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 was something astonishing about a life that had not existed yesterday, now breathing and squirming in her embrace.

“Oh, Lin Yue,” she murmured, looking down at the little girl. “Look at your daughter.”

Lin Yue lay exhausted against the pillows, her dark hair damp against her temples. Her breathing was shallow, her face pale beneath the lingering flush of labor. The women around her were already moving to clean the bed and replace the bloodied cloths, while the midwife checked the child and spoke quietly to the physician.

But Lin Yue was no longer watching them.

Her eyes were fixed on the Empress.

And she was smiling.

It was not the familiar, mischievous smile she wore when she had accomplished something the palace ladies thought impossible. Nor was it the bright, teasing smile she sometimes gave the Emperor when she knew she had won an argument.

This was a small, quiet smile.

A smile of wonder.

As though the sight of her daughter in the Empress’s arms had made every hour of pain worthwhile.

The Empress smiled back at her.

“Look at her little hands,” she said softly. “She is already making fists. I suspect she will be a stubborn one.”

Lin Yue’s lips moved faintly, though no sound emerged.

The Empress leaned closer, trying to catch her words.

“What is it, child?”

Lin Yue continued to look at her.

There was such tenderness in her eyes that the Empress felt an unexpected ache in her chest. She had seen Lin Yue angry, frightened, defiant, and exhausted. She had seen her laugh in the schoolroom, surrounded by children who had forgotten their titles in her presence. She had watched her grow into a woman whom the palace had never quite known what to do with.

Yet now, as she lay in the bed with her daughter newly born, Lin Yue looked almost peaceful.

The Empress lowered the baby a little, preparing to bring her closer.

“Would you like to hold her?”

Lin Yue smiled again.

Her gaze never left the Empress’s face.

The Empress took one careful step toward the bed.

“Lin Yue, your daughter is here.”

Something was wrong.

She could not have said what it was at first. Perhaps it was the stillness. Perhaps it was the way Lin Yue’s smile had not changed, even as the moments passed. Perhaps it was simply that the woman who had spent the entire night fighting through pain had become so quiet.

“Lin Yue?”

The Empress stopped.

She looked at Lin Yue’s eyes.

They were open, fixed upon her, reflecting the lamplight without seeming to see it.

“Lin Yue,” she repeated, more urgently.

No answer.

The Empress felt the baby shift against her arms. The little princess made a small, protesting sound, her mouth opening in a delicate grimace before she began to cry again.

Still, Lin Yue did not move.

The Empress stared at her.

No.

Surely not.

The midwife was still speaking to another attendant. Someone was asking for fresh water. The physician had turned toward the table where his instruments lay.

The chamber continued around them, unaware that something terrible had happened.

The Empress moved closer to the bed.

“Lin Yue, look at me.”

Her voice had changed. It had lost the firm, commanding tone that made even the most senior palace women obey her without question.

“Lin Yue, you have done it. Your daughter is here. You must look at her.”

Nothing.

The Empress's fingers tightened around the infant.

She looked toward the midwife, her lips parting, but she could not bring herself to ask the question.

She had seen women die in childbirth before. She knew the signs. She knew how quickly the joy of a successful delivery could turn into something no prayer or imperial decree could reverse.

But knowing was not the same as accepting.

Not when the woman lying before her was Lin Yue.

Not when she had been smiling only moments ago.

Beside the Empress, Xiang Ning had gone utterly still.

She had been standing close enough to witness the change in Lin Yue’s face—or rather, the terrible absence of change. At first, she had thought the consort had simply fallen asleep from exhaustion. She had even felt relieved. The sight of the newborn princess had softened the terror that had held her captive throughout the labor.

Then she saw the Empress’s expression.

She followed her gaze to the bed.

And understood.

“No,” Xiang Ning whispered.

She took a step forward.

The Empress was still staring at Lin Yue, the baby cradled in her arms, as though she were waiting for someone to tell her that she had misunderstood.

Xiang Ning had only been in the palace for three months. She had learned how to bow, how to answer the Empress’s summons, how to attend the youngest princess, and how to hide her curiosity when older women exchanged secrets.

She had not learned how to stand beside a dead woman.

She had not learned what to do when a room full of adults became helpless.

And she had certainly not learned how to tell an Empress that the woman she loved was gone.

Her voice broke.

“The consort…”

The Empress did not turn.

Xiang Ning looked at Lin Yue’s open eyes, at the faint smile that remained on her lips, and at the stillness that no one in the room could undo.

Then, before she could stop herself, she cried out.

“The consort has died!”

The words struck the chamber like a dropped blade.

The Empress froze.

For a heartbeat, she seemed not to understand the language. Her arms remained curved around the newborn princess, her body poised in the act of bringing the child to her mother.

The baby was supposed to be placed in Lin Yue’s arms.

That was what they had been doing.

The Empress had been smiling. Lin Yue had been smiling. Their daughter had been born, and the Empress had been about to lay the little girl against her mother’s breast.

It was such a simple thing.

A mother holding her child.

The Empress looked down at the baby.

Then back at Lin Yue.

“No,” she said.

It was barely a sound.

Xiang Ning's face crumpled.

“Your Majesty…”

“No.”

The Empress shook her head once, almost imperceptibly.

Lin Yue was still there. Her body lay before them, her hands resting on the sheets, her hair scattered across the pillow. Her lips had not lost their gentle curve.

She looked as though she might speak if the Empress waited long enough.

She looked as though she might laugh at the absurdity of everyone crying over her when she had only just managed to give birth.

She looked as though she might open her mouth and say, Your Majesty, please stop frightening everyone. I am merely tired.

The Empress had heard her say such things before.

She had seen Lin Yue defy exhaustion, illness, etiquette, and every expectation the palace had placed upon her.

Surely death could not be the one thing Lin Yue had failed to argue her way out of.

The Empress’s lips trembled.

Then she screamed.

“LIN YUE!”

The cry tore out of her so violently that the attendants flinched.

She lunged toward the bed, the baby still in her arms, no longer remembering the fragile life she held. Xiang Ning reacted before anyone else could move.

She stepped forward and took the princess from the Empress’s arms.

“I have her, Your Majesty!”

Her hands shook so badly that the senior midwife immediately came to support the child, wrapping the infant more securely before guiding Xiang Ning away from the bed.

Xiang Ning clutched the princess against her chest.

The baby cried.

She was alive. Warm. Breathing.

The sound should have been comforting.

Instead, it made Xiang Ning want to weep harder.

Behind her, the Empress had reached Lin Yue.

She caught both of Lin Yue’s shoulders and bent over her, her elaborate court robes spilling across the bed. For one desperate moment, she tried to lift her.

“Lin Yue. Lin Yue, wake up.”

She shook her gently.

“Come now. You have frightened us enough.”

The Empress’s voice broke into a sob.

She touched Lin Yue’s cheek.

It was still warm.

That was the cruelty of it. The warmth remained, and the faint smile remained, and the shape of Lin Yue’s face was unchanged. There was no visible boundary between the woman who had smiled at her moments ago and the woman who would never smile again.

The Empress pressed her palm to Lin Yue’s cheek as if she could hold her there by sheer will.

“You promised me,” she whispered.

She could not remember when Lin Yue had made such a promise. Perhaps she never had. Perhaps the promise had existed only in the Empress’s own heart: the quiet certainty that Lin Yue would live long enough, that she would continue to bring laughter into a palace that had grown too accustomed to silence.

Her shoulders began to shake.

“Lin Yue, you cannot do this to me.”

The attendants stood motionless.

They had seen the Empress angry. They had seen her cold, imperious, and unyielding. They had watched her receive terrible news without allowing a single crack to appear in her composure.

Some had served her for decades and never seen her weep.

Now she bent over Lin Yue as though the entire palace had vanished, as though there were no throne, no court, no imperial family waiting beyond the doors.

Only this bed.

Only this woman.

Only a smile that would never change again.

The Empress gathered Lin Yue into her arms.

She cradled her head against her shoulder and clung to her with a desperation that was almost frightening, her tears falling freely into Lin Yue’s dark hair.

“Lin Yue!”

Her voice rose again, raw and broken.

“Lin Yue, please!”

Xiang Ning turned away, but there was nowhere in the room she could look without seeing the tragedy.

The physician had lowered his head. The midwife pressed a hand to her mouth. An older attendant began to cry quietly, and another knelt beside the bed, unable to offer comfort to a woman who had always been the one expected to comfort everyone else.

Xiang Ning looked down at the little princess in her arms.

She held the princess securely and stood beside the bed, crying silently as the Empress clung to Lin Yue.

For once, there was no clever remark to make, no question to ask, no small mischief with which to soften the heaviness of the palace.

There was only the Empress's grief.

And Lin Yue, who had smiled at the sight of her daughter, still seemed to be smiling.

For the first time in her life, she did not care who saw her fall apart.

“Please,” she whispered one last time.

But Lin Yue's eyes remained open, gazing at nothing.

And the room that had welcomed a princess with joy became a chamber of mourning.