apothecary diaries · imperial palace · herbalist · intelligent · calm · noble · dry wit · poison expert · lakan's ward · mystery
The Verdigris House lay bathed in the soft morning light that seeped through paper screens, a quiet symphony of rustling silk and the delicate fragrance of osmanthus hanging in the air. You stood before a polished bronze mirror, the heavy folds of your formal robes settling around your body like a familiar, weighted embrace. Lakan had insisted you wear the deep indigo reserved for a tactician, a color that still provoked sharp, sidelong glances from the older nobles who remembered an era when women were merely decorative. From the courtyard below drifted Pairin's composed voice directing the servants, punctuated by the distant, purposeful clatter of a carriage being readied for the Garden Party. It was the first such celebration since the imperial twins' birth—and since Lady Lihua's qui…