I woke in an unfamiliar room. My tongue automatically licked my dry lips as I worked on sitting up.

"Careful, you fainted," Jing's frightened voice drew my attention, and I felt her arm wrap around my back to help me slide to the firm wall behind the bed I lay on.

"Where are we?" I asked as I took in the clean but well-used room.

"An inn near where you fell. Mistress Mei has left to get you some tea and sent Yize to fetch the carriage."

"Where is Tengfei?" It surprised me that he wasn't in the room.

"He disappeared soon after we entered the Inn," Jing whispered and looked around her. "I don't like it. He wouldn't leave you."

"Go get General Bao!" I ordered, fear sinking into my stomach. We met the Empress today, and then suddenly, her brother-in-law disappeared. Had something happened to Tengfei? He had revealed himself. Did that put him in danger?

"I can't leave you," Jing insisted.

"Mei is here with me. I will be fine."

"I don't trust her," Jing whispered again. "She was with you when you fainted."

"It was a knife stall, Jing. She couldn't have known my fear," I reassured my anxious friend. Jing had discovered my phobia of knives during our training at the sanctuary, but no one else could know outside of her and the others there, not even Bao. It was only the ones pointed at me that still triggered my anxiety.

"I don't know. Everything is strange today." Jing hesitated again.

"All the more reason to get Bao. I will be fine. The palace isn't far from here. Take my jade. It will gain you access." I handed my husband's signet jade to her. He gave it to me for protection, and Jing knew how to use it. With it in her hands, she was my surrogate. No one would stop her from reaching General Bao. "I'm worried about Tengfei. He could be injured. Someone must have used the distraction to do something to him."

"I will go, but please be careful," Jing squeezed my hand and headed towards the door. She bowed at Mei, who entered with her maid, Xin, who carried a tea tray. Mei nodded and directed Xin to place the tea on the table next to my bed.

"You are awake! Where is your maid off to?"

"She went to find Tengfei," I lied. I wasn't sure why I didn't tell Mei the truth. Maybe I didn't want her to disagree with my distracting Bao from his work.

"Oh, yes, I haven't seen him since we arrived. Perhaps he went to buy something for his lover in the market," Xin poured the tea into a ceramic cup before bowing out of the room. "I can't believe we have had the Emperor's brother sitting at our low table for months. Madam Wei will be so embarrassed. How could you not tell her?"

"I didn't know," I lied again. This lie was more understandable, Tengfei had not allowed me to share his secret, and I didn't want Mei to think I didn't trust her. "I was shocked as you at the Empress' announcement."

"Well, I suppose he did renounce his familial ties. Only the Emperor must still call him brother if the Empress does. My cousin is very strict on the protocol. I had heard the last of the Prince Royals had survived the purge of heirs by renouncing his title and binding himself to a healer. I just hadn't realized it was your healer." Mei placed the cup in my hand and sat beside me on the bed. Her knowledge shouldn't have surprised me, she had been raised in the capital city, and her cousin had become Empress. All the politics leading to the succession of our current Emperor had to have been fascinating to her.

I sipped the bitter tea in the silence that followed. Something about its smell turned my stomach, so I put the barely-touched tea next to me on the table.

"Did you not like the tea?"

"I'm sorry, it doesn't taste right."

"Oh, perhaps it is the sedative," Mei said so matter-of-factly that I almost missed the words.

"Sedative?"

"Stabbing you will be easier to explain, but you might make too much noise, so a sedative was necessary to quiet your tongue." I felt the heaviness of a drug dragging on my body again. I hadn't drunk enough that it would put me to sleep, but it did muddle my mind and thicken my tongue.

"Mei, what's going on?"

"I've had enough of you," Mei calmly answered as three men dressed in black entered the room from the window. "Ever since the beginning, you have been nothing but trouble."

"What do you mean?" I looked up in time to see Mei reach into her chest fold. Jing had been right. Everyone had been right. Mei had been the player, not the piece. I closed my eyes briefly to concentrate on calming my pounding heart to slow the diffusion of poison through my body and fought to keep it from the life I chose to protect with my own.

"My plans should have worked." Mei's hand held a dagger. Was it the same one that she had held at the stall? Had she known the entire time about my weakness? I looked around and saw the men protecting every opening in the room, there would be no escape, and no one would enter without a fight. "At first, I thought you would be easy, a bump in my road to destroying the Wei clan. You so willingly took the poison that Lady Song offered. Imagine my surprise when you walked into the sitting room without any sign of harm. Combining her poison with General Bao's sedative should have killed you. He should be in prison now. Yet, you not only survived, but you wore his crest on your shoulder. Hinting at consummation, despite every seed of doubt we had sewn into his mind."

Mei accepted a jar and cloth from one of the men and began rubbing the end of the dagger with the contents. My body felt almost paralyzed as I watched her movements. I had to preserve my strength. I would only get one chance to protect my child.

"Then, with so little of a push, you willingly abandoned your new husband, even after he claimed you. I thought his pride would never forgive you, and he would damage his relationship with the Emperor by insisting on a divorce."

My heart pounded again as she angled the knife towards me, the glistening wetness hinting at the amount of poison she had coated it with. "But then he didn't divorce you. He never even hinted at it in his correspondence with Yize."

"I thought we were friends," I choked out, trying to prolong her monologue, hoping that Jing would find Bao in time.

"Friends! What woman would befriend the woman her husband loves? And who would befriend her rival? Keep your enemies close. That is what my cousin instructed. And she was right, and you are so naive, so desperate for affection." Mei turned the knife over in her hand. My eyes were stuck on every movement it made. Fear for the life I held within me kept me sane as the blade danced before me.

"Why do you want to destroy the House of Wei?" Part of her admission returned to my mind. "You are part of the House and have a child."

"My reputation will recover if the house falls. The strength of my family will shield me."

"How will my death aid you?"

"How will it not? Your dying injures both brothers. I thought once, your living could have been more helpful once I discovered who you had been to my husband. But the fool loves his brother as much as his brother loves him. He would never do anything to hurt his General Bao. Once it was clear you two held a deep affection for each other, he kept himself far from you. I guess his love for his brother runs deeper than his love for you. And this is why he was an imperfect pawn. His compassion outweighs his self-preservation instinct. He could not hate his brother, who had both his love and the family's title. So I had to devise a different plan to save the Empire. When you die, under Yize's watch, Bao cannot forgive him. The animosity will grow, and all the seeds your presence has planted will sprout in Yize. Soon, the brothers will tear each other apart, and no one will need to worry about their power."

"You are not making sense. How can the fall of the House of Wei benefit you or the Empire?"

"Who are you to question my cousin's plan?"

"Your cousin? The Empress?" A smile was my only response. She would never betray the Empress if she were the mastermind.

"How will you hide your involvement?" I changed tactics, trying to reason with her differently.

"Of course, these bandits will attack you, and I will also be injured." She waved her hands at the three men who surrounded her. "No one will suspect that such good sisters would have turned on each other." Mei stopped playing with the knife when we heard feet pounding up the hallway toward the room. "It seems your saviors are faster than I imagined. But they will be too late."

She lunged for me with the dagger expertly pointed at my chest. I instinctually turned away to protect my child, giving her full access to my back, which she took advantage of. Pain seared under my shoulder blade and followed the track of the knife as it bisected the space between my ribs and punctured a hole in my lungs. Blood filled the area where the air should have been, and the poison coursed through my body toward my womb. If I concentrated, I could seal the hole and save myself, but the child would die. He was old enough now to survive without me if they found me in time.

"Mei!" A voice penetrated my confusion. Yize had arrived. Would he save me? "What have you done?"

"I have created an opening for our child; you just need to let it happen." Mei's weight left my body, and I concentrated all my healing energy on protecting my son. My head became light from the effort, but I didn't stop.

"Mei, this is insanity. She is your sister."

"She is no such thing. She is my rival in every way. And if you can't understand that, you can join her." I tried to open my eyes to see if she had succeeded in killing Yize, but they wouldn't obey me.

"Baiyu, don't leave me," Bao's voice aroused me. Jing had done it. He had arrived before I died and would save our child. His arms pulled me into his chest. My heart hummed with contentment. Even if I died, I could feel his love one last time. At least I had known love in this life.

"Yize, leave her to the guards. Bai is dying." The terror in his voice brought me back again, and I lifted a hand to his face.

"The baby is alive. Save him." I wiped the tears leaking from his now glowing amber eyes.

"He needs his mother," Bao cooed as he cradled me closer. A second set of arms landed under the first, and Bao loosened his grip. Two faces, similar in many ways but completely different, looked down at me with fear.

Then a power I had never before experienced flooded me. It had the taste of Bao but not him. I realized that the twins were working together, giving me their cultivation to save my life. I felt sorry for them. They were wasting so much effort on me. I wasn't who thought I deserved this much.

"Bai, you have to heal yourself. We cannot do it for you," Bao barked before everything faded.

"Angel, am I dying?" I asked the blank space that surrounded me. Had I gone unconscious or died?

"Yes," an older woman appeared before me. She resembled the pictures of my grandmother that my mother kept on the mantle. "But you can stop it."

"Are you Angel?" I asked stupidly, the voice was unmistakable, but she looked so much like that woman in the picture. Perhaps this was just a dream.

"I am, and I am telling you to try to live. They do not want you to leave this world yet. There is more for you to do."

"Who doesn't want me to leave?" I thought I heard the familiar beeping and gas compression that accompanied the breathing machines in my hospital. "Which world should I stay in? What happens if I die in both?"

"I don't know, but in this world, you have the magic of your heart stone, use it to heal yourself. Use the power of the twin cultivators to feed the stone and save your and your child's lives." Angel grabbed my hand as she spoke, her voice dipping into a pleading tone.

"Twin cultivators," I repeated. Why did the term sound so important? She had to be talking about my husband and his brother.

"Their power blends to become stronger. Use it to neutralize the poison flowing toward your child, heal the wounds that starve the child by wasting your blood."

She chose the right motivation this time. The thought of my baby dying whipped me back into my body. I pushed the borrowed cultivation through every pore and found all traces of poison. Angel had been right. It had nearly made its way to my son's sleeping heart. His breathing had slowed, and his heart rate dangerously low. The sedative must have hit him when I was distracted by the poison and pain.

Two more familiar magics added to mine and borrowed the same strength I attempted to wield.

"Master," I croaked as my eyes fluttered open to see Master Zhou and Huizhong filling the gap between the brothers surrounding me. "You are here."

"I had meant to surprise you for the Longest Day, daughter of my heart. You cannot disappoint me."

"Tengfei!"

"He is safe," Huizhong answered. "Concentrate on you."

I had never heard my brother sound so angry. His usually smooth tone was replaced with a prickly cadence that pierced my heart with fear.

"Bai," Bao whispered, drawing my attention to his darkening eyes. "They can only help you if you let them. Stop resisting."

I hadn't realized I had placed a barrier until his words revealed it. I closed my eyes again and allowed my martial father and brother to heal me as they wished. I knew I was safe, and the baby was safe, but I feared that the peace I had relished was forever lost.

The Empress wanted the destroy the House of Wei enough to sacrifice her cousin for the cause. How would we stand against her? Would I be a strength or weakness in the battle?

"Child," Master Zhou's voice brought me back. "We must deliver your son now. Too much poison has entered his system. We need to heal him outside of your womb."

"But he is too small. How will he survive?" Bao countered. I laid a reassuring hand on his arm. I trusted my master.

"I will not let him die," Master Zhou promised. "Let your brother continue to feed your wife his cultivation. She will heal better once the baby is born. You can lend yours to his survival."

Everyone began to shift around me. Yize sat behind me and pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me in a comfortable embrace. Love and warmth exuded from the power he let flow through me. It felt so similar to Bao's cultivation, only softer, like a warm bath instead of a fire. Some memories of Bai's love for Yize brought emotions that had never registered in my heart. Had things been different, this would have been Yize's wife and child he held instead of his brother's. And for the first time, I wondered what that would have been like, to have been the wife of this tender soul.

Pain pushed the treacherous thoughts out of my mind as my master began to pull the child from my body. My uterus squeezed, and the sleepy child resisted leaving his warm home, so Master Zhou had to use force. The arms squeezed tighter as I screamed to relieve the pain of childbirth. I used the energy Yize supplied to dampen the uncomfortable sensation, pushing it toward the nerves that fed the baby's path. The pain dulled, but I kept some to help the baby find his way out.

"You are doing so well, Bibi," Yize murmured. His encouraging words pushed me forward. I felt a surge of release when my son left my body, but panic replaced the joy when I didn't hear any cries from the child.

"Is he okay?" I screamed.

"He lives, have faith," Yize responded as the other three huddled around the small body still connected to mine with the umbilical cord.

"Cover her eyes," Huizhong ordered, and Yize complied with the soft hand that had laid across my chest. I felt them sever the child's physical connection to me entirely and knew they wanted me not to see the knife they used to do so.

"It's okay, let me see," I insisted, and Yize released his hand. Just as he did, an angry cry filled the room.

"He's fine," Yize whispered. "Do you hear how angry he is about the separation? He will be a handful."

"I hope so," I laid my head against my brother-in-law's chest, the exhaustion of the ordeal hitting me.

Bao sat next to his brother with our child in his arms. Someone had found a soft blanket to wrap him in.

Bao lay the child on my chest, and Yize shifted to let his brother take his place behind me. The right arms then surrounded me and pushed the fiery power I desired so much through both me and the miracle bundled into my arms.

"We did it," I whispered.

"We did," Bao agreed.

For a moment, I didn't think about the future. I didn't worry about keeping my husband and child safe from the Empress, who wanted the House of Wei to fall. I focused on my son's wide angry eyes.

In time, intrigue would knock on my door again. Someone had plans for me. At least, that is what it seemed from Angel's words. Whoever had brought my soul from my body to Bai's, wanted me to finish something. I didn't know if it was just a story that needed a better ending or something more.

None of those future worries mattered as I gave my child his first meal. Only the man who held me tight and the child suckling did. They were why I returned to this life.

But the sounds I had heard in that blank space sounded like Baiyu's world. Where was I really?  

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