The Left Prime Minister Zhao Hengyuan didn't wait for the chamberlain. He didn't wait for tea. And he didn't wait to be announced.
By the time Mingyu crossed the threshold from the bedroom to the main room of Xinying's chambers, the Left Prime Minister was already in the middle of the room, his voice pitched high enough to rattle the screens, Meiling in tow like an ornament dragged behind a cart.
"She is owed!" Zhao Hengyuan barked, his sleeves snapping with each motion. "Your Majesty, my younger daughter has been humiliated, stripped of her rightful place. Her fiancé slain, her future stolen. It is only just that she be restored, that she be given her place in the harem to bear the heir as propriety demands!"
Zhao Meiling's eyes were wet but her spine was straight. She glanced at Xinying with a strange mixture of dread and satisfaction, as if expecting her elder sister to wither under the spectacle and weight that was their father.
