Nameless

CHAPTER ONE | THE USURPER'S ARRIVAL

The Emperor had left.

The same Emperor that Nai had spent the past three years of her life devoting herself to, whose good graces she had fought and clawed herself into, whose entertainment and pleasure she had been made to see to—that emperor had left.

And he hadn't taken her with him.

Other concubines, ones who had been here far longer, who had born the Emperor's sons and poisoned jealous rivals and been dutifully brought naked to his bedchamber each night, were packing their bags. Well, they were ordering around the eunuchs, who were in turn filling their lacquered trunks with embroidered hanfu and silk slippers, but it didn't matter.

They were going with him. And Nai wasn't.

She hadn't been trusted enough, hadn't charmed him enough, hadn't plied him with enough sweetness and sultry venom and coy seduction to complete her mission.

Nai had failed, and she would pay dearly for whatever mistake she had committed during her tenure as one of the Emperor's concubines.

Sitting on her bed, she felt the blankets shift, hearing the telltale creak of the mattress dipping beside her as her best friend, Yuming, sat down.

Nai looked over at her longtime companion, the woman who had been by her side since they'd both joined the harem within days of one another, as scared sixteen-year-old girls with bowlegged knees and dirt under their fingernails. As almost-children, playing at being something they were not, donning bejewelled hairpins and swanning around as though they were great beauties; kissing a man they hardly cared for and pretending being an Emperor made him a god rather than a sadistic tyrant.

Now, with her skin the palest shade of beauty and her lips and round cheeks rouged, Yuming had become the Emperor's favourite. Nai, however, was clearly far from it.

"Should you not be preparing to leave? I thought the Emperor would be taking you with him. You are his favourite, after all." Nai raised an eyebrow as Yuming wrapped her arm around Nai's shoulders, squeezing slightly.

Yuming sighed, and Nai tried to read beneath the exasperation in her friend's expression. Scrutinizing her features, she saw things she hadn't noticed before: the pale blue of dark circles beneath her eyes, the faint crinkle between Yuming's brows, the hollows of her cheeks more pronounced than usual.

"Are you ill?" asked Nai. "You look as though you haven't been sleeping. Or is it the flurry of packing for the trip that has you looking so exhausted?"

"I..." Yuming clapped a hand over her mouth to hide her yawn. "I am fine. And why are you saying trip like that?"

"Like what?" Nai leaned her head on her friend's shoulder, knowing how Yuming hated when Nai pretended not to know what she was talking about.

Yuming rolled her eyes in a mien of unladylike frustration. "The trip."

"Oh, you mean the Emperor's..." she dropped her tone to a whisper, and continued, "exile?"

They both knew that the Emperor was not merely taking a holiday to the Summer Palace, or leaving the Forbidden City to survey his troops. No, he was being replaced.

Meaning, all of Nai's years of work had gone down the drain.

"That." Yuming rested a hand on her abdomen, her figure dwarfed by her hanfu. The loose clothing did nothing for her figure. "Is the reason he isn't taking you. You're too shrewd. You know too much, and you let on that you know too much."

Nai frowned at her friend's words. Though she couldn't deny the truth in them, she had hoped that no one else would notice that she was far from a typical scheming concubine, vying for power or position within the harem. Seeking sons and fortune. No, Nai was not here to be loved by the Emperor, which she knew had been quite fatal for many of the women who had suffered that affliction.