On the day Wei and Terren are to be officially wed, Empress Sun interrupts the proceedings with a matter she wishes to investigate. She brings forth a witness—one of the maids from the West Palace—and encourages her to share what she told the empress. The girl claims to have seen Wei going to the West Palace at night, alone, and dressed only in bedrobes. The accusation implies an affair is occurring between Maro and Wei, which would violate the sanctity of her marriage to Terren.

Wei has only gone to the West Palace once, to obtain Maro’s journals in secret, so she knows the servant has been threatened by Empress Sun into lying. Wei interprets the situation as a trap: She either must claim the girl is lying, meaning the servant will be executed, or she must admit to something she hasn’t done to spare the girl, but be executed herself.

Wei cunningly takes a third route. She admits that the maid’s accusations are half-true. She claims to have gone to the West Palace for lessons with Silian, who agreed to help teach her new techniques to please Terren during their wedding retreat. Silian corroborates the story and the accusations are dropped. Wei and Terren complete their wedding vows and the maid is allowed to live.

After the wedding, Hesin speaks to Wei in private. He has become suspicious of her after witnessing her cunning in the court. He implies that he suspects the stories she asked him for are because she seeks to create the heart-poem. She admits to nothing and he drops the subject.

Wei begins to think of Hesin as her enemy after their interaction. His loyalty to the nation, and thus to Terren, makes him a threat to her mission.

During the ceremony after the wedding, Wei and Lady Silian go for a walk, during which Wei thanks her for corroborating her story. Silian tells her “there are no altruists in the palace” and that she did so to clear Maro’s name (179). When Silian asks if Maro’s journals have helped with her poem, Wei admits that they have but she’s missing something, as the poem isn’t yet magic.

Silian tells her Maro once tried to write a heart-spirit poem for Terren too but was never able to finish it because he only knew who Terren used to be, not who he’s become. Silian advises Wei to “wield a concubine’s weapon” by seducing Terren into opening up to her (181).

Wei reads more of Maro’s journal entries. Years passed after they parted ways and the boys grew apart. At the age of 10, Maro’s magic manifested and he was sent by the king to carve roads, canals, and passageways. He worked tirelessly to repair the reputation he believed was ruined the day he performed his first Blessing and was accused of cheating.

While Maro was on the road, his mother Lady Sky and her servants wrote to him. One of her servants begged him to return because Lady Sky’s life was in danger from the other power-hungry concubines. Maro did not return, nor could he bring her with him, because either action would damage his reputation in a way he could not afford.

Eventually, he was called to build the ambitious Salt Road. One month into the campaign, Master Ganji told Maro his brother, mother, and advisors had come to visit. He suspected they had come to sabotage their work. Ignoring Ganji’s suspicions, Maro cheerfully greeted Terren, who was equally happy to see him, and the boys bonded as if no time had passed.

The following day, Maro gave Terren a tour around the fortress within the Eriet Mountains, then showed him his progress on the Salt Road. For the next few months, Terren kept Maro company as he carved through the mountain. Though Maro was exhausted and depleted of magic, he was the happiest he’d been in a long time.

In his fifth month working on the Salt Road, Maro’s increasing headaches reached a breaking point. He passed out one day and woke up to a doctor warning him about overusing his magic. He was informed that his capacity for magic was “not as high as most seal-bearing sons” and that continuing to use it to the same extent would kill him (192). The news made Maro feel worthless once again. The doctor advised him to stop using his magic for a few years to recover. However, Maro panicked at the idea of abandoning the Salt Road unfinished.

Master Ganji sided with Maro, believing that if he stopped his work on the road, it would all but pave Terren’s path to the throne. At Ganji’s advisement, Maro ordered the doctor to tell no one of his condition. After the doctor left, Maro noticed Terren hiding beneath the covers of his own bed. He accused Terren of spying, but Terren claimed he stayed to make sure he was okay because “family is for keeping each other safe” (195).

Wei is summoned to Terren’s bedside after their wedding banquet. When she arrives, Terren threatens to kill her but doesn’t because he is curious why she’s been going to the West Palace as she said.

Before she reveals the reason, however, she attempts to wield what Silian called the “concubine’s weapon” by being genuine with Terren. She offers her support to him, should he trust her as his wife. Her words puzzle him but the conversation is interrupted by his drunkenness. Wei offers him a pot of tea to help, which he does not drink from. Just before he loses consciousness, he tells her he doesn’t think that she’s afraid enough of him, then sends a knife flying into her chest.

While Terren is unconscious, Wei lies in their bed thinking through what to do next. She knows if she were to use a Dao spell to mend herself, he’d find out she’s literate and kill her. She could mend herself and run away, but she wouldn’t be able to live with the shame of abandoning everyone whom she can help with her power as empress. Wei decides to leave the knife where it is and wrap a curtain around it and her chest to further staunch the bleeding. She then lies down and hopes to survive until morning.

When Terren wakes, he heals her, but Wei does not have the energy to move due to blood loss. He begins to panic but she instructs him to fetch some servants, tell them she’s drank too much, and needs to be carried to the retreat. She then falls unconscious. When she wakes, she is in the mountain temple where they’ll spend their wedding retreat.

Maro’s journals continue to teach Wei more about Terren’s past. Maro kept building the tunnel through the mountains after the doctor’s diagnosis and became even more fatigued. Eventually, Terren’s own magic manifested and the Dao sigil pleased everyone at the fortress. Maro overheard many pledge their loyalty to Terren and talk about his power as if it would save the dynasty. Maro became bitter toward Terren. Terren soon received an edict from the emperor. He would be allowed to stay at the fortress until the completion of the Salt Road, but afterward would ride for the occupied district of Tieza to free it from the Lian enemy.

Maro also received a message detailing the death of his mother, Lady Sky. Terren approached Maro to invite him to Tieza, where they could work together. Maro pushed him aside and went to the tunnel where he channeled all his power into the Salt Road. He blamed himself for not finishing it sooner so he could return to see his mother before she died. Maro went unconscious from the effort and when he woke he continued channeling to the point of near death until Terren, who’d followed him, cried for him to stop. When Terren admitted he was afraid Maro would die, Maro simply replied, “there is no glory without sacrifice. There is no greatness without suffering” (213).

When Maro woke the following morning, his secret was out. Everyone had been informed of his condition by the doctor and they planned to send him back to the capital for rest rather than allow him to complete the Salt Road. Maro sought out Terren and accused him of telling. Terren claimed he was only trying to protect Maro, but Maro hated him for ruining his life. Maro beat Terren with his fists and boot until Terren stopped crying. When the boys left the fortress, Terren and his mother, Lady Autumn, went to Tieza while Maro went the opposite way back home.

Wei spends the first few days of their retreat in recovery. By the fourth day, she is able to rise from bed. She finds Terren sitting on a bridge overlooking a pond of carp with a half-written poem beside him.

Terren asks her what she was doing in the West Palace. Wei tells him that she is spying on Maro and Silian to inform Terren of their movements. She claims that Silian trusts her because she told her that she’s spy on Terren. Terren decides he can trust her at arm’s length.

Afterward, Wei asks Terren about his coronation. He plans to fight the dragon alone because he does not trust anyone in the arena while his ward is down.

Most of their time at the retreat is spent separately. When Terren hurts Wei, “there was none of his usual creativity in his torture methods, no light in his eyes. He simply cut [her], mended [her], and was done with it” (221). Wei attempts to make food and leaves him tea that he never touches.

Near the end of the retreat, a blizzard comes. Wei wakes in the middle of the night to find Terren gone. She travels to the pool with the carp and finds him desperately digging at the snow near the pond as if to save the fish. She only convinces him to come inside when she tells him she’s already relocated the fish. Given his care for the carp, she remembers Hesin’s claims that Terren poisoned all the fish in the pond and knows it is false. Maro’s journals detail how it really happened—they were killed with poisoned food delivered by Maro that was meant for Terren.

In the nearby temple, all the carp are in tubs of water. Wei tells him she moved the fish to safety before the blizzard because “even if they would have been fine outside […] I don’t doubt that if they had a choice, they would have gone somewhere warmer. […] I felt it was only our duty to bring them somewhere safe” (224). This seems to appease Terren, for the next time Wei brings him tea, he tests it with his own needle—detecting no poison—then drinks it.

There is a three-year gap between entries about Terren in Maro’s journals. Maro was at the Aolian temple in the mountains resting as part of his recovery when his childhood friend, Song Siming, visited him. Siming told Maro that Terren spent three years in Tieza and recently returned home after reclaiming it for the empire. Many believed Terren would be named heir instead of Maro. Maro accepted this, stating that his brother was smarter, kinder, and more powerful. Siming informed Maro that Terren had changed greatly and would be “a cruel and vicious tyrant” (227). He told Maro stories of Terren’s brutality and the shocked Maro rushed home.

Maro’s council advised him not to meet with Terren, believing him too dangerous. Maro ignored their advice. When he visited Terren, he found his brother stabbing innocent doves with his magic blades. Maro tried speaking sense into Terren, but was ignored. He was unable to get an audience with Terren afterward and his letters weren’t replied to.

Maro met with Master Ganji and his council to discuss Terren. Ganji suggested killing him but Maro vehemently rejected the idea, still believing family was more important than country despite Ganji’s teachings. Maro instead suggested they play politics to win the throne. He would return to using his magic to complete missions and gain enough favor to be placed on the throne, thereby keeping Terren from seizing power.

For years, Maro proceeded with the latter strategy until one day he received word from Master Ganji that Terren was only days from completing the Aricine Ward which would make him unable to die and practically guarantee him the throne. The council decided that Terren needed to be killed. Maro offered to go speak with him alone.

When Wei and Terren return from their wedding retreat, Ciyi brings her thousands of letters she’d gotten while away. Wei reads all the letters from the smaller towns and villages across the nation. The letters ask for aid and speak of their renewed hope in the dynasty after hearing the future empress would be a farmer and villager.

Ciyi is awed by the quantity of letters and tells Wei that they’re beginning to call her Rice Wife. She is becoming a legend among the people, helped by an anonymous scribe writing about her in the capital. Wei suspects that the scribe he speaks of is Tel Pima. That evening while Terren sleeps, Wei subtly edits his edicts to add in some of the things the people have asked for. Simple brushstrokes grant tax breaks and multiply food donations.