Face-Slapping12 min read
I Woke in Her Body — Then I Made the Palace Burn
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I died once on a roof under a red sunset. Then I opened my eyes inside a carriage and a different life answered me.
"Who is she?" someone cried. "Protect the lady!"
I blinked and my hands were smaller. My waist hurt where a blade had kissed me. My name, whatever it was now, smelled of jasmine tea and horse sweat. I opened my mouth and the voice that came out was not the one I'd left behind. It was soft and bewildered. People around me knelt and prayed. They called me "Your Grace."
"Who am I?" I demanded, but my throat made the question a child's whisper.
"You are the Jinse Princess," a guard said. "You are the daughter of the Lord of Anyang. You were struck by a blade in the throat, forgive us our failure!"
A laugh almost escaped me — me, Elena Aldridge, painted at the emperor's moonlit banquet and cut down by a blade that meant more than death — now sitting up in another woman's body, coughing, blood warm in memory. I put a hand to my side and felt bandages. The picture snapped in place: I had been killed as the emperor's brother's wife. I had known that death for a long time, and that knowledge had stung my bones. Now the universe had decided to hand me someone else's troubles.
"Elena," I had been, in the other life. In this life the name on their tongues was different. The world around me kept its old rhythms of fear and etiquette, but my mind had the pulses of two lifetimes. A second chance is a dangerous gift if you know how you failed the first time.
"Come, Your Grace." My handmaiden, a bright-eyed woman named Annette, guided me into a shabby private room and poured cool water over my wrists. "You were hurt badly. The carriage shattered, the escort fell. The guards say—"
"Who would want me dead on the road into the capital?" I interrupted. "Tell me everything the moment you know it."
Annette's eyes flicked over my face. "You arrived with a royal escort, but a black horse ran into the convoy. Blades flew. The attackers vanished into the crowd when smoke rose. The captain says the silver token on one of the bodies is from House Villa, but the killer who drove the blade into your carriage... he did not leave the city. His wound was deeper than you know."
"Then they didn't do it right," I said. I tasted metal in my mouth and remembered how helpless that had felt. "If they tried to murder me once, they'll try again."
"Do you remember anything?" Annette asked.
I thought about the silk dress I had died in, about the man who had stood so close he left the scent of him on the air, about a white horse and then nothing. For a moment the Jinse woman's memory was a blank, but the old burn of betrayal whispered that some hands were sticky with my blood.
"No," I said, and I lied. "My head struck the wheel. I don't remember."
So I learned to be two things at once: creature of the present court and collector of the past's hurt. I let them see a fragile girl with a bump on her temple. I let them feel pity. I learned other useful truths quickly: one, the emperor Alexander Elliott wanted the land my father had commanded; two, the emperor's brother, Prince Dominic Petersen, had the charm and the danger of a silver knife; three, people with power smell the same fear-and-opportunity mixture as bureaucrats and stallsmen.
"When you go soft," Annette said one night as she bandaged the swelling at my temple, "they will try your vanity. They will poke until you break."
"When did I become soft?" I asked.
"When you began to care what people thought," she muttered. "You were never made for the subtlety of court."
I smiled. "Good. Then we will not be soft."
At court I bowed and forgot nothing. I listened to the murmurs: my father was dead on the road back from the southern counties; he had fallen from sickness, some said. That sounded wrong. Men who serve a province do not die quietly halfway to home. Men who command troops do not curl their hands and sleep. I found the holes the way a thief finds a loose tile.
"You will answer the emperor in person," said the chamberlain when I reached the hall. "He wishes to know if you will accept the palace's protection."
"Tell his Majesty that I will meet him," I said. "But I will not be sealed away."
"That is dangerous, Your Grace."
"I am dangerous too," I replied.
When I set foot under the painted eaves, the emperor's gaze was like a long river. He studied me like a map. Behind him stood Prince Dominic — the man who, in my other life, had destroyed me. He smiled in a way that had once been a promise and had become a threat.
"Come closer," Alexander Elliott said. His voice filled the hall like measured bells. "You have had a terrible journey. Rest yourself here."
"I will rest when I can see the truth," I said.
Dominic's eyes flicked to me like knives testing leather. "You speak boldly for someone with a wound."
"Perhaps boldness is what keeps a body alive," I returned.
The court laughed and murmured. The emperor inclined his head, as if testing me.
"You will remain here in the palace," he said. "I will assign guards."
"Guards are servants unless given purpose," I told him. "If someone wanted the soldiers who escorted me dead, won't it be easier to catch that hand inside the palace if I am allowed to move?" I watched his expression.
"A clever suggestion," Alexander conceded, then looked at Dominic. "Prince Dominic will see that you are safe."
Prince Dominic's smile was thin. "Of course," he said. "It will be my pleasure."
And there it was: the hand that had once pushed my throat aside was now offered as a place to lean on.
I accepted, and I kept my eyes open.
Weeks passed as I wove a web. I pretended to be forgetful; I pretended the Jinse woman had always been useless. People let their guard down around fools. They spoke too loudly. A name slipped here, a token flashed there. I whispered to my small circle: Annette, my steadfast handmaid; Canyon Farrell, captain of the palace guards who owed me a favor; Griffin Benton, a gentleman scholar who believed secrets were just tangled words; and Beatrice Braun, an elderly physician who had seen more tricks than the court's priest.
"Who do you trust?" I asked Canyon in the little hall where he taught the guards to take their steps like a march.
"Only the man who keeps his back to the wall," Canyon said. He looked up at me as if searching for pirates. "And the woman who knows how she was likely to be betrayed."
"Then I have two of us," I said. I had to be careful — trust was a currency the rich spent without saving.
Night came the way a secret does — soft at first, then thick. It was the night I let people see me completely.
"Your Grace, are you sane?" asked Griffin as I told him my plan.
"Do you want me to be mad or to be alive?" I asked.
"Alive." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Then be cleverer than the court."
"Very well." I drew in my breath and set the play.
We invited an enemy to stumble into a trap. It is one thing to chase a ghost, another to force the man who killed you to answer in light.
"He will deny everything," Griffin warned.
"He will," I said. "And then he will laugh."
On the appointed day I walked into the great hall wearing a simple gown, the kind people underestimate. My bandage was gone. My hair fell in a pale curtain. The emperor sat like the heart of the sun. The ministers were there. Prince Dominic arrived and took his usual place — arrogantly first in line.
"Your presence is requested," I said, standing before Alexander. "I have one small plea."
"You may speak," Alexander said.
I told the court a story. "Once a year the province of Anyang sends the emperor a document: the military token, sealed in a cedar box. In this city, the token should be accounted for or returned. My father did not simply leave it on a table. If you take my father's token, you take his men. If you take his men, you take my land."
Faces went rigid. The chief minister's lips thinned.
"You are making accusations," Dominic said, a hand curling on his sleeve. "Are you accusing the crown?"
"No," I said. "I am accusing a man who smiled in my bed and whose fingers smelled of iron."
"Ambitious words," scoffed the minister Benjamin Silva. "A scandalous girl."
"Then let the evidence speak," I said. "Bring forward the man who sells seals."
Two guards pushed a dusty merchant into the hall. His hands trembled. On his collar glinted a silver token — the same pattern I had seen on the attempted killer's breast. He turned to Dominic.
"You bought this, did you not?" I asked the court.
He did not answer. The merchant's lips trembled. "My lord — you had asked to see what the merchant had for sale. You told me to buy it for a bargain. I—"
The room began to hum like a pot about to boil. Dominic's face did not change. He looked almost amused. "This is a dirty trick," he said. "I fear befitting a jealous girl's accusation."
"Then bring your witnesses," I said. "Or confess."
He smiled thinly, and the smile disclosed the man who had stabbed me once and would stab again if he could be paid in power. "If I confess, what happens to my name?"
"That depends on the emperor," I said softly.
Silence clenched the hall.
Then the worst happened: a courtier — a small, pale fellow with too much ambition and too little sense — stood and accused me of madness. "This woman is a fraud," he shouted. "She is a provincial pretender!"
"Silence!" The emperor's voice. He looked at Dominic. "Do you deny that you sent this merchant?"
Dominic bowed, the posture of a man who thinks he can bow his way out of a noose. "I did not. Your Majesty, let my loyalty speak."
Canyon stepped forward. "We took a man in the street two nights ago with the merchant's token. He admits receiving a note from the Prince. The ink matches the Prince's secretary."
Dominic's smile began to falter.
"You are playing with fire," he said, too low for the court to hear.
The emperor's eyes were ice. "Prince Dominic, do you have anything to say?"
Dominic's hand went to the hilt of his ceremonial dagger as if to pray. "I — I did not kill Lord Anyang."
"Do you deny you ordered an attack?" I asked.
"No," he said, then his voice thinned like glass beginning to split. "I did not mean—"
"Explain," the emperor said. "Explain in front of your peers."
He blinked. "You are enemies of the House," Dominic said. "You accuse me because you envy my station."
The chief minister Benjamin Silva rose. "If this is true—"
"It is true," Canyon said. "Guards found a ledger in the merchant's hideout. It names payments. The writing is the Prince's shorthand. The seal is a duplicate of the Prince's."
"Fabrication," Dominic spat. "Forged orders."
"Let us test it," I said.
They fetched the ledger, and the court watched each page like a storm watching a reed.
"Your signature," Griffin said, and the scribe read out the forms. The ink matched the Prince's hand on the official contract filed two months ago. Dominic's face turned ashen. He tried to laugh.
"It is a mistake," he said. "A hand forged my mark."
"A convenient hand," Benjamin said coldly. "One for when it serves you."
"Arrest him!" a voice cried.
But the emperor raised a hand. "We will not insult the law with a lynch," Alexander said. "We will follow procedure. The Prince will answer for his actions."
Dominic's laughter cracked. "You cannot judge me. I am the Prince!"
"You shall be judged as all men are," Alexander said.
There was time for Dominic to bargain. He turned to me fast as a snake. "You — you will be sorry," he hissed. "You think yourself a judge? Remember how you used to be loved. Remember what the court takes from the insolent."
"Your threats are the confession of the guilty," I said.
He started to glow with fury, then to crumble. First the color left his face, then his swagger. The room was an animal, sniffing blood.
They led him forward and bound his hands with cords embroidered by the palace — the cords used only when noble blood must be stained. Dominic's knees almost gave. He tried to steady himself, to make a speech, to claim slander — but the ledger had the ink of his doom.
"Do you confess?" Alexander asked.
"No," Dominic said. "No, I will not confess to what I did not intend."
"But you did intend," I said. "You intended a different man to be lord of that land. You intended me to be dead. You intended to put your mistress in my place, to bind the Duke to your will. All of you who plotted — you thought I would be buried and nobody would bear my memory."
The crowd hummed. People pressed closer. Some mouths whispered the same phrase: "The Prince's dagger." A woman in the back began to cry. A boy took a step forward and then covered his mouth with his hands.
"Bring the witnesses," the emperor ordered.
A chain of small events we had pulled into being closed. The merchant swore. The ledger was read. Several servants gave testimony that placed Dominic at the inn where my father had last been seen alive. The men who had run the ambush linked their orders to a stamped note with Dominic's seal.
His expression moved through stages: denial, ironed composure, anger, bargain, fear, plea. At first he sounded sure — the Prince had the temper of a man who expected obedience. Then he tried to shift the blame to a minor underling. When the underling denied it, Dominic's face showed a crack of panic.
"You will not be allowed to leave the palace," Alexander said. "A council will seek the truth. If you took soldiers or soldiers took life at your bidding, you will answer."
"Impossible!" Dominic cried. "You cannot—"
"Enough." Alexander's voice was a blade. "For now, in front of the court, we make one public rebuke so the people may see that the law touches even princes. We will undo the plans hatched in shadow."
A dozen shouts rose. Some called for blood. Others begged mercy. Dominic's countenance shifted now to something like a man who had been unmasked and cannot hide.
"Prince Dominic," the emperor said quietly, "you will stand in the square tomorrow at dawn. The manger will bring the accusations. The marks of your involvement will be proclaimed. If the council finds you guilty of sedition and murder, your name will be carved from the annals. If you are innocent, the heavens and the law will record it."
He swallowed. "Your Grace," Dominic said to me, "you do not know what forces you tempt."
"Neither do you," I replied.
The crowd in the hall watched him leave. His guards were rearranged. His servants hovered, eyes wet, mouths moving in thin prayers.
When you see a man like that break in public, the change is not one instant. First pride cracks into forced speech; then the speech splinters into excuses; then the excuses crumble into pleading. People around him shifted like a flock sensing a wounded shepherd. Some muttered the fall of a prince; others, who had smiled at his jokes, edged away. A noblewoman who had promised him alliance turned pale and drew back. A servant bit his lip and shook his head.
At night the palace whispers wrapped the corridors. I sat by my little brazier and remembered the first time I felt the blade that killed Elena Aldridge. The echo of that metal cut through the walls of Dominic's composure. I felt my body hum with a cold pleasure — not joy, no — but the fierce rightness of a small measure of justice.
This was only the beginning. I had set the wheel in motion. The court would choose its verdict, and the verdict would show the fruit of my second life: some men would fall in public, and the ones who helped them would learn that the palace mirrored what they did. My father deserved more than a ledger and a name; he deserved the truth. I was not the same woman who had died with silk on her throat. I had Elena's memory and Jinse's body, and the patience to wait until the tiger I hunted misstepped.
"Tomorrow the square," I told Canyon, who had come to the little room. "You will stand as proof. Bring what you have."
"I will," he said. "I never thought I'd see a prince led like a common thief."
"Neither did I," I said. "But neither did I think I'd get to do this."
He looked at me as if he saw both the dead Elena and this body's delicate politics inside one person. "You are not the woman they whispered of," Canyon said. "You are something worse for them."
"Better for me," I corrected.
And I slept — the shallow, guarded sleep of someone who knows not every blade seeks the throat but many seek the heart.
The next morning's light was clean and terrible. The square filled. People had come to see whether a prince could fall. Above the din, above the breath of the crowd, I stood and met their eyes. It is a bitter thing to show others the seam where power separates from the man who wears it. But it is sweeter still to see them understand that no one is above the law when the law can be made to move.
The punishment the council gave Dominic Petersen in the square that day — the public shaming and the unpicking of his alliances — will be remembered by those who were there: how laughter turned to silence, how his throat found words and then could not make them hold water, how his allies shrank like curtains in wind. I watched each change in his face, and in the watching I found the kind of justice I had once only dreamt of.
But the story did not end in a single square. When nobles turn on one another, new wolves show their teeth. When the prince's hand is cut from the script of power, others come forward to claim scraps. I had to be ready to take more than one revenge and to keep a small, dangerous smile for the moment when the emperor learned that a sword can be given or taken by those who know how to ask for it.
There will be nights when I cannot stand the taste of the plan I have swallowed, when I remember the other life and I weep for what mercy might have been. But tomorrow I will wake and I will breathe and I will make no mistake about the cost of fighting in a court that eats those who play fair. I have been given a reprieve; I will use it.
And in the dark, a black cat that had arrived on silent paws weeks earlier curled on my lap and purred, a small heartbeat that knew neither titles nor treachery. I slid a finger through its dark fur.
"Tomorrow," I told it, "we will take back everything that was stolen."
The cat blinked and looked like it understood. It had been my witness from the moment I took my second breath. It would be named if it wished, but for tonight I only called it Shadow. It fit.
Outside, the city was waking. Inside, the palace remembered that a woman could be sharp as bone and softer than home. I tightened the shawl around my shoulders and planned.
They had underestimated me. That would be their ruin.
The End
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