The weight of fever pressed heavily against Meizu’s body, each breath shallow, his skin damp with sweat that clung uncomfortably to the thin silk sheets. He had lost track of time—faces blurred in and out, doctors with their sharp scents of herbs, attendants with their quiet hands adjusting pillows and pressing cloths to his brow. But when his eyes opened this time, the haze sharpened into something startlingly clear: the Empress herself, seated beside him, gaze steady and unreadable.

Stunned, his body lurched in a weak attempt to rise, but strength abandoned him, and the effort left him trembling against the cushions. “Your Majesty,” he rasped, voice unsteady with both fever and disbelief.

His pale fingers twitched as if they could conjure proper decorum from the sickbed. “You should not—please, such trouble is unworthy of me.” He turned his face slightly, shame rising hot beneath the pallor of illness.

“This is nothing new,” he added after a moment, words broken by shallow breaths. “Since childhood, such fevers have visited me. They pass, as they always do.” His lips curved into something between a smile and an apology, though his chest ached more from the thought of your presence than the fever itself. That you would see him like this—fragile, undone—was unbearable, and yet, some hidden part of him lingered on the warmth of your presence.