Chapter 2
But right now, Elias did.
"Impossible," Elias Lockwood's voice trembled. "You're a man. You're the king. For god's sake, you're supposed to be a man!"
I slowly undid the first button of my imperial robe.
"I'm not." I said.
Looking back, what happened twelve years ago was actually quite simple.
The Late king only had one child. That was me.I was just a girl.
When the Late king was on his deathbed, the northern barbarians were at our gates, and three princes were fighting for the throne. I was the last of the Blackwood's clan's direct line. If anyone found out I was a woman, the Blackwood's clan's kingdom would have a new name by morning.
"Girl," my father said, lying on his sickbed, holding my hand tight, his eyes hollow and tired. "I'm sorry."
I was just fourteen back then.
"Dad, I'm not scared," I told him.
That night, after my father passed away, Kael Langford wrapped my chest tight, dressed me in the imperial robe, and helped me onto the throne.
The next morning, all the civil and military officials were at the court.
No one noticed a thing.
I took after my father who was tall with thick brows and sharp eyes. My voice was deep, something I'd been training since I was five. My father brought in a theater master to teach me how to lower it.
I took the throne at fourteen, quelled the Three Princes' Rebellion at fifteen, drove back the northern barbarians at sixteen, reformed the tax system at eighteen, and opened up the imperial examinations and trade routes at twenty.
I did everything a good king was supposed to do.
But there was one thing I did wrong.
The only thing was the affair of the Lockwood's clan.
The Lockwood's clan was one of the founding meritocratic families of the kingdom. Elias Lockwood's father, Silas Lockwood, commanded a hundred thousand troops and garrisoned the northern border. While my father lived, the two clans maintained a fragile stability.
But after I ascended the throne, Silas started getting restless.
He thought a fourteen-year-old kid unfit to hold the realm steady.
He sent memorials to "remonstrate" with me every few days. Plainly, it was nothing but probing. Later, he grew bolder still, levying taxes and appointing officials in the northern borderlands entirely on his own, acting as a virtual warlord.
I endured his provocations for three long years.
In the third year, when the northern barbarians raided our borders once more, I seized the opportunity to summon Silas Lockwood back to the capital under the pretense of "reporting on his duties." I promptly stripped him of his military command and exiled the entire Lockwood's clan to the south.
That year, Elias Lockwood was sixteen.
When he was escorted out of the capital under guard, he turned and shot me a look over his shoulder.
That look burned itself into my memory for twelve years.
It was not hatred.
It was a vow: "You will see."
Everything that followed unfolded exactly as I had foreseen.
Elias Lockwood spent three years in exile to the south. When the guards grew lax, he slipped away and threw in his lot with Theodore Ashworth, the military governor of the southern frontier.
In five years, he rose from a common soldier to a grand general, then spent another four years taking over Theodore Ashworth's entire army.
By the time I realized the full extent of his power, he commanded two hundred thousand elite troops and controlled half the realm.
And what about me?
I was exhausted.
For twelve years, I never once closed my eyes to a peaceful night’s sleep.
For twelve years, I never once removed the bindings wrapped tight around my chest.
For twelve years, I never once spoke my true name.
My voice had grown hoarse from years of forcing it into a lower register, and my chest bore deep indentations from the bindings I’d worn for so long.
Felix Sterling in the royal hospital was the only one who knew my secret. Every month, he'd sneak in to check on me.
Three months ago, after his examination, he went down on his knees before me, his face as pale as a ghost.
"Your Majesty...you're pregnant," his voice trembled.
I was in the midst of reviewing imperial memorials.
The tip of my brush trembled, and a drop of ink bled across the memorial, blooming into a large, inky blot.
"Impossible," I said.
"I've checked three times," Felix Sterling said, his forehead pressed to the stone tiles, his voice shaking with fear. "It is the absolute truth."
It was three months ago.
It was in Imperial Palace.
It was a stormy night.
I closed my eyes for a while.
I was doomed.
Honestly, what happened that night was nothing short of absurdity.
Three months prior, I traveled incognito to the Imperial Palace to investigate a case of salt tax embezzlement.
The Imperial Palace had lain disused for years, with only a handful of elderly palace attendants left to guard it.
I was quartered in the West Courtyard of the palace.
That night, it was pouring outside when I suddenly heard something coming from the adjacent chamber.
Sword in hand, I strode over and kicked the door open to see.
It was Elias Lockwood.
He lay sprawled on the floor, soaked in blood, his lips as pale as ash, clearly gravely wounded.
My first instinct was to kill him.
He was a traitor, a rebel, the greatest enemy of my life. To kill him now would rid me of the greatest thorn in my side.
My sword was pressed to his throat in a heartbeat.
He opened his eyes, dazed, and looked up at me.
He was so out of it from blood loss, and he didn't even recognize me.
"Water..." His voice was as dry as sandpaper, cracked and hoarse. " Just a sip, please..."
I stood rooted to the spot, my sword clenched in my hand for an eternity.
Then, I lowered it.
I didn't even know why I lowered my sword.
Maybe it was because, in that moment, he didn't look like the warlord who commanded two hundred thousand troops. He was just a man on the verge of death.