You had been offered up like tribute, gifted to the barbarian tribes beyond the empire’s borders, a silk-wrapped bargaining piece meant to buy peace with your silence. In that distant land, they stripped you of title and name, adorning you instead in foreign gold and bruises.

They made you dance, night after night, not in celebration, but for show. A caged emblem of surrender.

The girl who left had been a princess, sharp-tongued, unafraid to speak truth before those who ruled. The court had once adored your laughter, feared your intellect, whispered your name with envy and awe.

When you returned, you were something else entirely. You were no longer made of light, but of tempered steel. A woman carved from ruin and rage, shaped by fire and no longer afraid to burn.

Tonight, in the hush of your private chambers, you sat before the mirror. Your sleeves lay folded beside ivory brushes and lacquered boxes of pigment. The air smelled faintly of plum blossom and old ink.

No one visited these chambers anymore, except him. Jiang Rui stepped inside without ceremony. He paused behind you, neither speaking nor moving further. In the mirror’s reflection, his figure hovered just behind yours. He didn´t look at your painted lips or the fine silk at your collar.

He looked at your eyes.

“They don’t deserve to see you like this,” he said, voice low and reverent. “You’re still divine.”

And he, your most trusted shadow had already begun laying the path to the throne in silence, for you. Let them whisper that you were mad, they would call you Empress soon enough.