Xie Yuzhang was reclining on the bed reading when Li Gu arrived. She looked up in surprise. “Why so late today? I thought you weren’t coming.”

She rose from the bed to help him remove his outer robe.

Li Gu said, “If I don’t come here, where else would I go?”

Xie Yuzhang said, “That one day you did stay in the Purple Morning Hall.”

Li Gu said, “That was because there was pressing business — the Ministers of Works and Finance and the Chancellors were all working through the night with me. It wasn’t as if I were there alone.”

Xie Yuzhang looked up to smile at him, then stopped. Her hands, busy with the tie of his robe, reached up to touch his face instead. “What is it? Did something displease you today?”

Li Gu took hold of her hand. “Nothing.”

Xie Yuzhang said, “Your hands are so cold.”

Li Gu did not tell her that he had spent a long time standing in the night air outside Danyang Palace, composing himself before coming in. He only said, “It’s cold outside. The spring chill has returned.”

Xie Yuzhang said, “And you didn’t even bring a hand warmer.”

Li Gu said, “What does a man want with a hand warmer?”

Then he asked, “Why aren’t you asleep yet?”

Xie Yuzhang said, “It was a little cool — I couldn’t sleep.”

Li Gu frowned. “Wasn’t the floor heating sufficient? Was the warming stone not prepared properly?”

Xie Yuzhang said, “None of those are as warm as you.”

Something shifted in Li Gu’s bearing.

When he had first walked in, there had been a crisp, frigid quality about him, like wind and snow. Now the wind stilled, and the snow began to melt.

He leaned down and gently brushed his lips against hers, then said, “Let me wash first. I’ll warm you.”

Xie Yuzhang helped him out of his clothes and watched him walk into the washing room in his white inner robe.

Li Gu’s mood seemed not quite right.

Li Gu sank into the hot water.

Just now, in the candlelight, a soft glow had played over Xie Yuzhang’s face. The tenderness settled in the space between her brows was the kind left behind by hardship that had been weathered and survived. Her gaze was warm and full of feeling.

They had missed so many years, so much time, so much of the bloom of their youth. And yet the cruel heavens still refused to make things whole — still would not grant him and her a child of their own.

Just the smallest bit more, and it would be complete.

Li Gu drove a fist into the surface of the water.

The warm water splashed out onto the floor. The palace attendants waiting behind the screen were startled but, as the Emperor had not called for them, dared not enter without permission.

Li Gu stared at the surface of the water.

After he had calmed himself tonight, he had summoned Bao Zhongjin back to the hall and asked him: “Does she know herself?”

Bao Zhongjin looked at the overturned table and chairs scattered across the floor, and answered haltingly, “Before Her Majesty entered the palace to receive her imperial title, she summoned me to take her pulse — she wished to know this very thing. But in matters such as this, even after a lifetime of practicing medicine, I can only conjecture; I cannot say with certainty. So I only told Her Majesty: there is a possibility.”

Xie Yuzhang knew she had a “possibility” of being unable to conceive.

On the very second day of her marriage, she had raised the matter of holding a consort selection — preparing a contingency.

She had long foreseen that she might become an Empress without a son, had foreseen that it would be a difficult and painful road. And still she had come. She had married him, and become his wife.

In the places he could not see, she fought down nausea, forcing herself to swallow those foul-tasting medicines.

In the places he could not see, when she spoke of him, she said: my husband…

Li Gu plunged his head beneath the water.

The sound of bubbles surrounded his ears.

Beyond the surface of his skin, there was nothing but water. Only water.

When he came back to the bedchamber, Xie Yuzhang was still reading. She looked up when he came out and set the book aside. “Come quickly — I’ve been waiting.”

Li Gu walked over. “What were you reading?”

Xie Yuzhang said, “A travel journal — Lingling Jun’s.”

Li Gu said, “Don’t read at night. It’ll ruin your eyes.”

The handmaid lowered the bed curtains, instantly sealing out the outside world, making a small realm of their own.

Li Gu stood on the bed step. Xie Yuzhang said, “No more reading. Let’s sleep.”

Li Gu lifted one knee onto the edge of the bed and leaned toward Xie Yuzhang. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him once, then asked, “Why are your eyes so red?”

Li Gu said, “The steam from the bath.”

Li Gu drew her into his arms.

Xie Yuzhang said, “You’ve worked so late tonight — don’t make a fuss. Rest early.”

But Li Gu did not want to rest. He kissed Xie Yuzhang until she quickly grew warm, and his hands moved with practiced ease to ease away the excess layers of fabric beneath her sleeping garments.

Xie Yuzhang’s breathing had only just begun to grow unsteady when Li Gu suddenly gathered her in his arms and gently set her down to sit on the edge of the bed.

Xie Yuzhang said, “Li Gu?”

Li Gu crouched down and went to one knee before her.

Xie Yuzhang was startled. “Your Majesty?”

Li Gu said, “Don’t call me that.”

He pressed his hands to her knees and parted them gently.

Xie Yuzhang leaned back on her hands, biting her lip as she looked at him.

Li Gu kissed his way inward.

Xie Yuzhang bit her lip and closed her eyes.

…

…

Xie Yuzhang was accustomed to feeling Li Gu’s hardness. Tonight, what she felt was Li Gu’s softness.

Not to plant seeds. Not to bear children. In this tide of pleasure, the man did not take — he gave.

In the instant the trembling ceased, Xie Yuzhang wept.

Li Gu drew the back of his hand across the corner of his mouth and rose to press his lips to hers, murmuring in a low voice, soothing her, as if she were a child — as if she were still that little princess she had once been.

She was someone who needed to be treated with the most careful tenderness, held in the palm of a hand.

The next morning Xie Yuzhang woke to find that Li Gu had already gone to morning court.

She lay thinking back over the night before. She knew that Li Gu had not been quite himself, but she did not want to probe too deeply. Every person’s heart ought to have a small corner that belonged to themselves alone.

After finishing her morning meal and walking it off, she noticed that no handmaid appeared with her medicine. It struck her as odd. “Where is today’s medicine?” she asked.

The handmaid said, “His Majesty gave instructions — from now on, Her Majesty is not to drink it anymore.”

Xie Yuzhang was still for a long moment, then gave a quiet “oh.”

She thought to wait until Li Gu came and ask him what this was about. That evening, however, Li Gu sent word that he was occupied with pressing matters, feared he would return too late and disturb her, and would not be coming tonight.

When the young attendant who had carried the message walked out of Danyang Palace, Li Gu was in fact standing in the darkness, his gaze fixed on the lights of Danyang Palace. The attendant came back to report: “Her Majesty says she is going to sleep now and will not read tonight. She also asks that His Majesty take care of himself and rest well.”

Li Gu gave a quiet sound of acknowledgment, then turned and walked away from Danyang Palace.

But he had no desire to return to the Purple Morning Hall either.

He did sometimes stay there — always when affairs ran too late into the night, and he did not want to disturb Xie Yuzhang. But the sleeping quarters of the Purple Morning Hall, compared to Danyang Palace, were cold and empty. He had grown accustomed to the soft warmth of Danyang Palace, and greatly disliked sleeping alone.

In the cold night wind, Liang Chen and the others could only accompany the Emperor as he walked without any particular destination.

Until Li Gu stopped and asked, “What is that place over there?”

Liang Chen looked up. Far in the distance, a single point of firelight glimmered. Liang Chen’s eyelashes gave a faint, almost imperceptible tremble — for it was a place he knew with the deepest familiarity.

He said, “Only a tower and pavilion, Your Majesty. Rather neglected on account of its remote location.”

Li Gu said, “Then why is there a light?”

Liang Chen said, “Only a single cleaning attendant lives there. The night dew falls heavy and the hour is late, Your Majesty. Please retire to rest.”

But Li Gu said, “Let us go and see.”

The former Zhao imperial palace was vast and far-reaching, with many magnificent halls and chambers built throughout it. But the Great Mu dynasty’s rear palace was staffed with very few people — nowhere near enough to occupy all those spaces.

Once rooms are left empty, they fall quickly into disrepair. After Azure Sparrow died, Li Gu had ordered new walls to be built, separating the section of the rear palace that was actively used from the sections that had fallen into ruin and lay empty; a gate stood between them, but it remained perpetually locked.

That tower and pavilion stood right up against the newly-built wall — a genuinely remote location. Li Gu had only ever seen it on the diagram of the palace complex, and had never come here himself.

The tower and pavilion had a light. Someone inside was clearly still awake.

Liang Chen walked quickly to the door and knocked. A woman’s voice from inside asked, “Who is it?”

Liang Chen said, “Open the door.”

The woman inside seemed to give a startled sound of delight and walked quickly to pull the door open. Seeing it was Liang Chen, she was about to speak when Liang Chen silenced her with a look. “His Majesty has arrived. Come quickly and receive him.”

The woman was taken aback. Liang Chen stepped aside, and a tall, upright man walked forward — commanding in bearing, stern in expression, gaze sharp as blades. It was the Emperor she had once glimpsed from afar.

The woman hastily moved aside and dropped to her knees.

She appeared to be around twenty or so, already of some years.

Li Gu did not look at her. He stepped over the threshold and walked directly inside. He raised his eyes to take in the surroundings — an empty tower, a hollow space, with nothing of note in it.

“What was this place used for before?” he asked.

Liang Chen bowed and said, “During the former Zhao dynasty, it was used for Buddhist observance.”

But Li Gu had no belief in spirits or Buddhas; when he had taken possession of the palace, the space had been cleared out.

Li Gu gave a nod and walked into the side room where the light was burning. A lamp rested on the couch, and in its glow sat a bamboo sewing basket and a white inner robe that had been half-sewn.

The stitches were reasonably even, though not particularly fine.

The tower had nothing of note in it, and clearly only the one woman lived here. She had taken over a side room and an inner room on one level, making it into her own dwelling.

The room had a brazier, which made it considerably warmer than outside.

Li Gu sat himself down on the couch, pushed aside the basket and the garment with one hand, and said, “Hot water.”

The woman seemed uncertain how to respond — she was not a particularly nimble sort of person. Liang Chen moved more quickly than she did, going to the small stove to fetch hot water, and said to her, “A cup!”

The woman then came to herself and turned to find a clean cup.

The woman’s appearance could be called only presentable — in the rear palace where beauties were plentiful, she would pass entirely unnoticed. It was clear she was a rough-work attendant.

Yet as she turned in a hurry, Li Gu’s gaze fell on her waist and figure from behind.

She could not be called slender or willowy. Her hips were ample and rounded. In a rural village, she would have been exactly the kind of woman many families sought out as a good match — of the sort people described as “a fine one for bearing children.”

Li Gu looked at her steadily.

Liang Chen turned around with the kettle, and saw Li Gu’s expression. His entire body went rigid.

The woman herself remained unaware. She had been so frightened by the imperial presence that she could not for the life of her remember where she had set the teacup.

Then the Emperor said, “You. Come here.”

The woman turned around, at a loss, and looked to Liang Chen.

Liang Chen’s hand tightened around the kettle handle. He gritted his teeth. “Go over!” he said sharply.

And so the woman walked toward the Emperor, timid and hesitant.

Without waiting for the Emperor to speak further, Liang Chen set down the kettle and withdrew to outside the door. As he drew the panel shut — nearly all the way — he caught through the narrowing gap the sight of the Emperor extending his hand toward her.

The panel fell closed with a heavy sound, sealing away the side room from the outer hall, the inside from the outside.

Liang Chen turned around and stood guard at the door.

From within the side room came faint sounds of movement, and then a clear cry of pain from the woman.

Liang Chen closed his eyes.

The Emperor came out very quickly, his robes still neatly in order — perhaps they had never been removed.

He said, “Note it down.”

Liang Chen bowed and asked, “Is she to receive a title?”

The Emperor said, “Yes.”

Liang Chen asked, “Will she remain?”

The Emperor said, “She remains.”

The Emperor walked out. The small attendants all followed.

Until they had disappeared into the darkness, Liang Chen finally allowed himself to straighten up. He turned and rushed into the side room, calling, “Yue’e!”

The palace woman called Yue’e was curled into a corner of the couch, her arms around her knees, staring at nothing. At the sound of her name she raised her head. Tear tracks marked her face. She called out, “Liang Chen gege…”

The word left her mouth, and her tears began to fall.

Her clothes, too, were still properly in order — only her skirt was in disarray, exposing a section of bare leg. Her underclothes lay torn on the floor.

There were bloodstains on her skirt.

The white inner robe she had been making for Liang Chen, which had been used to wipe away filth and discarded on the floor. She had been sewing it for several days; it was not yet finished.

There was no need to finish it now.

Perhaps this was fate.

She was plain-looking, and not particularly clever. She and Liang Chen had known each other when he was still in humble circumstances, and had looked after each other.

Later, Liang Chen had climbed higher step by step, and had used his own position to have her assigned specifically to this remote pavilion — always intending to keep her sheltered from every entanglement of palace life, safe and unremarkable until he could find a way to send her out of the palace.

He had not foreseen that the Emperor himself would come.

“Am I,” Yue’e’s lips trembled as she asked, “have I… been graced with the imperial favor?”

The blood traced a winding path down her calf, dripping onto the couch. The imperial favor had not been anything like the beautiful thing the other palace women she had once lived with had imagined it to be. What had happened just now was over quickly. Yue’e could only remember the pain, and the Emperor’s cold, indifferent eyes.

He had not even asked her name. He had looked at her as one might look at a dead thing.

Liang Chen said, “From now on, you will be a Honored Lady.”

Yue’e looked at him and asked, “Then can I… still leave the palace?”

Through her tears, she said, “You promised me.”

Liang Chen said, “You foolish girl — never speak of leaving the palace again. From now on, you will have more blessings than you can enjoy in a lifetime. Your father, your mother, your brothers and nephews — they will all enjoy your good fortune.”

Yue’e, like him, would spend the rest of her life unable to leave this palace city.

Liang Chen did not know, in the end, whether what he felt was sorrow or something like joy.

When he had finished speaking, the tears he had been holding back finally fell.