The Journey Forward | ONC 2023 Version

12. The End

I woke in an unfamiliar room. My tongue automatically licked my dry lips as I worked on sitting up.

"Careful, you fainted," Jing's frightened voice drew my attention, and I felt her arm wrap around my back to help me slide to the firm wall behind the bed I lay on.

"Where are we?" I asked as I took in the clean but well-used room.

"An inn near where you fell. Mistress Mei has left to get you some tea and sent Yize to fetch the carriage."

"Where is Tengfei?" It surprised me that he wasn't in the room.

"He disappeared soon after we entered the Inn," Jing whispered and looked around her. "I don't like it. He wouldn't leave you."

"Go get General Bao!" I ordered, fear sinking into my stomach. We met the Empress today, and then suddenly, her brother-in-law disappeared. Had something happened to Tengfei? He had revealed himself. Did that put him in danger?

"I can't leave you," Jing insisted.

"Mei is here with me. I will be fine."

"I don't trust her," Jing whispered again. "She was with you when you fainted."

"It was a knife stall, Jing. She couldn't have known my fear," I reassured my anxious friend. Jing had discovered my phobia of knives during our training at the sanctuary, but no one else could know outside of her and the others there, not even Bao. It was only the ones pointed at me that still triggered my anxiety.

"I don't know. Everything is strange today." Jing hesitated again.

"All the more reason to get Bao. I will be fine. The palace isn't far from here. Take my jade. It will gain you access." I handed my husband's signet jade to her. He gave it to me for protection, and Jing knew how to use it. With it in her hands, she was my surrogate. No one would stop her from reaching General Bao. "I'm worried about Tengfei. He could be injured. Someone must have used the distraction to do something to him."

"I will go, but please be careful," Jing squeezed my hand and headed towards the door. She bowed at Mei, who entered with her maid, Xin, who carried a tea tray. Mei nodded and directed Xin to place the tea on the table next to my bed.

"You are awake! Where is your maid off to?"

"She went to find Tengfei," I lied. I wasn't sure why I didn't tell Mei the truth. Maybe I didn't want her to disagree with my distracting Bao from his work.

"Oh, yes, I haven't seen him since we arrived. Perhaps he went to buy something for his lover in the market," Xin poured the tea into a ceramic cup before bowing out of the room. "I can't believe we have had the Emperor's brother sitting at our low table for months. Madam Wei will be so embarrassed. How could you not tell her?"

"I didn't know," I lied again. This lie was more understandable, Tengfei had not allowed me to share his secret, and I didn't want Mei to think I didn't trust her. "I was shocked as you at the Empress' announcement."

"Well, I suppose he did renounce his familial ties. Only the Emperor must still call him brother if the Empress does. My cousin is very strict on the protocol. I had heard the last of the Prince Royals had survived the purge of heirs by renouncing his title and binding himself to a healer. I just hadn't realized it was your healer." Mei placed the cup in my hand and sat beside me on the bed. Her knowledge shouldn't have surprised me, she had been raised in the capital city, and her cousin had become Empress. All the politics leading to the succession of our current Emperor had to have been fascinating to her.

I sipped the bitter tea in the silence that followed. Something about its smell turned my stomach, so I put the barely-touched tea next to me on the table.