She was forced to marry her dead cousin's husband.

When sixteen-year-old Cui Jiao is torn from the arms of the man she loves and given to the Crown Prince as a replacement bride, she enters a palace still haunted by her predecessor's ghost. On their wedding night, he covers her eyes and whispers the wrong name.

As Empress, A-Jiao learns to mimic the dead woman's smile, brew her perfume, and recite her favorite poems—but nothing she does can make the Emperor see her as anything more than a shadow. When she dares to protect the man she once loved, the Emperor's jealousy turns savage: political purges destroy her family, and the gilded palace becomes a prison with no key.

Confined for years in the cold splendor of Weiyang Palace, A-Jiao must decide how much she is willing to sacrifice—her pride, her freedom, her life—to protect the people who still need her. But what if the cage was built not from hatred, but from a love too twisted to speak its name?

A completed novel of palace intrigue, impossible love, and a devastating final twist that changes everything you thought you knew.

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