The day my sister Sabrina finally earned her freedom from the brothel, she ran to tell me the good news, her face glowing with the same joy we’d shared as children. She’d paid for my medical studies all those years, and I’d saved every coin to buy her contract. I was going to buy her a flawless jade pendant with my last silver. I thought our good days had finally arrived.
Instead, I found her crumpled in the dirt, her life already gone, cut down by Sharon Andrews, the most beautiful woman in the capital. Sharon was the woman Connor Harper, the powerful Marquis, had doted on for years—the woman who killed my sister for daring to catch his eye at the brothel. Sharon walked away that day like she’d crushed a bug. Sabrina’s body was tossed aside, sold off for a ghost marriage, disposed of like trash.
I swore then I’d make them all pay—Sharon, Connor, every noble who treated lives like dirt. I crawled back from that grief with a new name, Taoyuan, Lady Peach, and a plan. Sharon left the capital for a trip, and I slipped into the Northern Marquis’ manor. For six months, I served Connor with perfect devotion.
I tended his aching head, soothed his migraines, learned every rhythm of his body. He grew used to me, trusting me. The other servants whispered that I’d be discarded once Sharon returned. I let them talk.
I needed Connor to rely on me, to see me as harmless, as loyal as a shadow. Every night I used acupressure during his herb-infused baths, slowly, carefully aggravating the old wound in his skull. The effects were slow, untraceable. No evidence left behind.
No one suspected Arthur
Then Sharon came back, and the manor trembled. She sneered at my background, called me a butcher’s girl playing courtesan. She didn’t know I was playing a much longer game. She demanded I serve her, and I bowed, smiling, every word honeyed with submission.
She thought she’d broken me. She had no idea I was just waiting, watching, feeding her arrogance while my poison worked deeper into Connor’s blood every day
I played the loyal one, comforting Connor through his fits, letting Sharon believe she held all the power. I whispered to the servants, turned her own cruelty against her. I exposed her threats, her schemes, her petty abuses, all while playing the grateful, simple girl.
Sharon pushed me, humiliated me, tried to have me thrown out, but Connor kept me close. He was growing suspicious of her, and I made sure every wound she gave me only deepened his doubts about her
Xia her arrogance grew. She thought she’d won when she orchestrated a banquet to show off her status. I stole the show, playing her game, risking my voice to retrieve a golden hook from my throat, just to win a promise from Connor thathe’d keep those vultures away from Sharon.
He looked at me differently that night, with something beyond gratitude. I knew then that she’d sealed her own fate. Sharon was so busy preening she didn’t notice the cracks forming beneath her feet
The real blow came when I revealed she wasn’t his savior. The one who’d saved Connor Harper 20 years ago on Mount Da Huang was my sister, Sabrina.
The red mole, the wild sage, the little boy with a fever in a cold cave—that was Sabrina’s kindness. Sharon had stolen her identity, her reward, her life. Connor had been blind, worshiping a liar while my sister rotted in a pauper’s grave. When I finally told him, his world shattered.
He stared at Sharon like she was a stranger. She tried to spin it, but the proof was too strong. His voice cracked when he asked where Sabrina was. I told him.
I told him everything—how she died, how he let it happen, how he rewarded her murderer
Connor’s face crumpled. He fell to his knees, begging, saying he’d wronged us both, that he’d hunt for her forgiveness in the afterlife. I let him believe I was softening. I let him think his heir, my child, would carry his legacy.
He gave me the estate, the lands, the gold, thinking he was repaying a debt. He never noticed the soup I’d made him, laced with the very poison I’d been feeding him for months. I watched him drink it, watched him trust me to the last drop
Then I told him the truth. He was dying, and I was glad.
I told him I’d never loved him, that I’d only felt the urge to kill him. I told him his child would never be born, that I wouldn’t keep it, because it carried his cursed blood. I told him every word I’d ever said to him was a lie, designed to avenge my sister. He died with that knowledge, with my face the last thing he saw
Sharon, I left her rotting too—ruined, disgraced, her beauty stolen by her own obsession, dying of the poison she’d meant for me, hated by the city she’d once ruled.
I watched her fall, inch by inch, and felt nothing but cold satisfaction. She’d taken everything from me, and I took everything from her
The last time I stood over my sister’s grave, I placed two items: a jade pendant, the one I’d meant to give her on her freedom day, and a lock of Connor’s hair. I whispered to the wind that I’d brought the last two wretches to her at last. Then I turned away, the manor behind me silent, my work done.
I had no tears left. I had only peace
