THE SCHEMES OF THE HAREM

By dawn, the palace had already begun to whisper.

A foreign woman — dark as obsidian, proud as a lioness — had been left alone in the emperor's private chamber for an entire night.

The concubines in silk and pearls pressed their hands to their mouths in feigned shock. Their eyes glittered with something sharper than jewelry: fear.

> "He let her speak to him alone?"

"He dismissed the entire court?"

"But she can't even speak his language!"

Their words, soft as lace, spread like wildfire.

---

At the center of the eastern garden, Consort Xue, one of the emperor's favored women, crushed a lotus stem between her fingers.

> Consort Xue:

"She's dangerous. A savage, gifted from the sea. The emperor is only... curious. That will fade."

But she didn't believe her own words. Not truly.

She had seen the way Li Wei looked at the foreigner — not as a toy, not even as a woman. As an equal.

That terrified her more than anything.

> Lady Hong, ever her shadow, leaned close.

"We can use the language against her. Twist her silence. Say she cursed the emperor. Say she used... dark magic."

> Consort Xue:

"Yes. Let her beauty become the very thing that burns her."

---

Meanwhile, Nyasha stood in a courtyard alone, her head raised toward the sky.

A translator had not yet been brought, and no servant dared speak more than a few words. They watched her from behind pillars and veils, as though she were a lion in a silken cage.

She could feel it — the energy shifting, the unease. The stares no longer held wonder.

They held warning.

But she was not afraid.

> Nyasha (in her tongue):

"Let them speak. The mountain taught me to stand even when the earth shakes."

She turned her face to the sun, whispering Kiini Kiro's name, and let her silence be stronger than their noise.

---

In the throne hall, Li Wei met with his ministers, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He remembered her voice, low and steady. Her gaze, unshaken.

He had known thousands of women — trained to please, eager to bow.

None of them had dared to speak of lions and freedom. None had spoken to him like a man, not a god.

---

That night, while the palace whispered poison behind embroidered sleeves, Nyasha sat alone in her quarters.

A single flower had been left on her windowsill. White plum blossom. A silent message.

She didn't know the sender. But she knew this: they had begun to move against her.

And she would not fall quietly.

---