The Princess's Substitute - Chapter 1

“Me?”

I pointed at myself, certain I had misheard.

Princess Fengning raised a slender eyebrow. “Would you have me serve that old barbarian myself?”

She was the Emperor of Liang’s favorite daughter. No one had ever dared tell her no.

But we were a long way from the imperial palace now.

“They say the King of Qiang is cruel and savage. Last year, he burned the Liang princess alive just because he discovered she was a palace maid granted the title. If we insult him like this, I’m afraid—”

“That was her own uselessness!” the princess snapped. “If she’d been any good, those Northern Qiang barbarians wouldn’t have used it as an excuse to mass troops on the border and force Father to marry me off to this wretched place.”

“I insulted him? That old brute has left us sitting here for days! He hasn’t even made me queen, yet he summons me to his bed?”

“Does he think he can treat my royal person so cheaply?”

I understood that she had a thousand reasons to hate this marriage.

I also knew that a marriage for peace usually meant finding an ordinary palace maid like me, granting her a princess’s title, and sending her abroad.

Real imperial daughters never had to worry about it.

Unfortunately, Great Liang’s treasury was empty, its men weak, its horses exhausted. If it could not fight a war, it had no grounds to bargain.

Even the Noble Consort’s threat to take her own life had failed to stop the emperor’s decree.

I wanted to feel sorry for the princess. But I was hardly in a position to.

She could still throw herself across her mother’s knees and weep. She could smash the vases and jade carvings in Chaoyang Palace.

All I could do was kneel and thank her for her favor, then get up and clean the mess.

Besides, she was plainly sending me to my death.

I tried to reason with her. “The khan and the other members of the Northern Qiang royal family saw Your Highness when they received you. How could I take your place in his bed?”

Princess Fengning gave a sly smile. “Mother made inquiries before I left. The glare off the snow once damaged his eyes. He can barely see by day, and at night he can’t see at all.”

“Light also makes his eyes water, so he never has lamps lit in his tent.”

“You and I are the closest in build. Come with me later. Once we’re inside, that old brute won’t know who’s in his bed.”

Lights were appearing in the tents outside our window. Only the royal tent in their midst remained dark.

I still thought it a terrible idea. “What if he discovers us? What do we do then?”

She rested her chin on her hand and stared blankly.

Apart from being married off to Northern Qiang, nothing in Princess Fengning’s comfortable life had ever gone against her wishes. She had never been wrong, let alone failed.

“Enough.” Her pretty face hardened. “Xiazhu, are you defying me?”

I closed my mouth by instinct.

As I accompanied her into the royal tent, I pressed a hand to my chest, terrified that the guards on either side would hear my pounding heart.

The tent stretched deep inside, like a palace.

Without the Northern Qiang woman official leading us, I might have lost my way in it.

In darkness so thick I could not see my own hand, I was shoved onto the khan’s bed. The princess slipped into hiding somewhere.

It went more smoothly than I had imagined.

The khan did not speak to me. His rough skin and beard scraped against my neck and traveled downward, like a great beast licking its prey.

I felt as though I were trapped in a jolting carriage. Between the shaking and the pain, my awareness slowly blurred.

By the time the princess and I left the tent together, the moon was high overhead.

“I told you nothing would happen,” she said smugly. “Mother had someone bribe that woman official. She’ll see that I’m safe.”

“As for you, keep your mouth shut.” She put a finger to her lips. “Even around those three.”

When I returned to the tent where we maids slept, “those three” were waiting anxiously.

“Sister Xiazhu’s back in one piece! Thank heaven!” Dongmei, the youngest, clasped her hands together with extravagant relief.

Qiuju was only a few years older. She caught hold of me and fired off questions. “Did the princess lose her temper again? Did the khan like her? Are we safe now? They won’t kill us like the girls who came last year, will they?”

My face and neck burned. I gulped down a large bowl of water before mumbling something in answer.

Chunlan, the eldest of us, sat on her bed and listened.

She was probably still annoyed that the princess had not chosen her to attend her tonight.

Chunlan was different from the rest of us.

She had once been the Grand Commandant’s daughter, famous for her learning among the noble young women of Bianjing.

Then her father had fallen from favor. Every man in the household was exiled, and the women were taken into the palace as slaves.

Chunlan became the princess’s study companion. It was she who had helped the princess learn about Northern Qiang’s customs and affairs.

By any reckoning, she should have been the one attending the princess on her first night.

How could she know that “attending” had come to mean something quite different?

I dragged my aching body to bed. I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, yet my thoughts would not stop.

I had thought being sent to Northern Qiang with the princess was bad enough. Now I had been saddled with a duty too shameful to speak of, and deadly besides.

How long could I possibly keep it hidden?