Chapter 206 --206
"You were supposed to be the scapegoat," the Fifth Concubine admitted. "The Fourth Princess—weak, ignored, politically irrelevant. If you died from poison that created magical instability, if you became increasingly erratic and dangerous, if you eventually committed some act of violence against the Emperor in a poison-induced rage..."
She shrugged.
"Everyone would believe it. The unstable princess who finally snapped. Your death would be tragic but justified. And in the chaos of the succession crisis that followed, I thought—" She stopped. "I thought maybe the Harem would be forgotten. Maybe in the confusion, some of us could escape. Find new lives. Disappear."
"But I didn’t die," Elara said.
"No. You adapted. You survived. You became *dangerous* in ways I didn’t anticipate." The Fifth Concubine smiled slightly. "You’re not the weak princess I thought you were. You’re something else entirely."
Elara processed this information with her usual clinical detachment.
The Fifth Concubine wasn’t evil. Not really. She was desperate. Traumatized. Trapped in circumstances that had destroyed her future and killed the person she loved.
The poison hadn’t been about Elara at all. It had been about creating chaos. An opportunity for escape dressed as tragedy.
"The other concubines," Elara said. "How many of them have similar stories?"
"All of us." The Fifth Concubine’s voice was flat. "Every single woman in this Harem has a story like mine. Taken. Coerced. Trapped. Some were kidnapped outright. Others were ’offered’ by families who couldn’t refuse imperial interest. A few came willingly at first, not understanding what they were agreeing to."
She gestured around.
"This is what your father built, Your Highness. This is the legacy of the ’great’ Emperor. Twenty women—now fifteen—stolen from their lives and kept as permanent prisoners for his pleasure."