Sweet Romance12 min read
The Spice Game: How I Made an Emperor Say "I Like You"
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I remember falling like a stone and tasting the bitter tang of humiliation.
"I told you, Emersyn, you were drugged," the Empress said, her voice sharp enough to cut silk. "Are you out of your mind?"
"I—how could I know Her Majesty would do that?" I whispered, pulling at my sleeves. I had only woken up with half my robe tangled and the palace courtyard spinning like a drunken wheel.
Lance Bryant straightened his collar, sliding his robe back on with the cool, distant grace of a man born to the throne. He looked at me with a mixture of annoyance and something softer I couldn't name.
"You should be honored," Lance said bluntly. "Anyone who sleeps on my bed—"
"My honor?" I snapped, climbing up to his dragon canopy and sitting where no one should sit but an emperor. "I am the first beauty of the capital. If I chose to sleep with you, it would be a favor to you."
Lance laughed once, the sound low and dangerous.
"You think I'm a prize? You think no one else desires the dragon bed?"
"Then why didn't you punish me with the cane?" I taunted.
"You'd have been lucky," he said, then his eyes narrowed. "Did you tell the Empress you like Denis?"
I almost choked. "What? Why on earth would I say that?"
He nudged my arm. "Are you teasing me? Saying you loved some general so the Empress would go away?"
"I never admitted anything," I said, and my heart flickered at the name he had said lightly—Denis Bradley. I had kept my fondness for the general wrapped in silence like a fragile porcelain. I could not believe I had been reduced to tricks by my own scheming head.
That night, under the thin moon, Lance and I made a preposterous plan: lie louder than truth. "Friend's wife can't be taken," he said, half joking, and I agreed to play along like a spoilt puppet.
The next day I went to the Empress in full grief. I threw my face into a perfected sob. "Did he—did he hurt me?" I wailed.
The Empress, who adored me and meddled like a grandmother with a sword, bristled. "Bring Lance here!"
When Lance appeared, bewildered, the Empress snatched a wooden cane and raised it as if to beat him for dishonor. I stepped forward.
"Then strike me," I said, and the hall went silent. Lance blinked, frozen between fury and amusement.
"You're making this up," he hissed to me later as we left. "Why on earth would you stage this?"
"Because you pick the worst person to pretend about," I said. "And because you pointed at Denis like I had no mind of my own."
His face softened. "You deserve better than this nonsense."
I didn't answer. I was still half-laughing and half-hurt. The truth was a small ember in me—Denis's shape in my thoughts—but I had not the courage to lay it bare.
Days slipped into a curious routine. Denis came back from the frontier triumphant and sweet; we had our small private dinners with only the three of us: Lance, Denis, and me. Denis had a soldier's blunt charm—when he smiled stories fell out of him like warm bread. I watched him and felt an ache I couldn't name.
"Why are you dressed like that?" Lance asked once, eyeing the hem of my gown.
I looked to Denis across the table. He held a little pair of jade tags and slipped one to me and one to Lance. They were matched, carved as two halves of a pair of mandarin ducks. Denis gave us a gentle smile.
"I thought you two might like these," he said.
"You think we're a pair?" Lance scoffed, but his voice had a playful edge.
"I'm not asking you," I said, but my fingers curled on the jade. I held it tight like a talisman and felt something settle.
After the garden, Lance began to visit me more often. He brought odd little gifts—wooden puppets, scraps of red ribbon, a silly thing that made me scowl and then laugh. He left them by my pillow or at my window in the small hours. Once, when I pretended stubbornness, he pressed his warmth into my hand as if he could steady my heartbeat.
"Do you like Denis?" he asked bluntly one afternoon, while handing me a puppet carved with teardrop eyes.
I laughed in his face. "I like you, you idiot."
He turned his back in a show of wounded dignity. "Then stop pushing me away."
"I never push," I said.
"Then stop now."
I learned his small tells—how his ear dipped pink when he lied, how he worried the corner of a book when he was nervous. I used them in my petty schemes until I discovered that schemes had a way of becoming true things.
Then, like a storm that announces itself with lightning, the assassination attempt happened.
"Emersyn," a servant breathlessly told me. "Denis has been hurt protecting the Emperor. He lies within the palace—he's gravely wounded."
I ran to the palace and found Denis in a bed, pale but alive. His face was as calm as a person who wakes from sleep to the knowledge of his own bravery.
"You should rest," Denis muttered, trying to wave me away.
I sat and held his hand though I had no right.
"Will he live?" I asked.
"General Denis?" Lance placed his hand over mine, a steady press. "He will. He is stubborn."
Denis's recovery took weeks. The Empress sent the best physicians. In the quiet hours I sat outside his bedchamber, hands cold, waiting for sign of breath. I knew I should keep my distance—Denis had a duty, a life built of honor. But I couldn't stop myself.
"You're pale," Lance said once, and took my hand. His thumb ran along my knuckles, small and cautious.
"Don't hold me like that," I told him, but my chest leaned toward his warmth.
Denis married a brave woman from a soldier's household, and at his wedding I felt that strange double curl in my chest: joy for his happiness, a small sting for being outplayed by fate. I smiled and offered him a graceful blessing.
"May your life together be steady," I said.
He smiled back at me like a trusted friend. "And you? Will you be glad for us?"
"Of course," I lied, and felt my voice crack from the smallness of it.
After the wedding, I found myself more alone. Lance kept bringing gifts and jokes to my rooms, and my anger at the world softened into a fondness I could no longer deny. One night he laughed and said, "I like you."
I blinked. "What?"
"I have liked you longer than you have liked Denis," he said, calm as a proclamation. "Longer than you have liked any soldier's tales."
I could have laughed away the confession, but something in his eyes made me believe him. I believed him and, if I am honest, it made my heart sprint in a way that had nothing to do with any petty game.
Then the Empress introduced a new young lady to court—Josephine Goto—an elegantly proper newcomer who eased into smiles like a practiced dancer. The Empress adored her, and Lance was presented with her portrait for consideration as a consort.
I felt a cold rivet of panic. It surprised me. I pushed Lance in jest and said, "You could marry her."
He shrugged. "If Her Majesty demands it, I will do her duty."
"Then marry her," I said, sharper than I meant. "I would not stand in your way."
He looked at me for a long moment. "Don't push me away."
"Don't be ridiculous," I said, but my hands felt small and empty without his presence.
Jealousy is a strange fire; it burns what you think it will not. When Josephine sat with me and called me "dear" in the Empress's drawing room, I felt a prick of something I'd rather not face. I found myself lashing out—pushing, teasing, pretending not to care. I even spoke ill of another woman at court, Delilah Karim, to the Empress, and she frowned.
"Delilah is rough," I said once, shoving a piece of cake onto my fingers. "She is like a soldier's board."
Delilah was always blunt with me, and I always returned her barbed straightness. Once, when she mentioned she was expecting a child with her rugged husband, I snapped a retort I would later regret.
"You're expecting?" I had said with an edge. "Then why come to court and play lady?"
She smiled like a blade. "Because I can be both, and I like watching people sputter."
Her temper was a coal that made me, for reasons I couldn't explain, feel small and outraged. So I played the world's favorite card—I dramatized. I ran to the Empress, kneeling, palms pressed.
"She mocked me," I said.
The Empress looked at the assembled court and then to Delilah, and to my surprise, acted. "How dare you belittle my guest!" she declared. "You will apologize to Emersyn."
Delilah tilted her head and smiled. "If she is in need of comfort, I will offer it. But I will not flatter false feelings."
I felt triumphant. Power felt delicious.
But power tastes different when reflected back by the crowd.
The Empress had long been a shadow that could lift or crush the life of any lady. One night, through a string of events I never fully saw, news rose that common hands had poisoned one of the Empress's favorite sweets and that someone had tried to drug Lance in his sleep. Fingers pointed, rumors coiled, and our little court was a nest of whispers.
I found myself swept into a public scene I had not planned. The Empress called for a grand assembly at the main hall. Courtiers gathered in clusters like a field of reeds. I stood at the center with Lance, and Delilah stood a short step away, her posture still proud.
"Because of gossip and shame," the Empress announced, "we must uncover the truth before the people."
"Who would do such a thing?" a minister cried.
Lance's eyes swept the room. "Bring forward anyone accused."
A servant stepped up and presented a scrap of embroidered cloth marked with the Empress's sign. "This was found near the ogre's pantry," he said.
I felt my throat tighten.
"Delilah," the Empress said, "you have been seen lingering where you should not. You have enemies. Explain."
Delilah's lips curved. "I have always worked where battle and bread meet. If the palace fears me for my plainness, I will answer."
"Do you admit plotting against Emersyn Snyder?" the Empress hissed, using my name in the great hall like a blow.
I swallowed. "What are you talking about?" I asked aloud, even though my own lies had begun many of these fires.
"Enough tricks!" cried Lance. "If mischief has been played, it will be shown."
Then I did something I had once planned on a sillier scale—I stepped forward and told a practiced lie: "It was meant to make me look guilty, Your Majesty. I told the Empress I fancied General Denis only to divert her. I never thought she would drug—"
The hall turned. Eyes glinted with hunger for scandal.
"You told Her Majesty you loved another, so she would leave you alone?" the Empress demanded, voice thunderous.
"I wanted to stop the marriage talk," I said, trembling. "We were teasing. It was supposed to be harmless."
The crowd began to murmur. Lance's jaw tightened. He looked at me with something that could have been heat or sharp cut.
"For lying to the court and sullying the honor of this palace," the Empress pronounced, "we will show the damage truth brings."
The verdict was a ritual of spectacle. They brought forward the Empress's carved cane and asked Delilah to step forward. Delilah did not bow; she stood silent and tall. The Empress then ordered the courtyard opened for the public to see the consequences. "Let the people judge."
The punishment itself was not immediate arrest or a private reprimand. The Empress wanted a spectacle: public penance and humiliation to teach that no one could manipulate palace favor without cost.
They constructed a platform in the main square. Courtiers and commoners alike were summoned; gossip had spilled to the streets and now the street wrapped around the square like a tightening rope. Lance stood near the steps, his face the statue of a man who held the state's heart in his lap.
They brought forward Delilah first. "You mocked the lady's honor, and you worked in places no proper court lady should. Bow and confess," the Empress demanded.
Delilah's face did not break. She turned slowly, looking into the crowd as if to challenge them to pity or wrath. "I loved a soldier," she announced, voice steady. "I married him. If such love offends you, I will not apologize for my life."
Laughter rippled through the crowd—some mocking, some incredulous. People had expected contrition. They expected shrieking guilt. Instead Delilah gave them a defiant, simple truth, and it cut through the murmur.
"Then kneel," the Empress ordered. "Admit you conspired."
Delilah bent her head but did not plead. "I did not conspire," she said. "I stood honest and blunt. I never drugged anyone. I challenged the court to act like adults, not children."
Then the Empress shifted her gaze to me. "And you, Emersyn Snyder. You lied to everyone to play with reputations. You made witnesses of private things and now you ask mercy."
I felt a thousand eyes on my face. Lance's hand found mine without a word. My fingers clenched around his sleeve like a tether.
The Empress was merciless. "Public rebuke," she declared. "The ladies of the court will strip away your embroidered mantle, and the palace hairdresser will cut your hair in the style of a servant."
Gasps rose from the crowd. To have one's hair shorn publicly was a mark of shame meant to be seared into memory. My heart slammed.
"No!" I heard Lance say, but the Empress's hand was the iron of the world.
The procession began. Servants approached me with a black cloth. Around us, the courtiers whispered and some jeered. Delilah's eyes flashed once at me—there was no warmth. Josephine Goto, pale and composed, watched me with a small, puzzled frown as if she could not see why anyone would ruin such sport.
They pulled the scarves and began to cut the hems of my robe, then my hair. Each snip was a small verdict. People crowded in, pointing, some taking out fans to hide their mouths. A few young girls in the crowd cried; a mother clutched her toddler and signaled for better lessons. A scribe jotted notes feverishly.
I felt exposed, ridiculous—and then, strangely, free. When they stripped my mantle and slipped a coarse robe on me, the crowd saw me as less of a prize and more of a person. My shoulders straightened.
Once the ritual finished, the Empress turned to Delilah. "You will be kept at court, but you will be bound to kitchen duty for three months. Any further offense will meet harsher fate."
Delilah bowed her head with slow dignity. Around us, the crowd hissed and cheered in a catch of triumph and dismay. People loved a drama they could label.
In the middle of the noise, Lance squeezed my fingers. His thumb rubbed the knuckle where my mantle had fallen away. "Did you mean to be cruel?" he asked quietly.
"I meant to be clever," I admitted. "And I broke a lot of things."
He traced the sting on my lip with his forefinger like a child testing a bruise. "You will not be punished again."
For a while afterwards, headlines and gossip turned toward the spectacle, and it seemed the Empress had her lesson about palace order. But that public punishment had other effects: it freed me from being only a prize; it made the people see something unmade and still willing to stand. It made Lance look at me not as a toy to be amused by but as a person who could be wounded and yet step forward. In the days that followed, he kept to my side more intentionally.
One evening, after the heart of the spectacle had cooled, Lance knocked at my window with a wooden puppet tucked into his sleeve.
"Why are you making me a puppet king?" I asked, laughing despite the remaining scar on my pride.
"To remind you I will not let the world humiliate you alone," he said, handing me the puppet.
"Do you like me?" I asked then, suddenly, the question burning like a raw nerve.
He didn't answer at once. He stepped closer and the light from the courtyard lanterns painted his face in gold. "I do," he said simply. "I have for a long time."
I forced a laugh that turned into something real. "So your confession wasn't just because I fed you spicy cake?"
He pretended to think. "The spicy cake helped."
The next days were quieter, gentler. Lance learned my favorite small things: the way I'd spun a strand of hair when nervous, how I liked my tea a bit too sweet, how the sight of a puppet made me grin like a child. I learned his rhythms—the way he skimmed through reports but hummed when the moon was right.
One afternoon I surprised myself. I stepped toward him on the dragon canopy and kissed his temple before I could think. "If I said I like you truly, would it be enough?"
He turned, eyes wide with warm astonishment. "Say it," he breathed.
"I like you, Lance," I said, and this time the words weren't a game.
He laughed, the sound like bells. "Then I win," he said, and caught me in his arms.
We had our silly arguments after that—about jars of pickled plum and whether puppet shows were suitable entertainment for the throne—but there was an honesty to it. I did not have to play tricks to seize his attention anymore.
Delilah, too, emerged from her kitchen stint with a sharper mouth and a softer smile. She came to me one morning carrying a wooden tray with two cups of tea. "For the one who bared herself to public shame and survived," she said.
"Why?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I like people who do not pretend. You didn't ask them to pity you. You asked them to see. That is rarer than you'd think."
She left as abruptly as she had come. I watched her go with a new respect for those rough-edged hearts.
The Empress, who had orchestrated so much, eventually softened in private. She called me to the inner garden one quiet afternoon.
"Emersyn," she said as she filled two cups of tea, "I pushed you into spectacle because you were careless. I set tests because I feared the throne's danger. You have surprised me."
"Have I?" I asked.
"You have kept your manner in spite of it," she said. "It is a strength I was foolish not to see before."
Lance overheard from the doorway and smiled at me like a conspirator. I realized then that what had once been a cruel court could be softened by small acts: a puppet, a spicy cake, a shared cup of tea. I realized the truth of what Lance had said long ago: I had not known how to see my own heart until someone else saw it for me.
The story ends not with a promise on a hill or a vow repeated into the wind, but with a small carved puppet on my dressing table and Lance's hand finding mine in the dark. We had both played games. We had both been punished by the world. In the quiet after, I found that my heart did not sway like a reed—it stood, stubborn and warm, and it liked him back.
The End
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