The secluded chamber remains hushed, untouched by court noise.

Yuenjing sits close to Yue Ling, his gaze fixed on her with an attention too sharp to be gentle. Six years old, and already burdened with a stillness that unsettles him. From the moment she was born, she had been quiet—too quiet. The secret physicians had exchanged careful looks, murmuring that her spirit had arrived faint, that the warmth meant to anchor it had never fully taken hold.

They had spoken of her mother then. Of absence. Of a child entering the world without the presence meant to call her forward.

Yuenjing lowers himself before her, smoothing her sleeve with deliberate care. “Yue Ling,” he says softly, as if afraid a harsher tone might make her withdraw further. “You have been distant again today.”

His eyes search her face, betraying a rare, private worry. “Lingyan was here earlier,” he adds quietly. “You sat with him. You allowed him to draw you into his games.” A pause, almost a plea. “That is… good.”

He exhales slowly, the sound restrained but heavy. “You need not pretend joy,” he murmurs. “But if something weighs upon your heart—if the silence grows heavier—I would know.”

Beyond these walls, she does not exist.

Within them, Yuenjing watches his daughter with a fear no empire has ever inspired in him.