The Emperor's Concubine

18: Release

The Emperor's POV

For the briefest of moments, the words seem to echo inside his head, the harsh syllables punctuating sharply in his ears as if each word were like a dagger piercing flesh. He can barely register anything else around him as he storms through the doors, half expecting her to still be sitting patiently upon a stool, face calm and collected with a hardly-detectable smile gracing her thin lips.

"I am fine" she had insisted only days ago. "It is merely a cold."

He gives her a cynical look.

Instead, the room that greets him feels different: colder, lonelier perhaps.

The slow creaking of his footsteps, accompanied by his labored breathing and heavy heartbeat is the only sound he can hear as he approaches her. Her body lays unperturbed on the silken sheets, rigid and lifeless. He doesn't know why, but his body shakes as he nears her. Perhaps it is because of her serene face that greets him, pale and cold, or maybe, it is the guilt that gnaws at him, clawing at his compunction with a vicious resolve.

His hands flutter over her cheeks, as white as the snow that blankets The Palace grounds while waves of conflicting emotions pass over him.

Sympathy,

For the woman who had no choice but to be stolen from her own land, and placed into a world in which she never did belong.

Guilt,

As his consciousness reminds him that he still keeps her heart within the folds of his golden robe, tucked away in a nook he never cared to search.

It is with startling realization that though he never loved her, she has somehow managed to burrow herself into his heart. She had given him everything, and yet, he, in return had only given her heartache.

She may not be his lover, but she had become his friend.

Doctor Hui Zhong's POV

His eyes burn from the tears that soak his ancient eyes during the time he spends standing outside the chamber. Age is finally catching up with him it seems. He can tell by the way the wrinkles that embed themselves into his leathery skin have become more like familiar friends than an imperfection. His bones ache with a subtle dullness as the winter weather penetrates through his robes. The physician may be old, but he has seen the look of pain and loss, countless times before. It is the look he expects to see when The Emperor, the boy who was much like a son to him, exits through the doors that hold The Empress' body. She was an odd woman, a foreigner, but never the less, a kind and beautiful woman. The rumors that always seemed to tail her had always been hard for him to believe. He can still recall the time The Emperor had carried her to him, face drenched in perspiration, with the new Empress in his arms, face flushed with embarrassment. The boy, though rough in his ways, and abrasive in nature, was kinder and softer hearted than most people knew.

A bitterly wind passes them, tinkling the small bells concealed within the cherry blossom trees. From the confines of the chamber, the sounds of hushed sobbing can be heard.

Li Hua's POV

Piercing, is how she would describe the pain.

She can still feel the blood still slowly pooling onto the dusty wooden floors, seeping through the folds of her clothes, and staining her pale fingers. The cold room is dark, the only light, casting shadows through the rackety ceiling. Li Hua's breaths are raspy, the air stinging her dry throat. There's a trail of blood from where she had managed to crawl from, but the distance is not much- not enough to get her some much-needed help. Her vision is swirling, fading in and out of her barely conscience state. In her mind, she can still see the image of her friend before her, her tears, the dagger gleaming, her sinister expression, they all blur into one memory, the orders of each scene beginning to welter.