Marriage Under the Truth Lantern

Synopsis

In the capital court of Da Liang, Mei Su files a bad-faith marriage petition to escape Lord Bai Yuwen and protect her father's salt license from the Bai house's predatory marriage-debt clauses. The law gives her one weapon: the Truth Lantern, a blood-witness relic that turns blue at any lie spoken during the court wedding rite. Mei has trained her whole life in deposition procedure and knows exactly how to force a false witness into exposure. But when the sunrise hearing begins, her own witnesses have been bought, her best evidence has been poisoned, and the only man who will not lie under the Lantern is the obsessive groom she came to ruin. The pilot follows one day of testimony, ending with Mei choosing a dangerous thirty-day suspension instead of victory or surrender—and discovering the first lie recorded by the Lantern may have been her own.

Chapters

Comments