"I will go in her place." Ruying said it like a verdict, not a plea. The statement knocked the breath out of her father as surely as the servants' knock had knocked on the door outside. Palace men waited beyond the gate—men with silk armbands and the Emperor's wax seal—patient, efficient, intolerant of delay. Her father's fingers trembled around the silk pouch of betrothal coins. "Ruying—" he began, but the name came out small and wasted. The house was full of sound: the low panic of cousins, the rattled clink of armor from the gate, the muffled whispers of maids moving like birds. Outside, one of the palace attendants stamped his foot. Time did not like hesitation. "Father," Ruying said. She folded her hands once, showed him the simple motion, the steady spine beneath a half-smile she didn't feel. "Huaijin is younger. She is pale. She will faint in the hall and spoil the match. I will go." Her father looked at her as if he had been looking at a stranger for years. He loved his elder daughter with a soft, reverent pride that did not know how to be brave. "They will be angered—Xie House does not accept a swap lightly. The Marquis—" "Xie Yunli?" Ruying's voice was even. "He has never stood in our courtyard. He will not break a woman's wrist for wanting a daughter who does not faint." "Not only him." He swallowed. "The court—marks