Face-Slapping10 min read
The Girl Who Made an Empress Kneel
ButterPicks13 views
"Ignoring an imperial summons is not an option," the steward shouted as he slammed the screen.
I sat up. "The Flower Festival invitation?" I asked, rubbing sleep from my eyes.
"Yes. For Miss Julissa," the steward said, showing a red wax seal. "From the emperor."
"I'll go," I said, because what else could I do? My father was a general. Invitations arrived like rain. I pulled on a plain dress and let Akari braid my hair.
"Don't forget talent," Akari warned. "The palace might pick a bride for the crown prince."
"I know," I said, and I did know. I had been born twice. I had come back here to live a better life. But I also had plans of my own.
At the garden that morning, I tried to practice a new spin. My feet left the ground. Then I slipped.
"Ah!" Breath left me. For a heartbeat the city looked like a toy below me.
Someone's arms caught me.
"Careful," he said. His voice was dry and calm. "You're going to break something."
I blinked up. White robes. A smell of snowflower. He put me down, and then he threw me, gently, onto the grass with a loud "pop."
I glared. "You dropped me!"
"Three feet of distance," he said, arching one brow with the calm of a man who had been judged by kings. "You should not have been in the air."
"Who are you?" I demanded.
"Felix Gray," he said. "And you are Miss Julissa of the General's House."
"Julissa," I said. "Don't call me Miss."
He looked at me like he had never learned to smile and then, for a half-second, he did. I felt my heart leap. Then my father, Robert Crosby, laughed and reminded me he had saved me when I was falling.
"Sit on Felix's side if you're tired?" my father said with a wink I did not need.
Later, at lunch, Felix peeled a shrimp and handed it to me without a word.
"That's for the apology," he said.
"I want more than a shrimp," I told him, and he smiled with steady, tired eyes. He had been away for ten years as a hostage in the east. People said he had a cold disease that never left him. He never complained.
"You can have my year of service," I said in a flash of silliness. "Be my little brother for a year."
Felix didn't laugh. He simply said, "I will."
I blinked. "Really?"
"Really," he said. "I promise."
Carmine Mendez, the small king of mischief — everyone called him Night Prince — nearly choked on his rice at my offer. He laughed until he cried.
"You made a bold choice," Rafael Davis, my brother, said, smiling. He was taller than most boys and moved like a sword in the wind.
That festival day, my pearl necklace snapped. The pearls flew. I slipped on one and fell face-first into the stone. My backside hurt. My cheeks burned.
"Li Mama," I said, "this won't do."
My father took my hand. "You performed well," he said. The emperor laughed and surprised everyone by rewarding me. Vera Clark, my aunt, watched me with a small, sad smile. She had been in the palace longer than anyone. She pulled me aside later.
"Don't go to the palace unless you must," she whispered. "They watched your mother once. They want someone who bows and pleases them."
"I'm not their type," I said. "I'm not silk and sugar. I can dance and fight. I can run a kitchen."
"You are my niece," she said simply. "That is enough."
Two weeks later I bought a rundown tea house at the center of town. I painted a sign: Heron Hall. I hired Drew Solovyov — my shadow guard, a silent man who fell from the sky when I called — to help move beams and carry wood. He frowned but did it. I gave him four hundred silver to fix the place.
"You're paying me to act like a carpenter?" he asked.
"Everyone has to work," I said. "No free rent."
He accepted it with three curt words and vanished into the rafters.
Annika Williams, the feathered seamstress of the city, took my revival of clothes. I drew two men's designs for her: neat, bold, and honest. She loved them, and she said, "I will sew them and bring them to Carmine."
Carmine took the first outfit and wore it like he had been born wearing it. He smiled at me with a face like a boy sunning in spring.
"You have a knack for trouble and profit," he said.
"Thank you," I said. "Will you wear anything if I ask?"
He touched his chin. "I'll wear anything if you say please."
When the palace ordered me to join the embassy to West Chuan — a western kingdom — I packed lightly. I took Heron Hall's plans tucked in paper. I took two boxes of my peach cakes. I took the purple silks Annika had given me, and a鎏-gilded skirt she had insisted I wear. Static luck.
At West Chuan, I danced. Felix and Carmine played the lute and flute. The king, a broad man with loud hands, clapped until they cried. He promised me a little treasure for my performance, and everyone laughed.
The market there glowed with unknown spices and strange cloth. Annika's colors would sell. I bought bolts of fabric I had never seen and pictured them sewn into jackets, skirts, and new lives.
Night came and we explored the stalls. Emperor Amir Morozov of our land had warned our court of trade and danger. Yet the streets of West Chuan were freer, and we tasted milk teas that steamed sugar.
I did not see the first sign of wrong in the palace until the Empress — Sylvie Hansen — smiled at me with the cold of a winter dish. She had been my mother's rival. She had climbed long by small knives. She watched me like a hawk. Her palaces were sharper than the king's teeth.
"You have a bright smile," she said to me on the parade ground of the West Chuan visit. "It suits you."
"Thank you," I said. "It suits me because I am alive."
She blinked like she had been cut.
After we left West Chuan and returned home, things moved like gears grinding.
"Julissa," Felix said one night inside the general's compound, "there is talk. The empress is quiet now, but quiet men keep knives."
"She hated my mother," I said. "She has reasons."
"She moves quickly," Felix said. "Be careful."
I was careful. I kept Heron Hall's papers close. I kept Drew's invisible guard at the doors. I wrote designs for Annika and planned a bigger rooftop kitchen. I baked peach cakes for the children of the compound. I kept my smiles ready.
But plots are quick when men with crowns whisper. Sylvie needed a way to push the emperor's favor toward a pawn. She wanted a bride for the crown prince? She wanted her own tool at the top. She remembered my mother. She hated me because I reminded her of the woman who had walked through palaces like sunlight.
She framed me.
It started with a maid in the palace staff, a young woman who wanted money and feared the empress. She planted a small jade pendant in my draper's box. It had the empress's seal carved into the back. The palace rumor spread that I had stolen an imperial charm and passed it to a foreign envoy. A crime like that would mean exile or worse.
I was summoned to the garden court. The hall was full. Men and women from every house were there — nobles, clerks, soldiers, seamstresses, and those who simply liked a good drama. The emperor sat like a mountain. The empress sat like winter wind.
"What is this?" the empress asked in front of everyone, her voice honey and razor. "I hear a pendant bearing my seal was seen in foreign hands. Someone tried to make a poor choice. Who is this thief?"
I stood. "I did not take it."
"Confess!" she commanded, the hall shifting.
Felix stepped forward. "I will search Julissa's rooms."
"No!" I shouted. "You will not touch my things without reason."
Carmine tapped his fingers on his knee. "Calm," he said, and then he bowed to the emperor with a child's smile. "Your Majesty, if this is a theft, let the law decide. Let her prove herself innocent."
The empress smiled as if pouring light into a dark cup. "We will search," she said. "We will show mercy if the truth comes out."
They led me to my box. They opened it. The jade lay on top, carved with a seal I had seen all my life.
I looked at the empress. She had the face of a goddess that had earned her throne. Now the goddess had the eyes of a spy.
"You set me up," I said, the words a small blade. "You planted this to make me fall."
Laughter spread. "Bold," someone near the back said. "Or foolish."
"Bring witnesses," I said. "Bring every clerk who handled my boxes."
Felix moved to the gate. "I will fetch Drew and the mistress at the Feather House," he said.
It is hard to shout down a crown. The empress raised a hand and the guards reached for me. I saw my brother, Rafael, stand. "No," he said.
"Prove it," the empress said, smiling slowly.
I thought of my aunt Vera Clark in the palace. She had access to the old records. She had embroidered letters tucked in her sleeves. I had visited her that morning, and I remembered a scent — the faint ink of old proof. I couldn't prove anything. Not yet.
But Felix had watched the empress's steward move too often. Drew, who lived in shadows, returned and whispered. Annika ran forward with a small bundle.
"I have the ledger," she said. "The sewing purchases. The orders. The list of palace errands. The empress's runner signed for this pendant."
A stunned hush. Annika unrolled the ledger with shaking hands. She pointed a finger at a column. "Look. The servant name and the signature."
Felix's voice was soft. "And look where that servant went the day before the pendant appeared in West Chuan."
A clerk — a quiet man who had eaten under my roof once — stepped forward. "I recorded the transfer. The seal was removed late at night. The empress's runner signed."
Faces leaned in. The emperor's eyebrows rose. The empress's smile flickered.
"No," she said. "You cannot—"
"Silence," the emperor said, and his voice filled the hall.
The clerk read. The ledger showed delivery logs. The signatures matched the empress's handwriting sample — but more: a second hand had touched the seal that night. The second hand belonged to a captain of the empress's guard. We found him. He sighed and confessed.
"I was paid," he said. "She promised me rank. She said Julissa needed to fall. I took coin. I placed the pendant in the girl's box."
The empress turned from calm to color. First white like a sheet. Then grey. Her lips moved but made no sound. "This is a lie," she said.
"Where are your proofs?" she demanded, and now the empress's voice shook.
Felix held out a scrap of cloth. "This handkerchief has your seal thread," he said. "A piece fell when your runner moved the package. It matches your robe."
The empress's eyes widened. Sweat beaded at her temples. Her hold on the court faltered.
"You cannot prove—" she whispered. Her fingers went to a dress knot. She stammered.
"Prove what?" I said. "You paid men to plant this in my room. You used the poor to break me."
"Silence!" She lunged toward me. "Guards, seize her!"
"Stop." Rafael stepped forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Prove it. Let the court decide."
The emperor's face was a mask of thought. He called for the minister of rites. We had the ledger, the captain, the handkerchief, the runner's confession. A dozen voices rose.
"Enough," the emperor said. "Bring forward the empress's seals. We will see if this cloth matches."
They tested fabric, thread, ink. The hall stretched into a long minute. The empress's cheeks were pale. Her eyes flashed denial, then shock, then a sudden small, sharp anger.
When the match was declared true, the hall gasped. The empress stood. She had done everything to win. Pride was stripped from her like armor.
She staggered, clutching the rail. For a moment she looked like a woman at sea.
"No," she said. "I did not order this! I only—"
"Step forward," the emperor said.
She stepped forward slowly. "You misinterpret," she said, and her voice was a cracked bell.
"What you did is betrayal of the court," the minister said. "To frame a subject is to try to bend the crown for your own use."
The empress's face contorted. "I—" She lowered to her knees without a sound I expected to be louder. The silk folded around her like a shell. "Please," she sobbed. "Forgive me. I never meant—"
"It was cruelty," someone cried. "She used servants for treason."
One woman spat. A clerk picked up the empress's handkerchief and waved it. "You planted this, and you stole a child's inheritance with it."
Crowd noises rose into thunder. I heard cries: "Kneel!" "Shame!" Women who had been quiet for years stepped forward and spat in the dirt. The empress's hair had loosened. Her composure broke. She clutched her knees and begged like a child.
"Please," she cried. "I have served this court. I will step down if you spare me."
"Step down?" The emperor's jaw was tight. "You have created treason by planning to plant evidence. You sought power. You wanted the crown to choose your tool."
The empress's knees sank. She clawed at the floor. "I was wrong! I was—"
"Silence," the emperor said.
He did not strike her. He used a more public fate. He declared that all her titles would be removed. The empress would be stripped of privileges in the garden court and forced to hand over half of her lands to charitable houses and to the families harmed by her plots. Her chief guard would be imprisoned. The captain who confessed surrendered his rank. The empress was to live within a small palace under the supervision of the same servants she had used, and those servants would be freed.
The empress's face changed from pleading to disbelief to rage, then to the hollow defeat of someone truly unarmed.
"Spare me," she said, making a sound that had neither heart nor heat.
"No one spared you," the crowd said. They surrounded her with outrage. A minister ordered the servants to remove her insignia. They tore the embroidered emblem from her sleeves in the open hall. People whispered and then shouted. Children pointed. Women spat. Nobles stood in silence like weather.
She dropped her head and beat the floor with her fists. "Please," she cried. "Do not ruin me."
By that time, there were too many witnesses. Her servants turned from her. Her daughters left their posts. A crowd that had dined with her that week now spat and hissed. The minister of rites read the sentence: public disgrace, loss of wealth, and supervised house arrest. The emperor made the decree and all bowed.
She collapsed to her knees completely in front of the hall and begged for mercy. The guards who led her away whispered. The emperor made no further speech.
It was a relief like cold water in summer. I heard people talk. "She deserved it," they said. "Too long she held power."
Felix came to me afterward and handed me a small jade that the captain had kept when he was bribed. "You keep this," he said. "So you remember."
I did keep it. I kept the carved seal as proof that justice could visit anyone, even a royal.
After that, life settled into new rhythms. The empress lost her honors and most of her power. Her name faded like spilled dye in rain. The palace became safer for those who could not buy crowns.
Annika opened a shop with me in the center market. Her dresses sold out in a day. Heron Hall became a place for good bread and odd skirts. Drew made sure no one with sharp hands crept into our store. Felix stayed near me and joined my little household like a brother. Carmine stayed like a storm that grew kinder.
Rafael stayed by my side. Vera visited at odd hours and mended the torn silks around my neck. The emperor came once to see the restaurant and praised our tea. He appointed a steward to protect commoners from palace intrigues.
Felix took my hand once after the festival of the next spring. "You made the court look," he said, "not with a sword, but with truth. You are something I never thought to find."
"I am Julissa," I said. "I am not for crowns."
He nodded and then kissed my forehead like a friend. Carmine clapped in the corner, dramatic and loud. Rafael sighed and smiled.
My life grew from that deed. The empress's fall did not end court tricks, but it changed things. People learned that a crown could not always hide a crooked hand.
One evening, as I swept the wooden floor near the front window of Heron Hall, a child from the street looked in and said, "Miss Julissa, you can make anyone kneel."
I laughed and gave him a pastry. "I don't make anyone kneel," I said. "I only made truth stand up."
The child bit into the pastry and smiled. "Truth is louder," he said, mouth full.
"Yes," I agreed. "Truth is loud enough."
I set my broom aside, walked to the door, and opened Heron Hall to the night. The lanterns glowed. The city breathed. I was alive, with work to do, friends to keep, and justice in the open air. That was all I wanted.
The End
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