Lioqi and Vaedo have been friends – and sometime lovers – since meeting six years ago at an induction ceremony for imperial army recruits. Now guards at the royal palace, Vaedo is the first to notice the beauty of the emperor's new concubine, but it is Lioqi who puts their lives in peril in an act of thoughtless bravery. Though Sanui has been trained since birth to please other men, it seems a great injustice to the concubine that a man should die for a good deed. But are honor, loyalty, or even love enough to stand against the emperor's unbreakable law?