The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis

I let her cross three tiles before I acknowledged her.

Lady Huai entered the music garden like a banner brought to the wrong battlefield—brocade too bright for winter, pendants ticking against each other as if they could keep time from cutting her.

Court ladies peeled back in a ripple. Two junior ministers drifted after her like minnows behind a carp, their faces arranged into concern that wanted to be gossip.

"Empress," she called, not waiting to be announced. "We need words."

"You've already spent too many," I returned, not rising from the long stone bench where I'd been reviewing the kitchen rosters. I closed the bamboo slip with one finger and set it beside the tea. "Walk."

She didn't expect that.

For a heartbeat her mouth made the shape of refusal; then she remembered whose garden this was and moved as directed. I set the pace toward the cypress shade where anyone with ears could hear and anyone with sense could pretend they hadn't.

"You installed Sun Longzi in the palace." She reached for hauteur and found shrillness. "You took a general from the border and put him in a servant's post so he could breathe your air."

"I put him in the Emperor's post," I corrected. "Captain of the guard is not a servant. It is a man-shaped wall."

"It is not his wall," she snapped. "His wall is the north. His men. His obligations. His—"

"Contracts tied by your mother's pen?" I let the smallest smile show. "Your quarrel is with a string, not with a knife."

Color rose under her powder. "You've bewitched him."

"If I needed spells to move men," I answered, "Daiyu would have fallen years ago."

The ministers behind her shifted, two careful steps closer. One cleared his throat, eager to be a bridge. "Your Majesty, propriety requires—"

"Propriety requires safety first," I cut in. "When I can count the ribs of every threat, I'll count etiquette." I didn't look at him again.

Lady Huai planted herself, chin up, voice pitched to travel. "You will return him to his command. You will release him from this… this humiliation. He belongs to the frontier, not skulking behind an Emperor who needs a nurse."

"Careful," I murmured.

But she wanted the bruise. "Everyone knows he is here for you."

"Everyone talks when their mouths are empty," I replied. "I suggest you eat."

She took a half step, gathering steam, ready to spray rumor like oil on fire. I lifted a hand, a small gesture that ended the notion.

"You imagine this is about desire," I went on, tone even. "It isn't. It's about calculus. Yaozu stays with me. That leaves a door at my husband's back. Longzi is the right hinge. He has the weight for it. That's the beginning and the end of the arithmetic."

"Then why tear him from the north?" she pushed. "If you are so clever, Empress, keep him there and find another hinge in your halls."

"Because I choose the best piece for the board I'm playing." I let the sentence sit, flat as a palm on a table. "I don't ask the board to admire my taste."

Her breath hitched. The garden heard it.

A side gate clicked. Longzi entered with the Guard Commander at his shoulder, plain uniform already sitting on him as if it had been cut there. He halted at the proper distance, head inclined, attention pinned to me and not to the woman whose jewelry tried to drag him into a familiar orbit.

"Majesty," the Guard Commander offered, bow spare, voice clean. "Captain Sun reports as ordered."

"Good," I acknowledged. "You'll have the east and inner routes logged by dusk. No carpets at corners. No incense near drapes. Lanterns refitted to brass hooks, not rope."

"Already in motion."

Lady Huai turned to Longzi as if she could reclaim him by volume. "You cannot be serious. You will not throw away honor for this—this farce of service."

Sun Longzi's face did not change. He looked at her the way a winter river looks at reeds—present, uninterested, moving elsewhere.

I spared her a glance. "Do not address my officer over my shoulder in my garden."

"He is my betrothed," she flared.

"He is my Captain," I answered. "And you address me."

"You stole him."

"I don't steal men," I replied. "I use them. That is what an empire is for."

The ministers flinched, as if truth were more indecent than scandal. One of them, braver or more foolish than the rest, found his moment. "Your Majesty, there are forms—petitions to be lodged, councils to be convened. The Lord of Rites—"

"The Lord of Rites is ash on a gate," I reminded him. "Find another crutch."

He went white around the mouth and retreated into his own shadow.

Lady Huai tried again, quieter now, angling for pity. "My mother—"

"Can visit the outer court as any petitioner." I didn't soften it. "She tied a thread. He cut it. Threads cut every day, and yet, the sun still rises."

"Shame will cling to us," she whispered.

"Shame clings to the slow," I returned. "Do you know what clings to the fast? Results."

Her fingers tightened on the muff until the fur protested. "You enjoy this."

"I enjoy only two things: a child who eats without shaking and a gate that holds." I tipped my chin toward Longzi without looking away from her. "He is the second."

That hit. She swallowed around it, eyes glistening, anger and fear turning the same color.

"Escort Lady Huai to the west cloister," I told the Guard Commander. "Give her a seat. Hot water. Paper. She can write to her mother until her hand cramps. If a word in the letters suggests treason, bring them to me before you bring them to anyone else."

"Yes, Majesty."

Longzi's gaze never left my face. Not waiting for approval, not asking for it. Taking the order into his spine and fastening it there.

"Captain," I added, letting the word shave a sliver from the air, "a list of your posts by sundown. I want to know which corners talk back when you step past."

"Understood."

Lady Huai pulled her arm away from the Guard Commander's gentle direction. "You—" She tried to find a name that would hurt me. "Witch."

"At least use the correct title," I murmured. "It saves everyone time."

She pivoted, aiming at Longzi a last barb meant to lacerate both of us. "When you wake to find yourself nothing more than a hallway's shadow, remember who emptied your hands."

"I already did," he returned, tone like steel that didn't need polishing.