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Prologue

I was born in the midnight crevice between two lunar years.

When fireworks shattered the star-woven sky, it drowned out my first cries. Sadly, not enough to disturb the divine fate uttered a thousand miles away behind palace walls.

A fallen goddess who bears the phoenix’s mark is destined to rule a united An’Lu.

A curse disguised as a prophecy that ignited a want so violent inside our great emperor, it engulfed the land by sunrise.

He ordered the girl to be found and brought to him, and three days later, they found me under the roof of a seventh-ranked minister in a forgotten corner of the empire with the phoenix’s mark bloodred between my brows.

“If anyone is to be the empress of a united continent, she can only be the Empress of Rong and rule from the arm of my son,” the emperor announced to his court days later. His eyes were stained with tears as he cradled an infant close to his chest.

A baby boy born between the same lunar years as I was. The onlysurviving child of his beloved empress, who took her last breath when her son drew his first.

Rumors had it those gilded halls echoed with my scream when the emperor tied a blessed red string of fate between my and Prince Siwang’s stubby infant fingers.

“With her prophecy at Siwang’s side,” the emperor exulted, “my son will achieve what the ancestors before us could not: unite the continent and finally bring peace to these lands!”

The court roared in cheers and applause; no one dared to object to the emperor’s fantasies of victory and glory.

Except me, whose cries refused to quiet.

Part One

The Empress Promised by the Stars

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I spent my life trapped behind crimson walls, inside this palace where I could dance along golden hallways and grand pavilions and do everything I wanted—except leave.

You are the future empress. You need to be protected,my father reminded me on the last day of each moon.

Since I wasn’t allowed to leave the palace without written permission from the emperor, this was the only day of each month when my parents were allowed to spend rare hours with me.

We often wandered the peony gardens, took leisurely strolls along the koi ponds, and exchanged pleasantries at my pavilion on the rainy days when we could not find other distractions to fill our silence. I had so much to say. I yearned to hug them and laugh with them like a normal daughter, but not under the surveilling eyes of the palace ladies who were here to monitor my every move, not just wait at my beck and calls.

Their eyes were always watching, ears always listening.

When my parents asked me about my days, I forced smiles andpretended I was happy. I in turn asked about their days as if I didn’t have their lives told to me like soft-spun folklore by the servant girls whose favorite pastime was gossiping about the capital’s families. Brief rays of sunshine against the vast gray of the palace life.

From my gilded cage, I listened with envy about how my sister was growing up and how my parents were aging. I listened with envy about my parents’ nosy neighbors, the noble ladies with whom Mother played tiles, the ministers who disputed with Father, and the men who were asking for my older sister’s hand.

For I didn’t want to hear about that life. I wanted to live it.

But I was the future Empress of Rong before I was my parents’ daughter.

Their words were always few and shallow and their smiles were tense, ever so polite. My parents bowed when they greeted me, and bowed when they said their farewells.

My parents didn’t know how to talk to the future empress, who was torn from their arms before I was old enough to be off my mother’s milk.

I did not know what to say, either. Especially to my father.

Seventeen years, and I could not remember a single moment spent with them when I had not felt like a stranger on the outside, lookingin.

A child stolen, raised by servants who knew only to kneel and beg for forgiveness when I cried for my mother, father, and sister.

A girl whose only purpose was to marry a boy because the stargazer claimed I was destined to rule over a united Warring States. But if I was chosen by the gods and destined to rule, then why did visions of bloodshed and calamity haunt me every time I closed my eyes?