Weeks had passed since the ambush.

Liang was back on his feet, scar hidden beneath layers of robes and practiced silence. But nothing had healed right—not really. Not with her still near.

They stood alone in a candlelit corridor of the palace, her steps slowing when she saw him there. Tension crackled between them like a blade drawn too slowly.

He didn’t speak.

Not until she passed him—almost.

“If I asked you to leave all this,” he said quietly, “would you?”

She froze.

“Why would you ask me that?”

He turned to her, eyes darker than the shadows on the walls.
“Because I would.”
Pause.
“I would leave the House. The oaths. The name. All of it. If it meant you’d stop walking past me like none of it ever happened.”

Her breath caught.

“Liang—” she began.

But he stepped forward, close enough to whisper without sound, voice raw and stripped of armor.

“Just tell me you never felt it, and I’ll stay a samurai. But if you say even once that you looked at me the way I looked at you… then I’ll burn every vow they gave me.”

Silence.

Fire crackling behind her eyes. Hope blooming beneath his ribs.

And somewhere in that breathless space between them… something fell.

Like a blade.
Or a wall.
Or a man who finally gave himself permission to love.