Wei’s village of Lu’an donate gifts to Wei so that she’ll get the best chance at the upcoming concubine appraisals. They hope that her success will one day benefit them all.

On the evening before the appraisal, Wei’s town throws a gathering where Grandpa Har, one of the few villagers who can read, writes the Blessings on the slips of paper Wei and Bao received on New Year’s with a stick in the soil. The first slip births a peach tree on the same hill where Larkspur is buried. The second produces a glow that travels directly into Bao. Their father determines that the Blessing means Bao will be a great man one day and will change the world.

Wei and her family enter Guishan on appraisal day. Wei is mocked by the city girls in attendance and feels wholly inadequate to be chosen. Li Ciyi—a eunuch serving under Prince Guan Terren—appraises each girl and chooses a select few. He is particularly cruel to Wei, stating she smells like the village. He does not choose her. When he makes another selection and brings her to his carriage, Wei chases after them. She begs Li Ciyi to choose her instead. When he calls her a joke, Wei challenges him to bring her to Terren and let the prince laugh. She even tells him that she can be beheaded if it pleases Terren. Intrigued by the potential drama of it all, Ciyi accepts her proposal and brings her onboard the carriage.

The girl in the carriage with Wei is a well-off city girl named Zou Minma. Minma looks down upon Wei for being a villager. During the carriage ride, Minma informs Wei about the Succession war. She claims that Prince Maro is not happy that his brother was chosen over him, and has likely tried to kill Terren but cannot because the prince has a spell that makes him unable to die. When they arrive at the palace, Wei spots a red dragon in the sky. Minma informs her it is the Crown of the Azalea House; he serves the emperor and amplifies his magic a thousandfold.

Attendants bring Minma and Wei to a wing of the Azalea House called the Hall of Earthly Sanctity, where the candidates will stay. They are informed that Selection Day is in one month and if they are chosen to be one of Terren’s 30 concubines, they will move to the East Palace, the Palace of Blades. Before separating, Minma warns Wei not to trust the women in the court. They will all be competing for power and many may even kill for it.

A bath is prepared for Wei, who emerges the cleanest she’s ever been. She is astounded at the pure volume of food brought for dinner and gorges herself on it. The next morning, Wei lingers on the outskirts as the other girls attempt to make friendships and alliances, including Minma, against her own advice. The more she overhears about their status and prestige, the less she believes she belongs. Wei eventually learns only the empress and one other concubine remain of the current Emperor Musha’s court, which began with 30. The rest have died.

The only candidate who shows Wei kindness is a girl named Ciera. When she asks about Wei’s name, Wei tells her it means tail, end, and last. Her parents thought she’d be their final child but when her two older brothers died soon after, her parents continued trying for more sons. Ciera suggests, “Maybe you are meant to end something bad, so that you might begin something good” (24). Wei goes to sleep thinking she’s made an ally but wakes up to a bloody bird tail on her windowsill. The unexpected cruelty reminds her not to trust anyone.

By the third day, lessons begin. The last remaining concubine from the emperor’s court, Lady Chara, teaches the candidates how to please a man. She explains how desire must be cultivated in the prince so that “his seeds will come out as potent as possible” (22). Since it is so rare for seal-bearing princes to be born, many concubines are needed to guarantee the line of succession.

An imperial doctor teaches them how to find places where magic lives in a man and to engage various pressure points to increase the chance of him passing his magic to his son. An apothecary makes them memorize a list of fragrances from wildflowers and herbs that help stoke the magic. An astronomer teaches them that female energy rises and wanes with the moon, and thus the nights the prince beds them are scheduled accordingly. The highest-quality nights are saved for the Empress-in-Waiting, whom he may bed at any time. He describes the concubine’s rankings system and how it relates to when they can bed the prince. There are several ranks and the lowest-ranked concubines are given the fewest nights.

The women are escorted to East Palace, the Palace of Blades, and gathered within the Hall of Divine Harmony; its ceiling is covered with blades, their tips facing down.

Empress Sun Ai enters first with her son, the Fifth Prince Guan Ruyi, followed by Fourth Prince Guan Kiran, who showcases his storm magic with a gust of wind. The Third son is Isan, who displays his magic by producing massive quantities of fruit. Prince Guan Maro enters last, rattling the entire hall with his power that can carve rivers and pave roads.

They wait a long time for Prince Guan Terren to arrive, drunk and staggering. Glowing characters in arcane-white swirl around his whole body, exemplifying the Aricine Ward that keeps him from dying. Terren is uninterested in the choosing of concubines and would rather discard them all. The Empress takes over selecting concubines as Terren watches on. Minma is not among the girls chosen.

A girl named Sima Zhen attempts to assassinate Terren when her name is called, but the blade bounces off the Aricine Ward harmlessly. Rather than follow the procedure dictated by law—the executions of nine family members—Terren offers her a cruel mercy. He informs her that if she can make it through the doors at the end of the hall, he will spare the lives of her and her family. He allows her to run halfway across the hall before he uses his magic to bring a few blades on the ceiling crashing down. They impale her in various places, leaving her suffering but still alive enough to crawl toward the doors. Just before she does, he brings a torrent of them down on her, killing her.

Yin Wei is presented next. Upon hearing she’s the daughter of a rice farmer, Terren reacts with contempt, yet surprises everyone when he makes her his Empress-in-Waiting and wife-to-be.

Wei is taken to a pavilion within the East Palace where she will reside. The eunuch who brought her from Guishan, Li Ciyi, visits her and offers to be her chief eunuch. She turns him away because of how poorly he’s treated her in the past, but he assures her that she will not survive long without his assistance. He leaves her with a gift, hoping she might later change her mind. The gift is a needle made of mountain silver, which will turn black in the presence of poison. He suggests she use it on anything a fellow concubine brings her.

Wei meets the head of the Cypress Pavilion she calls home, Lin Wren, and is assigned a scribe named Tel Pima for her correspondence. She asks them if she may send provisions back to her village, but they are unable to help her.

Wei is called to Terren’s bedside. While everyone expects them to consummate their relationship, he simply instructs her to eat several bowls of rice. She gets sick repeatedly but is forced to eat all of it. She asks him if he can send her brother to school and send food home, but he refuses to help her.

Afterwards, Wei bathes in aphrodisiacs, mentally preparing herself for intercourse. However, when she reinters his bed chambers, he is already asleep in bed. She sleeps beside him and wakes the next morning to him threatening her with a blade. He warns her that if she tells anyone what has happened, tries to escape, or get out of their betrothal, he will kill her.

The Inner Court of concubines visit to offer Wei their congratulations on the consummation and bring her various gifts. Sun Jia, the empress’s niece and a member of the great Sun Clan, despises Wei, whom she believes stole her rightful spot as Empress-in-Waiting. She calls Wei “village cur” and states that she will die and when she does, Jia will take her place. Wei insists that she will live to become empress.

After everyone leaves, Wei summons her servants Wren and Pima to bring her the needle gifted by Ciyi. She plunges the needle into each food and drink brought by the concubines. When she comes to the wine brought by a concubine named Jin Veris, the needle turns black, marking it as poisoned.

Wei summons Ciyi and accepts his offer on two conditions: (1) That he teach her to read; and (2) that he help her free the caged peacock gifted to her by another concubine. Though it is treason to teach girls to read, Ciyi weighs his options and believes that he stands to gain more power and influence through aiding Wei than another concubine chosen to replace her, as the other girls are wealthy and likely already have help of their own. Wei does not tell him that her desire to read is so that she can learn literomancy to send Bao to school and send gifts home.

Wei’s lessons begin in secret the next day. As he teaches her, Ciyi asks Wei what she’s done with her would-be poisoner. When she admits she’s done nothing, he instructs her to punish her severely. Wei refuses to become cruel like everyone else in Azalea House. Ciyi informs her that it’s necessary to strike first, or she will be the one suffering instead.

The next time Wei is summoned to Terren’s bedside, he is writing spells. She tests her luck by asking him questions about his work. He tells her “poetry is truth and emotion” and displays some of his magic (62). He presents an old rusted old blade, which he turns brand-new with one of his poems. He tells her that each spell has a limit to how many times it can be reused—ranging from a few casts to hundreds.

To test another spell he’s recently created, he provides Wei with a blade and asks her to cut herself. She stabs herself in the thigh and is forced to drive it further at his insistence. Afterward, he heals her wound and they go to bed yet again without consummation.

Over the following weeks, Terren calls on Wei sporadically. The concubines become restless and angry, as he never calls on anyone else. Every night she visits his bedside, he inflicts a new form of torture on her.

On days when the concubines are expected to attend court on the prince’s behalf in the Hall of Divine Harmony, the other women do all they can to humiliate Wei in front of their guests. Later, Ciyi tells Wei that their efforts are to bring political allies to hate her enough that Terren is forced to choose a different wife.

Ciyi instructs Wei to be wary of the empress, who might scheme to place her niece on the throne instead of Wei. During one of the feasts she holds, she sits next to Wei and informs her that if Terren died, all his concubines would get to go free and that Wei would be given a sizable bride price to take home. Fearing it is a test or a trap, Wei tells the empress that she does not wish for Terren to die. She lies and says she loves him.

The empress tells her about the heart-spirit poem—a powerful killing spell—which can be cast during Terren’s coronation where he must fight the dragon. He will be most vulnerable then. Wei once again defends her stance on not wishing for his death and puts the topic to rest, hoping she’s passed the empress’s test.

Wei asks Ciyi if Terren will be vulnerable at the coronation. Ciyi admits that Terren’s ward will be down but he will be very well-protected by guards, an army, and literomancer barriers between spectators and the arena.

She tells him the empress mentioned a heart-spirit poem. Ciyi informs her that it is a highly complex spell and a love poem that must be written for someone the composer knows deeply. Given that no one will get close enough to the prince to write a love poem with such feeling, they should not be concerned about an assassination.

Eventually, Wei learns not only to read but to write too. Ciyi brings her books to practice reading and she learns about palace jargon, history, and politics through the texts.

Wei learns so much from her reading that, over time, she’s able to understand the men’s conversations at court. She absorbs all the new information, memorizing figures, vocabulary, and scholarly quotes mentioned.

One night during lessons, Wei asks Ciyi about the factions that support each prince. He tells her that the prince’s magic becomes amplified a thousandfold when he becomes emperor. The type of magic amplified has major implications on the future of the empire. He explains how popular Prince Maro is with merchants because of his ability to strengthen trade routes and economy. However, with the rumors of war on the horizon with the Lian in the north, there is recent benefit in Terren as emperor to strengthen the empire’s military power.