced at the imperial physician who had once struggled fruitlessly to save the prince. The treatment that had ultimately saved the Crown Prince had been discovered by the itinerant healer Bai Shu, who had said the poison came from the far southwestern border of Liu State—an almost unknown toxin.
“We searched long and hard for this, and now it is found in the Third Prince’s package,” Chen finished.
Qi Hong’s jaw tightened. “Yuan Zhen—what else are you hiding from me?”
Before Yuan Zhen could answer, the head of the Embroidered Guard produced the parchment found in the same bundle. He spread it and studied it, then flinched.
“Your Majesty, this scroll maps the city’s defenses—every gate, every secret passage in the palace. It even marks the private approach to Your Majesty’s bedchamber…”
Those last words were barely out of his mouth before the emperor slammed his palm on the table. The sound was a hammer blow that seemed to crush the air.
“Seize him! Lock the Third Prince in the death cell at once!”
The command fell like a verdict. The Embroidered Guard surged. Yuan Zhen’s face went ashen. He sprang up, drawing the curved saber at his belt and planting himself in the path of the men moving toward him.
“I am a prince of Kokchin! I will be the next Khan! Who dares lay a hand on me?” he shouted, his voice raw with defiance. He was large and feral-looking—like a wolf from the steppe—and for a moment the guards hesitated.
A voice cold as winter wind answered him.
“This is the capital, not your pasture,” it said.
Before Yuan Zhen could turn, Qi Rong—a figure who had been almost a blur until then—stood directly before him. He moved like a shadow and, with a single, effortless kick, struck Yuan Zhen under the jaw. The prince sailed through the air and hit the floor in a heap, unconscious.
Order returned with the thud of bodies and the scrape of feet. The ten warriors who had been on the platform were carried off dead; the bodies were hastily removed to the city’s common burial grounds. The Empress Dowager’s maid, who had been implicated, was abandoned by the woman she served—forced into a confession of taking bribes in a moment of weakness. The Empress Dowager, desperate to wash the scandal clean, ordered the maid beaten to death. The woman died under the blows without revealing any other truth.
The poisoned contestant, fortunately, had been saved once the antidote was found. One life recovered; many reputations were ruined.
The hall had quieted, but the seed of suspicion had been planted deep in the emperor’s breast. From that day on, whenever Qi Hong looked at the Empress Dowager, there was a new, small iciness in his gaze—an uncertainty that would not be easily dispelled.