Snow had melted. Plum blossoms lined the stone paths in fragrant clusters, their pink petals trailing like soft bloodstains across the grey tiles.
The harem had changed.
Liora walked the inner gardens with the ease of one who no longer had to chase the King's shadow. Her belly was no longer round; her hands, no longer tentative. One child had been born in spring — a son, eyes dark as coal — and the second, a daughter with a piercing cry and a willful gaze, arrived barely a year after.
And though Liora still wore the robes of a consort without title, she no longer carried herself like one.
She was learning how to wait.
---
In the nursery pavilion, her children were carefully separated from the others. It was not an honor, but a calculation — one made by the Dowager herself.
"The palace floor," the old woman had once said to Liora, "is stone. Best to teach them how to fall before they learn how to rise."
Liora had agreed. Silently.
She had been taught the same lesson, except no one warned her first.
---
The King visited irregularly now, though not without notice. When he did come, he asked first for his son — the boy still too young to speak but already watched by servants for signs of greatness.
And yet, every time he left Liora's quarters, he did so slower than he entered. Something about her calm, her silence, her clean refusal to beg, disturbed and fascinated him.
Once, he said to her while watching their children sleep,
"You don't kneel. Not like the others."
She had only replied,
"I already gave you my blood. Why should I give you my knees?"
He laughed — but it was the unsettled kind.
---
Rumors drifted like incense.
Lady Mei's child had been born weak. Lady Hua had fallen ill during a storm. The Queen, cloistered more and more, no longer smiled during court gatherings.
But Liora said nothing. She sent gifts instead:
Medicinal wine to Mei. Embroidered blankets to Hua. A carved jade teether to Lady Zhen's son.
None of it extravagant. All of it intentional.
She was building memory into their hands. Soft power. Woman's power.
---
It was the King himself who offered her the favor.
The court was to receive foreign dignitaries — but the Queen had withdrawn due to illness, and the Virtuous Consort, Elira, had "duties of her own." He wanted someone with composure. Someone not eager to speak, but careful when she did.
He summoned Liora.
"You're not dazzling," he told her as they sat alone in the southern audience hall. "But you unsettle men who think they're immune to quiet."
"That sounds like an insult, Your Majesty."
"It's not. It's a warning."
He asked her to represent the harem during the diplomatic feast.
She accepted.
---
The night of the feast, Liora wore jade-green robes that glinted like wet moss and left her hair unbound at the back — a soft rebellion.
She said little. Poured wine. Listened. But the envoy's eyes kept returning to her, ignoring even the senior court ladies.
Later, in private, he remarked to the King:
"That one understands stillness. She does not reach — she draws. Like a blade."
---
Within the week, she was promoted.
The ceremony was quiet but official.
Noble Consort. The title beneath only the Queen.
The palace stirred.
Elira sent no congratulations.
The Queen did not appear.
Lady Hua sent roses. Lady Wen sent silence.
Lady Zhen whispered blessings.
And Liora?
She returned to her children, kissed their heads, and let the scroll of her new rank rest untouched beside her writing brush.
---
But in the depths of night, when the palace was still, she lit a candle, opened a hidden drawer, and drew out the letter her mother had once left behind — sealed in wax, untouched for years.
She broke the seal.
And read:
You will never be loved for who you are. But if you are wise, that won't matter. Love is for those who serve. Power is for those who command.
Liora burned it after reading.
Her rise had begun.