There's Something I Have To Tell You (Rise of the Phoenixes)

Chapter 5

Zhiwei and Mingying sat on the floor in Mingying's quarters.

"What did you think of Sunhong?" Zhiwei asked. Mingying had been quiet most of the time, playing the part of the subservient guardian. She had been watching keenly.

"He is merely sabotaging the Emperor and the Prince of Wei. He has no interest in reestablishing Dacheng," Mingying whispered.

"He seems to have a kingdom on his own there," Zhiwei mused.

"He seems to be making way to install someone else as head of the dynasty."

"Like?"

"You."

Zhiwei's eyes grew wide. "Restoring a fallen dynasty is hard enough. Restoring one with an Empress seems like a dream."

"You have always been a dreamer, Zhiwei," Mingying said.

"Would he give up his power in order to put me on the throne?" Zhiwei asked.

"Would you consider sitting on that throne?" Mingying asked in return.

"I don't care for Dacheng's or Tiansheng's thrones. I desire peace, an end to the bloodshed of the last eighteen years. I want a government that rules justly."

"Would you sit on the throne to accomplish that?" Mingying asked.

"Would you let me?"

Mingying nodded reluctantly.

"Then I will do so as Ning Yi's Empress," Zhiwei said.

"You have placed all your hope in that...prince," Mingying complained. She had almost called him something less than flattering.

"He has placed all his hope in me in return," Zhiwei said. "Mother, he has ambitions, but he has done everything to protect those who work to make them possible. You and Master Zong would not even do that. Your code is different. Your code is to take your responsibilities and your oaths to the grave." Zhiwei sighed. "I don't want any more blood spilled, no more death, least of all for me."

"That would be difficult with a group called Bloody Pagoda."

Zhiwei giggled. Her mother had just made a joke.

"If Sunhong really does plan to set you up as the new Empress, then he will be very disappointed when you marry Ning Yi," Mingying said. "I worry what he might do."

"If I were him, then I would try to drive us apart." She stared at her mother for a moment, trying to fathom the ways Sunhong might dare.

"The less he knows about you, the less he has to use," Mingying warned her.

Zhiwei nodded. Her mother was right. "Now we just need to catch his pawn inside Fengyun Palace."

"Does this not bother you?"

"What?"

"Conspiring against your own flesh and blood, your family?"

"He is not my family," she paused. "Mother, you have not served the Dacheng royal family in eighteen long years. You have been my mother. You are family. Nanyi has not left my side since you sent him to protect me. He is more like family than Zhang Sunhong."

-----

The next morning, Zhiwei went to the Prince of Chu Residence bright and early, just as she said.

"I hope you didn't stay up all night worrying," Zhiwei teased, seeing Ning Yi's obviously unrested face.

"I've had better nights," he quipped. He beamed at the sight of her nonetheless. He couldn't get used to Zhiwei in formal women's dress. He had spent months seeing her either dressed plainly or in her disguise as Wei Zhi (except that one time at the Emperor's banquet in hideous make-up; what did it say of him if he still found her attractive then?). He wondered if she would always seem a sight for sore eyes to him. He sure hoped so.