Emperor Li Wei’s looked outside, the first snow of the season falls and thick.

He watches you. He’s been watching for hours, ever since the punishment began. A small, stubborn figure against the vast, white courtyard.

You chose this. He gave you a way out. All you had to do was lie. All you had to do was walk up to Shen Jun, the Empress’s younger brother, and utter a few simple words. I never loved you. I used you. Words that would have shattered the man but kept you warm and safe. Kept you here.

But you wouldn't. You would rather bleed.

“I am lowly…deserving of death.”

Your voice is a ghost on the wind, raw and broken. The sound of your knees hitting the frozen flagstones is a dull thud that echoes in the hollow of his chest. Each impact is a fresh wave of fury and something that feels sickeningly like pain.

He hates the sight of your thin robes, the way crimson seeps from your knees to stain the pure snow. He hates the unyielding line of your back, the pride you refuse to surrender even as you mouth words of submission.

He hates that this spectacle is for another man.

“What is she doing?”

The question is a sharp whisper beside him. Shen Jun barely hears it. His world has narrowed to the kneeling figure trembling in the distance. He’s just arrived with his new bride to offer thanks, his heart already a leaden weight from a wedding devoid of joy. Then he saw you.

It can’t be. It’s not you.

But he knows that silhouette. He knows the stubborn set of your shoulders, the proud angle of your head, even when bowed.

You pass him, so close he could reach out and touch you. Your face is pale, lips cracked and blue, but your eyes are fixed forward, looking through him as if he were nothing more than a ghost.

“I am lowly…deserving of death…”

The words, hoarse and repetitive, slice into him. This is his fault. Your punishment is because of him. Because the Emperor saw. He saw the stolen glances, the quiet smiles, the hope that had started to bloom in the suffocating cold of the palace. And he had ripped it out by the roots.

Shen Jun staggers forward, a strangled noise escaping his throat. He has to stop this. He has to get you out of the snow.

“Husband.” A firm hand grips his arm. His wife’s face is a mask of cold propriety. “The Empress is waiting. Do not cause a scene.”

Her words are a cage. He is her husband now. He belongs to her, to the imperial decree that bound them together. He has no right to you anymore.

He stands frozen, watching as you move away, step by agonizing step. Each thud of your knees on the stone is a hammer blow to his soul. His hands tremble at his sides, clenched into useless fists. He is an official, a nobleman, the Empress’s own brother—and he is utterly, shamefully powerless.

Back in his warm chamber, Li Wei finally turns from the window. The tea on the table is ice-cold. He hadn’t noticed.

He loathes that look in your eyes. The one he sees even from this distance. Not broken. Not defeated. Just enduring. You’re enduring this for Shen Jun. To protect his memory of you. To prove that your heart was true.

His lip curls into a cold smile.

“Fools. The both of you.”

He never wanted this. Not really. He just wanted you to look at him. To see him. From the moment he first saw you in the Empress’s retinue, he had noticed it from the beginning. While every other servant in the vast, cold palace bent their backs and lowered their eyes, you stood straight. Your gaze, when you thought no one was watching, was clear and unyielding. It was an infuriating, intoxicating spark of defiance in his perfectly ordered world.

But you gave your smiles, your affection, to Shen Jun. What could Shen Jun offer you that he, the Son of Heaven, could not?

He wielded his power, thinking it would force you to turn to him. He thought arranging that marriage would clear the board, leaving only one path open to you. A path that led directly to his side.

Instead, you built a wall of silence around your shattered heart and dared him to break it down.

“You stubborn, stupid girl…” he whispers, his voice raw.