Chapter 3: The Summons
The kitchens were a chaos of steam and shouted orders when the presence sliced through the noise like a cold knife. Conversation died. The head cook dropped into a low bow, her forehead nearly touching the stone floor.
Yu Gong Gong did not raise his voice. He didn’t need to. “The girl Leila.”
Leila, wrist-deep in dough, froze. The protective auntie beside her gave her a frantic, tiny shove. She stumbled forward, wiping her hands on her apron, unsure whether to bow or kneel. She settled for staring at the floor, her heart a trapped bird.
“Come,” the eunuch said. He turned, his deep blue robes whispering against the flagstones. She had no choice but to follow.
They walked through corridors she had never seen, past murals of dragons and mountains, through arches so tall they seemed to hold up the sky itself. The air changed. The warm, greasy scent of the kitchens faded, replaced by a cleaner, heavier aroma—sandalwood, polished stone, and something else, something faintly spicy she couldn’t name.
He stopped before a pair of immense doors carved with coiling dragons. A silent guard pulled one open. Heat and billowing steam rolled out, carrying the lush scent of orchid and cedar oil. It was a bathroom, but unlike any she could have imagined. A sunken pool of green jade, large enough for ten people, dominated the room. The water steamed. Light filtered through high, translucent windows, catching in the vapor.
“Bathe,” Yu Gong Gong instructed, his voice echoing softly off the wet tiles. “Use everything. Be thorough. You will find a robe there.” He gestured to a low bench where a pile of fabric shimmered like liquid pearl. “Once you are dry, you will wear it, and you will wait in the adjoining chamber.”
He turned and was gone, the door sighing shut behind him.
Alone, the silence was immense. The only sound was the gentle lap of water against jade. She obeyed, shedding her coarse kitchen clothes, her fingers clumsy. The water was a perfect, scalding embrace. She washed with the cakes of fragrant soap, scrubbed her hair with oil that smelled of summer blossoms, the luxury feeling both terrifying and stolen. When she finally stepped out, skin pink and glowing, she approached the bench.
The robe was a whisper. She held it up. It was sheer, a veil of pale peach silk so fine she could see her own fingers clearly through it. Her breath hitched. It was meant to cover nothing. Beside it, however, lay another, heavier robe of deep crimson, lined with something soft and warm.
Relief, cool and sweet. Of course. The sheer one was an underthing, like a shift. The proper robe went over it. She slid the cool silk over her head. It clung, a second skin, draping and falling in a way that outlined every curve, every dip. She blushed, alone in the room, and hurriedly covered it with the crimson robe, tying the sash tight. Safe.
Yu Gong Gong returned as if he had been waiting for her very thought. He led her through another door into a chamber that took her breath away. It was vast, shadowy, dominated by a platform bed draped in layers of dark silk and furs. A low table held the remnants of a meal and a cup of tea, still sending up a frail thread of steam.
“Remove the outer robe and wait on the bed,” he said, his face an impassive mask.
Confusion knitted her brow. “Wait for what?”
“For His Imperial Majesty.” His eyes, ancient and knowing, held hers for a fleeting second. There was no malice in them, but a kind of weary certainty. “Do as you are told. It will be easier.”
He left. The door clicked shut.
Her mind whirled. Wait on the bed. The instruction rattled inside her head, nonsensical. One waited in a chair. One waited standing. The bed was for sleeping. But an order was an order. She untied the sash of the crimson robe, let it slide from her shoulders to pool like blood at her feet. The sheer peach silk felt even more暴露 now, with nothing over it. The cool air of the chamber raised goosebumps on her skin, the delicate peaks of her breasts visibly tightening against the thin fabric.
Hesitantly, she climbed onto the high bed, sinking into the impossibly soft furs. She sat stiffly, back straight, hands folded in her lap, trying to mimic the posture of the porcelain statues she’d seen in hallways. She waited.Time stretched. The light from the high windows faded from gold to grey. The scent of sandalwood grew stronger. Every rustle of silk from her own slight movement was deafening. She was beginning to shiver when the main door opened.
She sprang to her feet on the bed, a move of pure instinct.
It was him. Ron. He filled the doorway, having changed from his court regalia into simpler, dark trousers and an untied shirt of black linen. His hair was damp at the temples. He looked like he had just come from the training grounds, smell of clean sweat and leather.
Seeing her standing there on his bed, backlit by the fading window, hit him with a physical force. The sheer silk was a betrayal of light, revealing everything and obscuring nothing—the small, tight waist, the generous curve of her hips, the full, heavy swell of her breasts, the dark shadow between her thighs. The innocence in her pose—the straight back, the nervously clasped hands—clashed violently with the lewd transparency of the garment. It was the most erotic thing he had ever witnessed.
Her face, however, was what held him. The confusion had melted into pure, unguarded relief. A bright, warm smile broke across her features, luminous in the dim room.
“You’re here,” she breathed, as if they had simply arranged to meet in the pavilion again. “I didn’t know what to do. They said to wait on the bed. It seemed strange.”
He closed the door and walked toward her, each step measured. “Do I frighten you, Leila?”
She considered him, her head tilting. She remembered the map of scars, the solid thunder of his heart. “No,” she said, and it was the truth. “You feel… real. The robes, the bath, this room… it doesn’t feel real. You do.”
He reached the edge of the platform. He was so close she could feel the heat radiating from him. His eyes traveled over her, a slow, deliberate survey that made her skin flush everywhere his gaze landed. “The robe is real,” he said, his voice rough.
She looked down at herself, as if remembering what she wore. A faint blush crept up her chest. “It’s very thin.”
“It is.”
“Yu Gong Gong said to take the other one off.”
“He follows my orders.”
She processed this, her innocence reframing the command. “Oh. So you wanted to see me.”
“Yes.”
“Like I saw you?”
A sharp, dark thrill cut through him. “More.”
He lifted a hand and, with a single finger, touched the silk just below her collarbone. The contact burned through the negligible fabric. She shivered, but didn’t retreat. Her eyes were wide, locked on his, full of a trusting curiosity that was unravelling his control faster than any skilled seduction ever could.
“This is the lesson?” she whispered.
“This is the beginning of it,” he murmured, his finger tracing downward, over the slope of her breast. He felt the tight bud of her nipple peak against the silk, against his touch. Her breath hitched, a small, sharp intake of sound in the quiet room.
He saw it then, with a clarity that was like a spear to his gut. In the opiate haze of his consorts, in the political theater of the court, he had been starving. Here was nourishment. Here was life, unspoiled and pulsing with honest heat. The crushing weight of his heirlessness, the secret weakness he carried like a hairline crack in his armor, met this girl’s fertile, naïve youth and something primal, something beyond strategy, roared into being.
He wanted to devour her innocence. He wanted to protect it. The contradiction was maddening. It was also the most compelling thing he had faced in years.