The whole palace was jubilant, but Xiaoling felt only more and more uncertain. She could still remember the helpless, almost abandoned look on the prince's face back in the ritual hall. Whether that memory had been true or false did not matter; at the time, all of them had believed that getting out alive would already have been heaven's mercy. And now the rain had come, the prince had become Crown Prince, and everything had gone far beyond anyone's expectations. She ought to have been pleased. In some distant way she even felt a little proud. But how could she be happy? The news kept coming. The new Crown Prince's former advisers had all been promoted. One man's rise had lifted a whole flock of chickens and dogs with him. And besides the affairs of state, the other great matter of the Eastern Palace had already been put on the table: marriage. Suitors and families who had once avoided him were now scrambling to recommend sisters and daughters. Yotsuba repeated all the gossip to her with gleeful indignation. The Chancellor, who had hidden himself well out of sight when the prince's fate was uncertain, now wanted to offer his younger sister. An elderly minister was trying to retrieve the daughter he had once promised elsewhere, while another branch of the imperial family was hurriedly sending girls to the capital overnight. Everyone laughed at the opportunism. Only Xiaoling felt a chill. What if Hongmi really was so occupied by these great matters that he had no time to come for her? How long would she be left waiting? Then another thought struck her. Why should she wait for him to speak at all? Why had she ever imagined she had to wait for him? She knew his temperament well enough. The moment she remembered all the ways he had cheated and maneuvered her before, cold sweat sprang up on her back. No. She had to leave before he arrived. Everyone in the palace was focused on the rain and the new Crown Prince. If there was ever a moment to seize, it was now.

Leaving openly would be difficult, but she did not need to leave openly. Before coming to the capital, while studying mechanisms and hidden passages, her master had once explained the palace structure to her in detail, even the hidden exits from the various buildings. Xiaoling realized that if she relied on that memory, she could draw her own route out. She nearly rejoiced aloud, but kept her face carefully blank and waited for night. She pretended to yawn. Yotsuba, taking the hint, dismissed the maids and left only herself behind. Then Xiaoling made her gamble. She asked for a change of clothes and said she wanted to go out. Yotsuba was startled. It was late, raining hard, and she could not imagine where Xiaoling wanted to go. But she had seen how dark Xiaoling's face had gone when the women had been gossiping about the Crown Prince's marriage. She interpreted everything in the most convenient possible way and assumed the shrine maiden only wanted to go demand clarity from the man she cared for. In high spirits, Yotsuba promised to fetch clothes and an umbrella. The moment her footsteps vanished outside, Xiaoling rose and fled. She had succeeded in the first step. Never mind that she was too lightly dressed for the weather. She slipped out of the side hall, bypassed the long corridors, and made for the eastern route she remembered, the one that should have led by secret passage toward the outer wall. Rain soaked her within a few steps. She could only keep running. But when she reached the fork she remembered so clearly, she froze. There was no path there leading toward the eastern wall at all. Had she turned wrong? Had she misremembered? She tried another corridor, then another. Perhaps the rain had confused her. Perhaps she had missed a turn. At last, before she could regret the latest choice, a palace lantern flooded her with light.

"Out for a stroll, are you, Shrine Maiden?" The voice was unmistakable. Xiaoling could not see the speaker at first, only the lamp and the shape beneath the umbrella, but that cold, signature tone rooted her where she stood. Hongmi held an umbrella in one hand and a lantern in the other. He was alone. Even tired, with no attendants to soften him, he looked sharp enough to cut. Seeing her, he set down the lantern. Xiaoling bowed automatically. He commented dryly that she kept herself remarkably well informed. She stammered out that she had only come to look at the rain. He nodded as if accepting it. This rain, he said, held special meaning for both of them. It was worth seeing. She did not know how long they were going to keep speaking around the truth when suddenly he threw away the umbrella and asked whether she had seen enough. The rain hit him at once. His face, wet beneath the storm, looked no less beautiful, only more severe. With no other choice, she lifted the umbrella over him herself. Their fingers brushed when he took it back, and both of them shivered. Before either could speak, people came hurrying toward them, led by Yotsuba. Cloaks were thrown over their shoulders, a sedan was summoned, and the two of them were bundled back to Qinglan Hall. Someone muttered that the new Crown Prince was far too precious now to be dashing into the rain for a girl. Hongmi answered blandly that standing in the rain with Miss Huan was simply the way the two of them celebrated. In the close dark space of the sedan, Xiaoling felt cold all over, but her heart burned. Hongmi asked whether she still did not know the palace well. He told her that many places had changed and that he would be happy to guide her himself another day. Only then did she realize why the map in her head had failed: the palace had been altered after the coup. He had understood exactly what she was trying to do. Since she was already discovered, she said at last that he might as well simply point her the way out next time. To her surprise, he said that was fine, only not now. When, then, she asked. He considered it seriously and answered that it would have to wait until after the wedding. Which wedding, she asked, foolishly. Mine, he said with a faint smile. She remembered the maids' gossip and offered hollow congratulations about auspicious rain and double happiness. Hongmi turned and looked at her with something almost like surprise. "You are the bride," he said. "What wedding would there be for you to watch?"

Back in Qinglan Hall, Xiaoling seized his sleeve and demanded to know what he meant. Hongmi answered that he meant exactly what the words meant. She felt the old foreboding crash over her. She had never agreed to this. Back in the ritual hall, in that dark place where she had agreed to help him, she had forced a promise from him first. Nowhere in it had there been a clause that she was to become Crown Princess. Hongmi smiled, but it was the sort of smile that never warmed anyone. He said there could be nothing more welcome in the world than the union of the Crown Prince and the shrine maiden. Did she plan to defy heaven? They had not truly done anything, she protested. The rain had simply come by luck. But the whole world already believed she was his woman. If she did not marry him, who could she possibly marry now? She forced herself to say she could simply marry no one at all. He laughed softly and suggested she might prefer to keep herself for her senior brother Ye, and if she wished, once he took the throne he might even erect her a monument to chastity. At that she finally lost her temper. Yet the moment she sneezed, he called for the court physician and ordered him to examine the Crown Princess for a chill. She kept insisting she was not the Crown Princess, but Hongmi had already had enough. He said the matter would be discussed later and walked away, leaving the servants to breathe again. They all circled around her anxiously, half in sympathy and half in joy, too well trained now to let her out of their sight. Only then did Xiaoling begin to understand that escaping again would be infinitely harder. Perhaps she had been wrong to help him from the beginning. But that thought was useless now.

The next day she sat before a lavish breakfast with no appetite at all while the maids chirped happily about how the kitchens were now willing to use water again that the drought had broken. Everywhere she turned, they called her Crown Princess with delighted certainty. Yotsuba, slipping into one of her sentimental theories again, said that a shrine maiden like her surely did not care much about titles. Was it not enough simply to remain beside the man she loved, even if it meant herding cattle in the countryside? Xiaoling could not bring herself to rebuke her. People who stayed too long beside Hongmi could hardly help catching some of his vanity. She only said that the Crown Prince's situation had changed and the palace had many blind corners and weak points. She ought to go inspect them and mend the weak spots. The maids, already warned by Hongmi not to let her out of sight again, smiled knowingly and suggested waiting until dark at least. Xiaoling finally gave up on any hope of escape in the next few days. Then a eunuch arrived to announce that His Majesty wished to see her. Hongmi was currently in another hall receiving foreign envoys. The emperor clearly meant to speak to her alone.

The emperor looked much less forbidding than she had imagined. In truth, he seemed far gentler than his son. Xiaoling found herself standing before the very target of all the schemes her master had once worried over, the highest ruler under heaven, father to both Hongmi and Ye. He asked whether she was the shrine maiden who had saved the people. She denied any personal merit as best she could, saying only that the emperor's benevolence had won heaven's aid. The old man laughed and said that however modest she wished to be, he still meant to reward her. He had already rewarded Hongmi with the title of Crown Prince. What did she want? Anything, he said, that lay within his power. Xiaoling's heart began pounding. Could she refuse the marriage? Could she ask for her freedom? Could she ask for something far more dangerous? This was a chance almost no one in the world would ever have. At last she steadied herself, looked up, and said that she wanted one thing, something only he could grant. When she came out of Jingming Hall into the hard light of afternoon, Hongmi was already waiting outside, having rushed over as soon as he heard. He asked what prize she had asked his father for. She answered only with formal gratitude. To her surprise he said that, as a shrine maiden, she had the right to refuse the marriage if she wished. Xiaoling sighed. There was nowhere else for her to go, she said. Outside the palace she would only become something to be used. Better to remain here. She admitted openly that she could also serve as a convenient excuse with which he could fend off every other proposal. Hongmi listened in silence and finally said that it was her choice. She answered that she understood perfectly: she needed a place to stay, and he needed a shield. They would cooperate well enough. But what she had truly asked of the emperor had nothing to do with herself. She had begged him never to kill Nanjō Ye, and never to let anyone else kill him either. That was not her master's dying wish. It was simply her own.

The wedding took place on a day of lingering spring chill. The Jade Water River outside the altar, swollen from so many days of rain, moved full once more. Amid music and ceremony Xiaoling obeyed the ritual officials step by step: where to descend from the sedan, where to kneel, where to bow. Hongmi stood beside her in ceremonial robes and golden crown, his already handsome face seeming born for imperial splendor. Together they worshiped heaven, earth, and ancestors, and to Xiaoling it all felt like a dream in which she had somehow gone on breathing. The scale of the ceremony far exceeded the last marriage he had taken, and only when they were about to face the emperor did she feel truly frightened. Hongmi held out his hand and asked her to go greet his father. She placed her hand in his. It was still as cold as ever. He asked quietly whether she minded that the emperor had not insisted on the old custom of veiling her face; His Majesty wanted all under heaven to see the shrine maiden clearly. Xiaoling could hardly say she minded. But Hongmi's thoughts were elsewhere. He said their father seemed to have some major announcement prepared and asked whether she knew what it was. She offered, almost seriously, to cast a quick divination with two wine cups if he liked. He laughed despite himself and said they had no time for games. For now, they needed only to survive the emperor and the assembled clan.

Then the decree came down upon her like stone. She was praised as gentle and proper, worthy of the Eastern Palace, and told that her name would be inscribed on the imperial register. She was instructed to watch her words and conduct henceforth and help remove all worries from the Crown Prince's path. Xiaoling bowed and accepted every word. The emperor, visibly pleased, then decided that since the two newlyweds had already been whispering together with such intimate ease, there was no need for excessive formality. It was time, he said, for the new bride to meet the rest of the imperial family. One prince after another and one princess after another entered. Hongmi introduced them in order. Xiaoling kept her face calm, though she paid careful attention to the third prince, who carried open aggression in every line of his body, and to the fifth prince, who wore a harmless smile so complete that it only made her more wary. Then, just when the introductions seemed complete, the emperor remarked that there was still one person she had not met. Even Hongmi looked surprised. The emperor signaled, and after a disturbance outside, a wheelchair was pushed slowly into the hall. The figure in it entered like a light strong enough to drain the color from everything around him. The gold on the wedding hangings, the carved vessels, the jewels on Xiaoling's own body, all of it seemed to go dim. She felt her chest lock with pain. Of all the ways she had imagined seeing him again, this was the one she had never imagined. The man in the chair lifted his gaze straight to her and smiled faintly. The world went black for a moment beneath her eyes. Only Hongmi's firm grip on her arm kept her standing. She looked into her husband's eyes, and the cold there was enough to pierce her through. The emperor announced with perfect serenity that, moved by the shrine maiden's influence, he had chosen mercy. His long-lost eldest son would have his identity and standing restored. All old accusations, he said, would be forgotten forever. He was to be invested as Prince of Yan and granted residence in the western palace. Xiaoling barely heard the long list of titles and gifts that followed. She understood only then what bargain the emperor had struck in Jingming Hall. When she had begged for Ye's life, he had said it was no ordinary request and that it might cost her dearly. She had agreed. He had answered simply that in that case, she could marry Hongmi with peace of mind, and he would keep his word. She had accepted the wedding after that without further resistance. But never, not even once, had she imagined that the emperor would fulfill his promise by returning Nanjō Ye to the world before all under heaven. Ye only bowed and accepted the decree with calm reserve. And Xiaoling, dressed in nine layers of wedding silk, felt colder than if she had been standing in winter snow.