Chapter 26 - Behind Closed Silk

The Silk of Fate

Chapter 26 – Behind Closed Silk

The summons came at noon.

A folded slip of parchment tucked neatly between the petals of a lotus-shaped tea dish. Lianhua recognized the script before she even unfolded it.

Aunt Meixiu.

No seal. No title. Just three words: “Come without delay.”

The receiving chamber smelled faintly of camphor and incense. White silk hung over the entrance, stirred gently by the breeze. Meixiu sat cross-legged on a cushioned platform, her back impossibly straight, a cup of untouched tea cooling in her hands.

Lianhua bowed low. “Aunt.”

Meixiu did not return the greeting.

“You’re growing careless,” she said. Calm. Measured.

Lianhua raised her head. “I disagree.”

“Of course you do.” She set the cup down with quiet precision. “That’s the problem.”

Silence passed between them.

Then:

“You’ve drawn attention to yourself. And to him. Do you understand what kind of danger that invites?”

“He is an envoy,” Lianhua said. “A diplomatic guest. Not a threat.”

Meixiu’s gaze narrowed. “Everything is a threat when handled without control.”

She rose from her seat, taking slow, deliberate steps around the low table.

“When I was your age,” she began, “I was courted by a general’s son. He wrote me letters. Poems. Promised me his name and his future.”

Lianhua didn’t speak.

“One morning, my father handed me a scroll with my betrothal—to someone else. A man I had never spoken to. The next day, the general’s son was reassigned to the northern border. He never returned.”

Meixiu stopped walking.

“You think you are the first girl to be seen? You are not.”

Lianhua’s jaw tightened. “And what happened to you, Aunt? Did you obey?”

“I survived.”

That word landed like a stone.

And for the first time, Lianhua saw it—behind all the perfection, behind the iron grace and rigid poise—a woman who had once been shattered, and chosen to remain whole by being unbreakable ever since.

But that wasn’t the life Lianhua wanted.

Not anymore.

“If you care for him,” Meixiu said finally, “you’ll stop before someone else decides how you stop.”

Lianhua bowed her head.

“I understand.”

But she didn’t say yes.

At the same hour, Idran was summoned by Ambassador Natawirya, the senior diplomat from Tumapel assigned to monitor the envoy’s behavior.

The old man paced the garden path like it was his right.

“I warned you to observe,” he said. “Not to entangle.”

“I’ve done nothing dishonorable,” Idran replied, voice calm but clear.

Natawirya turned. “You’ve done something visible. In diplomacy, that is worse.”

He stepped closer.

“There are eyes watching from the Emperor’s court. From ours. From Champa. From the Persian traders who already whisper of this ‘thoughtful southern prince’ and his courtly princess. You think your faith, your curiosity, protects you? They do not.”

Idran’s face remained still.

Natawirya leaned in.

“She is not yours to admire. She is a symbol. And you were meant to be a shadow.”

That night, both Idran and Lianhua returned to the koi pond.

Neither planned it.

But neither was surprised.

They sat, this time closer. Quiet.

And when Idran reached for her hand—

she didn’t pull away.