Page 104 of The Blood Orchid

But how long had it been since anyone so interesting had crossed my path?

Eternal youth had seemed so promising at first. Rulers fell because they grew old and weak, but I was neither, and my reign would last forever.

But after a century, all the colors in the world had begun to look dimmer. A sunset was a sunset, each as dull as the one before. I could no longer taste food, barely registering sensations of cold and hot on my skin. When I read, the words blurred together into a swirl of ink because I hardly cared for them at all. I’d begun to wonder what the point of living forever was if the life I had finally won was truly so dull.

Untilshearrived.

From the moment I saw her, I despised her. She fought like a rabid wolf, gnashing teeth and foaming spit and blood and hate that burned fire-bright in her eyes. What right did a peasant girl have to that kind of blazing fire, but not me?

I supposed, in a way, she would always be with me now.

I ran a delicate hand down my face in the mirror, fingers ghosting over my split lip. But even wearing her face, somehow I didn’t look like her at all.

Her eyes had burned like summer stars, but my own eyes looked flat and empty without the blaze of life gold igniting them.

The doors opened, and Gaozong returned with a sword hefted over his shoulder.

“Execution’s about to start,” he said. “You could probably still get a good view.”

I grinned, feeling a spark of warmth inside me for the firsttime in a very long time. I clung to it, let it fill my chest. “I love a good execution.”

“I know you do,” Gaozong said, leaning forward as if to kiss me over the scholar boy’s body, but I turned my head, and his wet lips grazed my jawline.

“Don’t kiss me until you finish what you started,” I said. Then I turned and strode from the room. It wasn’t every day you got to witness your son’s execution. This was the last step, and everything would be mine at last.

I strode out to the balcony, where the crowd was gathered far below, their nervous murmurs like a drug. I loved the taste of anticipation, of fear.

Hong was standing on the lower balcony, tense and fidgeting like always, a gleam of nervous sweat on his brow. He shifted and said something to a person in the doorway, adjusting something tucked under his arm. As he turned, I could make out the shape of a scroll.

I frowned. All the excitement I’d felt moments ago pooled hot in my feet.

Something was wrong.

What purpose was there to bring a scroll to his own execution? Traitors did not give speeches. They did not get final words, not in my kingdom. His hands should have been bound, not holding a scroll. What did he think he was doing?

He unfurled the scroll, the sun bright across the words at the top.

I squinted and read the title once, then twice, and as I slowly began to understand their meaning, I felt as if a sudden darkness had eclipsed the bright courtyard.

In a flash, I shoved away from the window and rushed downthe stairs. Gaozong was busy throwing the alchemist boy’s body out the window, but I shoved him aside and yanked the sword from his belt. He let out a sound of surprise.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, but I was already running for the lower level. The sword was too heavy for me and pulled at my shoulder as I hauled it alongside me, but I couldn’t trust Gaozong to do anything right. He’d said that they’d prepared for the execution, that the announcement had been made, that everything was in place. But there was no one competent in this palace. No one but me.

And, apparently, Scarlet.

I let out a sharp laugh as I turned the corner. As always, she was keeping things interesting.

I ran through the main hall, toward the front balcony where I’d seen Hong.

The title at the top of his scroll ran again and again through my mind on an endless loop, the words burned into my vision.

With a single document, they were trying to strip me of all the years of work Gaozong and I had put into folding this country into the palm of my hand. I hated that they even had that kind of power, but sadly, the rules of alchemy could not be bent, not even for me.

And how well it would have worked, if only their little sister had won. They thought they would end me with a few words, but this was what would happen instead:

The whole country would witness the Scarlet Alchemist executing her own husband before the words could leave his mouth. They called meScarletfor a reason, after all. I looked beautiful drenched in blood.

Hong would fall before the kingdom he never wanted, and atlast, I would win. I was the Empress, a title I had earned at the cost of absolutely everything, and a peasant girl would not take that away from me.

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