Chapter 1: The Wedding That Did Not Happen

Zhao Mingzhi had prepared for this escape for four months: a route, a contact, a change of clothes, a pouch of money that did not bear the imperial seal. She had not prepared for the Crown Prince to be leaving through the same gate at the same time, apparently with the same idea, and for them to stand on either side of the gate looking at each other in the grey pre-dawn light while the palace woke up behind them. The Crown Prince recovered first. "I will not tell anyone I saw you," he said, "if you will extend me the same courtesy." She considered this. It was, she admitted, a reasonable opening offer.