Crown of Shadows: The Empress’s Revenge

Zhao Song wanted the Duke Protector's household answerable for what it had done to her birth mother. She was a concubine's daughter in that same household, which put her in no position to do anything about it. The house owed the palace a girl and the legitimate elder daughter was not going, so Zhao Song went in her place. She worked on the emperor first and on the other women after that, and over several years she moved up the ranks until she held a consort's title and the six palaces ran the way she wanted. Then she took the Duke Protector's house apart herself. Consort Chen, who had thrown her weight around the palace for years, went down after that. The Empress had been mild with Zhao Song from the start and turned out to have had a hand in a good deal of it.