His instincts told him it was a ploy, but for once Li Tao ignored them. The cryptic message had held a warning, but also something else. Almost a promise. It insinuated he’d regret it if he didn’t act quickly. The Precious Consort’s name stood out among the characters. Ling Suyin.
At the height of her fame, gossip had streamed from the imperial city of Changan about her. She was a seductress, a fox spirit, the most beautiful woman in the empire. In the prosperity of the old regime, poets and courtiers could fixate on a single woman and make her into a goddess.
Li Tao had caught a single glimpse of her the first time he had been to the palace. The hunger that had gripped him had been immediate and all-consuming. He had been a young man then and had hungered for many things: acclaim, respect and power. The sight of her now, more than a decade later, stirred nothing but a faint echo of that forgotten desire.
At first, he had assumed the old wolf must have been obsessed with Lady Ling after seeing her on the Emperor’s arm for so many years. Perhaps Gao wanted the unattainable beauty and glory she represented. But Li Tao had intercepted assassins stalking toward the river bend. Shadow men sent to kill swiftly.
The assassins had died before they could be interrogated. The last of them had fallen on to his own blade to avoid being taken alive. It required money and influence to hire men with that level of dedication. Lady Ling apparently still held some value. A rival warlord wanted her dead, someone else wanted her alive, and he had been lured into the centre of it.
He sat down behind the desk and pinched the space between his eyes, trying to ease the gathering tension. A pile of papers lay stacked before him. A summons demanding his presence in the court at Changan lay on top. Below that, more proclamations stamped with imperial seals.
Over the past years, the imperial forces had diminished while the border armies under control of the jiedushi had grown stronger. The imbalance frightened the ministers in the court enough to try to limit the power of the military governors. As if crippling a strong limb would mask the weak one.
Li Tao ignored the decrees and edicts. His duty was to protect this domain, as the late Emperor had decreed. He’d do it even if it meant defying Emperor Shen and his meddling court. He had kept the borders secure and maintained peace within his district, putting down potential uprisings and keeping his captains in line. And he’d built up his army.
Gao had accused him of treason for these actions. The coward had made his claim a thousand li away before the imperial court. Li Tao needed to switch tactics to face such an enemy. He needed to use subterfuge and artfulness. He needed someone like Ling Suyin. That must have been why he’d been compelled to bring her here.
It was a lie. He shoved the proclamations aside. Lady Ling was here because she had been alone when he found her. She’d been abandoned. She’d been pale with fear when she’d seen him, yet the courtesan had regarded him with elegant resolve, as if she still held the empire in her thrall. He could have interrogated her by the river. He could have left her at the provincial seat in Chengdu. He could have simply ignored the cryptic warning. Instead he had taken her with him into his domain, to the place he’d worked so hard to keep away from outsiders.
He’d placed her in the south wing in the same room where his once-intended bride had stayed. The arranged marriage to the Emperor’s daughter had collapsed before they’d ever set eyes upon each other. How Gao must have delighted in that failure. In the last year, he had been visited by nothing but disaster and now Lady Ling had materialised like another ill omen.
This agitation of his senses was nothing more than the draw of any male to an alluring female. Yang to yin. But he would never make the mistake of thinking of Ling Suyin as a mere woman. She was a seductress and a shrewd manipulator. A she-demon in the guise of a beautiful woman.
Her treatment was extravagant for a prisoner. Auntie brought tea and ordered a wooden tub brought to her apartments. The bath water had to be heated in cauldrons in the courtyard and hefted up the stairs in buckets, but the guardsmen performed the task without complaint.
Suyin was left alone to soak in the steaming bath, but her muscles remained knotted and anxious. What could Li Tao possibly want from her? She considered all the possibilities, even the blandly obvious one: desire. But a powerful warlord wouldn’t seek a courtesan nearing her autumn years, or go across barricades to do so. Not when there were younger, more easily attained comforts within his borders.
In the imperial harem, a concubine who had not caught the Emperor’s eye by the age of thirty would be cast out to a convent or given to a lower minister for marriage if she was fortunate. She was nearing that age now. Besides, Li Tao didn’t look at her the way her admirers always did—with lust and yearning. Perhaps a touch of awe. Men couldn’t hide it, not even before the August Emperor. She would catch it in their heated stares before they looked away.
They were never truly looking at her.
There was no such shame in the warlord’s eyes. His gaze fixed on her so intensely, as if trying to pierce into her and pry her secrets loose. He’d find nothing there. She could fill the shell of her body with whatever spirit she needed.
The cooling water told her that her mind had wandered. She rose and dried herself without calling for Auntie. With her hair still damp, she pulled on the pale sleeping shift and crawled into the alcove of the bed, succumbing to the exhaustion of the journey.
Her body didn’t care that she was trapped in a tiger’s den, though her mind churned throughout the night. It ran with no destination.
When morning came, a shuffle of movement in the outer chamber awakened her. Her muscles ached from the restless slumber.
She sat up and eased her feet into a pair of slippers before going out into the outer chamber. ‘Auntie, what is all of this?’
The sitting room resembled a flower bed with a dress in every colour draped over the chairs and tables. Auntie lifted an armful of rose-coloured silk, vibrant and layered like the petals of an orchid.
‘The lady will look very beautiful in this.’
Suyin found an empty space among the wardrobe to seat herself. The gowns were as exquisite as the ones she had worn in the palace. Trade had dwindled in the marketplaces over the past year. Checkpoints and barricades had been erected between the provinces, stifling trade. Such finery was unseen outside of the twin capitals of Changan and Luoyang.
Strange that Li Tao would have such a collection waiting for her. She thought again of her initial suspicion, but nothing about his behavior indicated he wanted her in that way—excerpt for that one, brief flash of heat by the river.
She could never be another man’s mistress—even if she outlived the late Emperor by a hundred years she would belong to him only. It was imperial law.
‘Auntie must think the Governor and I are already lovers,’ she prodded.
The old woman pursed her lips as she laid a gown carefully over the painted screen in the corner.
‘Your master didn’t tell you that I was coming, did he?’
The loyal servant wouldn’t answer. ‘Which would the lady prefer?’ Auntie asked.
The old woman’s eyes flickered over the sea of colours. Auntie had been a young girl once. That part of her must still long for delicate, pretty things.
‘It would be quite a scandal, a former concubine and a military governor,’ Suyin went on.
With a sniff, Auntie moved to draw the curtains open. Her laboured footsteps scuffed against the rug on the floor. ‘Master Li wishes to speak to the lady this morning.’
Sunlight streamed in a wide band through the centre of the room. Suyin curled her legs up beneath her and watched Auntie as she returned to the sitting