Mei Lin's POV
The slap comes without warning.
I don't flinch. Years of practice have taught me that flinching only makes Mother angrier. Instead, I keep my eyes on the courtyard stones beneath my knees, tasting blood where my teeth cut into my cheek.
This is your fault, Mother hisses above me. If you weren't so hideous, Rong wouldn't have needed to be the family's only hope. Now look what you've caused!
What I've caused? I want to laugh, but that would earn another slap. I didn't make my sister run away the night before her wedding to the Emperor. I didn't spend the last three months filling Rong's head with terrifying stories about the Blood Emperor and his three dead wives.
That was all Mother.
Mei Lin. Father's voice cuts through the courtyard like a blade. Look at me.
I raise my head slowly. Father stands on the pavilion steps, still dressed in the expensive robes he'd worn to tonight's pre-wedding banquet. Behind him, servants scurry like frightened mice, their faces pale. Something is very wrong.
Rong is gone, Father says flatly. She left a note saying she'd rather die than marry the Emperor.
The courtyard spins. Rong is gone? My beautiful, perfect, spoiled little sister actually ran away?
The wedding is tomorrow morning, Father continues, and his eyes—cold, calculating—lock onto mine. If no bride appears from the Lin family, we will all be executed for insulting the throne. The entire family. Your mother. Your brother. The servants. Everyone.
My heart hammers against my ribs. This can't be happening.
So you will take her place, Father says simply.
The words don't make sense at first. Then they slam into me like a physical blow.
What? I whisper.
You will marry the Emperor tomorrow as Lin Rong. Father descends the steps, stopping directly in front of me. The veil is thick. The ceremonies are formal. No one will know the difference until after the wedding is complete.
But, I My thoughts scatter like startled birds. When he finds out—
That's your problem. Father's voice is ice. You've been useless your entire life. Nothing but a burden since that fire ruined you. Finally, you can be useful for once.
Useful. The word burns worse than the flames that scarred me fifteen years ago.
Mother makes a disgusted sound. At least we won't have to look at that face anymore. The Emperor will probably lock you away once he sees what's under the veil.
Something inside me cracks. Not breaks I broke years ago. This is different. This is the final piece of me that still hoped my family might love me, might see me as more than the disappointing eldest daughter, finally dying.
And if I refuse? I ask quietly.
Father's smile is cruel. Then we all die at dawn. Your choice, daughter. Your life for the family's. Seems fair, doesn't it?
Fair. Nothing about this is fair. But when has fairness ever applied to me?
I think about dying. About the executioner's blade. About my family screaming as they're dragged to their deaths because of Rong's cowardice and my refusal.
I think about the Emperor, the Blood Emperor, they call him. The man who killed his own brothers to take the throne. The man whose three previous wives all died mysteriously. The man I'm supposed to marry tomorrow, pretending to be my sister.
I'll probably die anyway. But at least this way, I choose how.
I'll do it, I say.
Mother actually gasps, as if she expected me to refuse. As if she wanted me to refuse, so she could blame me for the family's execution.
Father just nods, already turning away. Servants! Alter the wedding dress. We have until dawn.
The next hour is chaos. Servants strip me, measure me, pin silk against my skin with shaking hands. Rong's wedding dress is beautiful, red silk embroidered with golden phoenixes, each stitch worth more than I've ever owned. But it's made for Rong's delicate frame, not my taller, broader body.
They alter it hastily, cutting fabric, adding panels. It doesn't fit right. The shoulders are tight. The waist bunches awkwardly. But it will have to do.
Your hair, Mother says sharply, and servants attack my simple braid, transforming it into an elaborate style that makes my head ache. They paint my face with white powder and rouge until I don't recognize the woman in the mirror.
The heavy veil comes last, thick red silk that obscures everything. I can barely see through it.
Remember, Father says as they lead me to the bridal sedan, you are Lin Rong. Sweet. Gentle. Obedient. If you ruin this, we all die.
The sedan is tiny, claustrophobic. They seal me inside, and darkness swallows me whole. Through the silk walls, I hear servants lifting the poles, hear Mother's relieved sigh, hear my brother's nervous laugh.
No one says goodbye to me. No one wishes me luck.
The sedan lurches forward, and my stomach drops.
I'm really doing this. I'm really going to the Imperial Palace to marry the Blood Emperor while pretending to be my sister. I'm walking into a death trap with my eyes open because my family values their lives more than mine.
The sedan sways as we move through the city streets. I can't see anything. Can't hear anything except my own ragged breathing beneath the veil.
What will he do when he finds out? The question circles my mind like a vulture. Will he kill me immediately? Torture me first? Execute my family anyway for the deception?
I press my hand against the sedan wall, feeling the silk beneath my palm, and make myself breathe.
I survived the fire. I survived fifteen years of being invisible. I'll survive this too.
The sedan slows, stops. Voices murmur outside, official, formal. The Imperial Palace.
My heart hammers so hard I'm sure everyone can hear it.
The sedan door opens. Someone extends a hand to help me out, and through the veil, I see red—everything is red. Red carpets, red lanterns, red robes on the officials waiting to receive the bride.
Red like blood.
I step onto the carpet, my legs shaking, and let them guide me forward. The palace looms ahead, massive and terrifying, all golden roofs and sharp edges under the rising sun.
Somewhere inside, the Emperor waits.
The man I'm about to deceive.
The man who might kill me before nightfall.
A court official bows low. The bride has arrived. The ceremony begins immediately.
No time to run. No time to think. No time to breathe.
They lead me forward, and all I can think is: This is how I die.
But as we pass through the palace gates and I glimpse the throne room ahead—massive, glittering with gold, filled with hundreds of silent witnesses—something else cuts through my terror.
A single thought, sharp and unexpected:
At least no one here knows I'm worthless yet.
For the first time in fifteen years, I'm walking into a room where no one has already decided I don't matter.
It won't last. The Emperor will see through the veil, see through the deception, see the scarred, disappointing substitute his bride became.
But until then, for these few precious hours, I get to pretend I'm someone worth looking at.
The official gestures toward an ornate screen at the far end of the throne room. The Emperor awaits behind the ceremonial veil. Approach and kneel, bride of Lin.
My feet move automatically. One step. Another. The throne room is so quiet I can hear the silk of my dress whispering against the floor.
Behind that screen waits the Blood Emperor.
Behind that screen waits my death.
I reach the screen and sink to my knees, the heavy wedding dress pooling around me like blood.
Rise, a voice says from behind the screen.
I freeze.
The voice is young. Cold. Utterly emotionless.
And it doesn't sound like it belongs to a man who's been fooled.
I said rise, bride. Let me see what the Lin family has sent me.
My blood turns to ice.
He knows.
Somehow, impossibly, the Blood Emperor already knows I'm not Lin Rong.
And I'm about to find out what he does to people who try to deceive him.