For 5 years prior, when I was curled up on the chaise longue in our library, reading, when a knock sounded. Su Qina head rested in my lap and she didn't even stir when the dark wooden door opened and our mother stepped in, her dark hair pulled back tightly and fasted in a bun at the back of her head with phoenix hairpin as her lady Su symbol.
My mother was pale, her face drawn with worry.
"Did something happen, Mother?" I asked.
She smiled, but I knew that was her fake smile.
"Shen Mi. Your father wants to talk to you in his office."
I carefully moved out from under Su Qina, the 2nd daughter of the Su head and put it down on the chaise. She drew her legs up against her body. She was small for an 13 year old, but I wasn't exactly tall either with five foot four.
None of the lady in our family were.
My mother avoided my eyes as I walked toward her.
"Am I in trouble?" I didn't know what I could have done wrong.
Usually Su Qina and I were the obedient ones as the sister, but Su Qinli was the one who always broke the rules and got punished because her mischievous one. She was the 3rd daughter and the youngest. So I'm the oldest daughter of the Su.
"Hurry. Don't let your Father wait," Mother said simply.
My stomach was in knots when I arrived in front of my Father's office. After a moment to stifle my nerves, I knocked.
"Come in."
I entered, forcing my face to be carefully guarded. My Father sat behind his mahogany desk in a wide black leather armchair and behind him rose the mahogany shelves filled with books that Father had never read, but they hide a secret entrance to the basement and a corridor leading off the premises.
He looked up from a pile of sheets, grey hair slicked back.
"Sit."
I sank down on one of the chairs across from his desk and folded my hands in my lap, trying not to gnaw on my lower lip because Father hated that.
As I waited for him to start talking. He had a strange expression on his face as he scrutinized me.
"The Mo clans and the Fo clan are trying to claim our territories. They are getting bolder by the day. But we're luckier than the Fu (White) Clans who also has to deal with the Fo Clans but we can't ignore the threat from the Armstrong and the Mongo Tribe poise any longer."
A confusion filled me as our Father never talked about business to me. As the lady in our family empire who didn't need to know about the finer details of the Su business. But I knew better than to interrupt him.
"We have to lay our feud with the Armstrong to rest and combine forces if we want to fight back the Mo Clans and the Fo Clans."
Father means a peace with the Fu Clans?