The River's Bride: The Eyes
The first cry of the newborn princess cut through the birth chamber. For one suspended moment, everything else fell silent. Then the senior midwife announced the child’s sex, her voice bright with relief. “A princess! Her Majesty, a princess has been born!” The Empress, who had spent the better part of the night standing beside the bed, finally allowed herself to breathe. A daughter. Lin Yue had given the Emperor a daughter. The baby was small and red-faced, her tiny fists curling against the cold air as the midwife wrapped her in warm cloth. She cried with remarkable determination for someone so little, her voice filling the chamber that had been full of her mother’s cries only moments before. The Empress reached out. “Let me see her.” The midwife placed the infant into her arms. For all her years in the palace, for all the births she had witnessed and all the children she had welcomed into the imperial family, the Empress still found herself smiling at the sight of a newborn. There w...