The late-winter wind swept shattered snow across the mottled vermilion walls of the deserted palace. Curled upon a mildew-scented pallet, I gazed through the lattice window at the drifting snowflakes, and in a daze, I was back in that blood-drenched summer night.
I was sixteen years old that year. On the day of my coming-of-age ceremony, my father solemnly placed the dark-iron tiger tally into my hands. "A-Zhao," he said, "if ever you are driven to desperation, this token can mobilize the eighty thousand iron cavalry of the Gu Family." Clutching the icy tiger tally and looking at the newly grown strands of white hair at my father's temples, I realized for the first time the crushing weight of burdens borne by a century-old military lineage.
At the Lantern Festival banquet, I met Crown Prince Xiao Yan. He stood beneath the festive lanterns, his dark brocade robe embroidered with hidden silver dragons, his gaze falling upon me like starlight. "The general's daughter truly lives up to her reputation," he murmured. As I lowered my head in a curtsy, I caught a faint scent of cedar wafting from the hem of his robes—a scent that bore an uncanny resemblance to the winter air of the Northern Frontier.
Chapter 102