Hitara

For generations, the Hitara clan has boasted of its influence within the Forbidden City. Though no daughter of their blood has ever ascended the Phoenix Throne as Empress, they have fed countless women into the imperial palace-consorts, attendants, and maids alike-clinging desperately to the illusion of power while hiding their greed and ambition behind a veil of virtue.

As a new Xuancai Selection begins, the clan once again sends its most treasured jewel, Hitara Erqing, into the palace. Beautiful, intelligent, and ruthlessly ambitious, Erqing has been raised from birth to secure the favor of the Son of Heaven.

Standing in her shadow is her half-sister, Hitara Yueyi.

Born of a shu mother and treated as little more than an unwanted burden, Yueyi is denied the honor of entering the selection. Instead, she is sent to the Forbidden City among a batch of palace maids, expected to live and die in obscurity. Yet while Erqing embodies the Hitara clan's poisonous ambitions, Yueyi sees through the lies and false righteousness that surround her family. Neither wholly virtuous nor wicked, she walks a dangerous path between survival and conscience.

As Erqing schemes her way through the harem and Yueyi struggles to survive among servants and nobles alike, the sisters find themselves drawn into the deadly currents of imperial politics. One seeks power at any cost. The other seeks freedom from the chains of her birth.

In a palace where loyalty is bought, love is dangerous, and every smile conceals a blade, the greatest threat may not come from rival consorts or court factions-but from the ambitions of the Hitara clan itself.