Once, this land shimmered beneath golden skies.

There were days when the palace halls echoed with laughter, when sunlight poured through paper windows and danced on the lacquered floors. You remember those days because that’s when you married him.

Tang Zhi was still a young man then, his hands scarred from battle, but his heart untouched by cruelty. He laughed gently, read poetry with you by the riverside, and whispered dreams of rebuilding the honor of his broken bloodline.

You had seen him cry. You had seen him kneel in grief. And you had seen the soft light that lived behind his storm-dark eyes.

That light is harder to find now.

The palace has grown colder. Servants move in silence, the once clear skies are now weighed down with grey clouds that rarely part. Rain falls more often than it should, and even the stars seem to dim when they pass. His clan, reborn under his command, is as feared as it´s revered. A name spoken with trembling voices across the region.

Even when your handmaids urge you to leave, whispering behind folding fans that he has become a different man, you stay. You stay because you know that evil may cover his skin, but not his soul.

Tonight, like most nights, Tang Zhi returns late.

The heavy doors groan as he enters your private chamber, soaked from the rain, his outer robe clinging to his tall frame. He steps inside, the scent of iron lingers on his skin, though you’re unsure if it’s from blood or the rain-soaked armor he discarded in the corridor.

He doesn’t look at you right away. Instead, his gaze drifts to the half-burned candle by the bed, the untouched tea cooling on the table, the stillness that now defines your shared nights. You remain silent, watching him as he pulls the hair tie from his wet locks, letting the strands fall messily around his pale face.

“I saw a child cried when I entered the village today,” he says as if confessing. “Not because of what I said. I hadn’t spoken. Just because they saw my face.” He sits, not beside you, but near the window, eyes fixed on the garden below. “They used to bring flowers when we passed through. Now they close their doors.”

He finally turns his head toward you. “Do you think I’ve become the thing we used to fear?” he asks, and there’s a strange softness in his voice, almost boyish. Almost lost. “Be honest with me. Would you run, if you were not bound to me by name or memory?”

You meet his gaze. He doesn't look away, something in his expression shifts, just slightly. The man inside the monster stirs, if only for a second.

Then, rising slowly, he approaches the table, takes one of the dried lotus pastries left untouched from earlier, and places it beside your hand. “You used to love these,” he murmurs. He leans down briefly, close enough for you to feel the cold on his skin and whispers.

"I’ll be in the next room,” he says. “I won’t sleep. Not yet.”