The bridal chamber was silent.
Too silent.
It wasn't the silence of comfort or reverence…but rather with indifference.
Zhao Xinying stood at the center of the room like a flower rooted in mud, her silhouette framed by heavy red silk and resentment. Her face was veiled, a long gossamer sheet falling from the golden phoenix crown above her brow. The veil rippled gently as the morning breeze slipped in through the half-open lattice windows.
Beneath it, her eyes were open.
And so was her mind.
Around her, maids fussed like birds in a storm, adjusting the hem of her wedding robe, whispering to one another behind trembling hands. They didn't speak to her. They didn't dare. She was no longer human to them—not bride, not noble, not even woman. She was something closer to the mud beneath their feet than a flower at the head of the harem.
And as of right now, she was a ghost bride wearing borrowed silk.
