The wind and rain continued to howl outside, but the charcoal had turned the humble wooden shelter into a warm and drowsy world, full of the ease of spring.

I lay still and quiet against Xiao Qi’s chest, not moving. My long hair coiled against him, a few strands damp with sweat and clinging to his bare chest, weaving through the shallow and deep scars that crossed it in every direction. His body carried so many old wounds — one scar even ran from his shoulder, cutting almost all the way across his back. Though long healed and faded to pale traces, they still struck the eye. What those ten years on the battlefield had held — how many passages through death, how many steps taken over the bones of others, before he could carve his way out of that sea of blood and come to where he stood today — I did not dare imagine the years he had walked through alone.

Now, in this quietness that came after, he held me and lay with his eyes closed, as though he had drifted into a peaceful sleep. Those blade-and-chisel features remained as austere as ever, lips pressed together — and his unsheathed sword lay within reach of his hand, ready should the slightest thing stir. There was not a moment when he could let his guard down. I looked at his sleeping face for a long while, and in my chest there was a fine thread of ache wound through a bittersweet tenderness.

I reached out a hand and, with one fingertip, gently smoothed away the crease between his brows. His eyes stayed closed; he did not stir. But the tight line of his lips relaxed just slightly, tracing the faintest suggestion of a smile. I reached up quietly and pulled his half-dried outer robe over to cover his bare torso. All at once, his hand hooked around my waist. He rolled over and pressed me beneath him.

The startled sound that rose in my throat died before it could form. Xiao Qi’s eyes were sharp and alert, his face set and grave. He was up on one knee with his hand on the hilt of his sword, shielding me beneath him in one motion. I held my breath and did not move. There had been no sound that I could hear — yet I sensed dimly that something was drawing near. Xiao Qi’s gaze shifted and changed, and then, with a swift flick of his wrist, he lifted the blade. The snow-bright sword let out a desolate sound, low and resonant, and sent it carrying through the stillness of the night.

From outside the shelter, an answering cry of steel rang back — followed at once by a voice, deep and resonant, the voice of a man: “Your subordinate arrived too late. That the Prince was alarmed is this subordinate’s crime deserving ten thousand deaths.”

The tension went out of me in a rush. And then, in the very next instant, I was overcome with embarrassment. I quickly drew on my outer robe and helped Xiao Qi straighten his own garments and headwear.

Xiao Qi sheathed his sword and said with a quiet, contained ease, “Good — your movements have grown swifter.”

“Your subordinate is filled with apprehension.” The man answered respectfully and remained at the door outside, coming no closer. That voice — I had heard it somewhere before.

“Where are the assassins now?” Xiao Qi’s voice was cool and commanding.

“The assassins encountered your subordinate’s forces in the eastern outskirts. Seven were killed and nine wounded, and the remaining twelve retreated outside the city walls. General Tang Jing has already led men in pursuit. General Song has sealed the entire city and has men sweeping it for fugitives. Your subordinate did not dare delay, and came at once to meet the Prince.” The man’s voice was hard and flat, carrying a strong accent from beyond the passes. Beyond the passes — and in that instant, something stirred in my memory.

Xiao Qi pushed the door open. A gust of cold wind and rain drove straight into the room, and I shivered. But through the doorway, I saw that outside, in the rain, a warrior clad head to foot in heavy iron armor stood with his head bowed — motionless as iron itself. Behind him, more than ten mounted riders were drawn up several zhang back, holding pine-oil torches. They stood in the wind and rain like men of stone, not a single one moving. The torches, soaked in pine oil and tossed by the gale, burned with thick black smoke, yet refused to go out.

Xiao Qi stood in the doorway, hands behind his back, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword — silhouetted against the torchlight, his bearing unhurried and imperious.

One attendant stepped forward with a respectful bow, holding an umbrella up. Xiao Qi took it, then turned back with a smile and extended his hand toward me.

I smoothed my hair at my temples and walked forward with measured steps to stand at his side. I placed my hand in his palm, and together we stepped out into the wind and rain. The rain hissed quietly against the umbrella. Cold wind sent strands of hair flying. But his shoulder blocked the chill of the rainy night, passing warmth steadily to me without ceasing.

As we moved out into the open ground before the shelter, the ten-odd mounted soldiers all swung down from their horses as one, dropping to one knee and bowing their heads toward Xiao Qi. The sound of cold iron armor rang in unison — sharp, measured, and resounding — standing out from the noise of wind and rain with a force that was impossible to ignore.

Mo Jiao and Jing Yun were indeed there among the riders at the rear, and at the sight of us, both horses broke into eager, excited motion.

I turned to look at the broad-shouldered armored general, and at last saw his face clearly. He glanced up at me just as I looked, and I answered with a quiet, knowing smile — it was him. The grey-robed man who had received me at the relay station on that journey.

Among those in the residence who had known our movements most clearly, none fit more than Yuxiu and Lu Shi.

When they returned to the Prince’s residence, Xiao Qi ordered that all servants who had known of their outing be confined — including the maidservants and the stable hand, every last one imprisoned and awaiting interrogation.

When the guards came to take Yuxiu away, she did not make a sound. She did not cry, did not call out. She only bit down on her lip in stubborn silence, letting the guards drag her along. At the very threshold, she suddenly turned her head and looked back at me, her slight body pulled sideways by the guards’ grip, but both eyes steady and bright as ever.

“Yuxiu did not betray the Princess Consort.” She said only those few quiet words, and then she was dragged away out of sight.

I pressed my lips together and watched her until she was gone, and then, despite myself, I called out, “Stop.”

The two guards turned and halted. Yuxiu was on the floor, biting her lip and looking at me with eyes full of sorrow and grief. I understood that look — the anguish of being cast aside by someone you trusted and looked up to, the helplessness I had once known myself. In this one moment, looking at this thin and unyielding girl, something deep and certain rose in me. I had no reason to justify it. I simply believed her.

“It was not Yuxiu.” I said to the guards, my voice steady. “Release her.”

Yuxiu jerked her head up to look at me, her eyes filling with tears. The two guards exchanged uncertain glances, hesitating. I walked forward, extended my hand to Yuxiu, and helped her up from the floor myself. The guards looked at one another awkwardly and had no choice but to bow and withdraw. Only then did Yuxiu let the sound come — she broke into open weeping, wiping at her tears, and dropped to her knees before me.

I held her up and kept her from kneeling, patting her shoulder gently, and said in a soft voice, “Yuxiu, I believe you.”

She could not say a single word through the crying. Behind us, the other maidservants stood with lowered heads, eyes red, every face touched with quiet sorrow.

That same night, Lu Shi’s husband — a military aide by the name of Feng — hanged himself at home. Under interrogation in prison, Lu Shi could not endure the questioning and finally confessed: it was she who had told her husband of Xiao Qi’s movements. She had not known that her own husband had already been coerced, and had been serving as an inside agent for the mastermind behind the assassins.

The assassins fled to the eastern outskirts road, where they were surrounded by Tang Jing and his men. Seven died fighting; nine were wounded. The other twelve managed to break through and were driven out beyond the city walls. Three were taken alive; the rest chose to die rather than be captured.

Song Huai’en sealed the city of Ningshuo in time and conducted a thorough sweep. Among those posing as merchants in the southern part of the city, one middle-aged man of scholarly bearing was apprehended.

This man was none other than the Deputy Supervisor of the Military Inspection — Du Meng, Left Vice Minister of War — who had accompanied Xu Shou to Ningshuo on that mission.

His name was not unfamiliar to me. The man was past thirty, with a plain appearance, and came from a prominent northern family. He was not only a man of considerable literary talent, but also skilled in riding and archery. More than that, he was the most prized disciple that Right Chancellor Wen Zongshen had personally nurtured and elevated. For all his gifts, however, a narrow and eccentric temperament at odds with polite convention had kept him perpetually at odds with those in power, making him the subject of ridicule and gossip.

While the prominent men of the age kept fine horses or cranes or celebrated hunting hounds, he alone kept cattle — over ten head of working oxen at home — and often compared himself to an ox, calling himself by the self-appointed name of “Ox-Fool,” with a stubbornness that lived up to the title. He had impeached numerous officials for even minor infractions, and had confronted my father to his face on more than one occasion. Only out of deference to the Right Chancellor had anyone tolerated this peculiar man at all.

I still held a vague memory of that dark-complexioned man in wide, flowing robes, always wearing a look of barely-contained fury. Yet I could never have imagined that he would be the one to direct the Chancellor’s covert agents to attempt an assassination on a high court minister.

Covert agents — a shadowy and mysterious existence. I knew my uncle kept a group of such agents who had sworn absolute loyalty to the Wang Family. No one knew who they were or where they hid; but at a single word of command, they would appear like shadows and carry out whatever task their master required.

Upright and defiant Du Meng, directing assassins as covert agents. My father, renowned for his dignified bearing and lofty reputation — altering an imperial decree and acting without authority. The Prince of Yuzhang, celebrated as a hero without equal — openly raising arms against the throne. Whether one called them loyal or treacherous no longer seemed to mean anything. I understood for the first time that in this world, there was no such thing as absolute loyalty or absolute treachery. In the end, it came down to four words: only the victor reigns — every person the same flesh and blood, the same private desires and self-interest, and beneath the executioner’s blade, life equally fragile in every case.

And so it was that now, Du Meng’s head was displayed atop the city walls of Ningshuo.

He had argued with eloquence in the halls of government. He had commanded his agents as though directing shadows. A life of loyalty, and a death in service to the Chancellor who had recognized his worth. Yet when that head was finally claimed by the executioner’s blade, it came to nothing more than blood spilled three feet into the ground.

Xiao Qi had Song Huai’en attempt to bring Du Meng over to their side. When that failed, he offered no further words and gave the order decisively — one stroke of the blade to sever his head. Those who could be used were given generous treatment; those who could not were left with only death. Where my father might have felt some compassion for wasted talent, Xiao Qi would not. He was a minister who planned from behind the curtain, and a general who decided life and death with a laugh. Both, in the same person.

My father’s second dispatch arrived close behind.

More upheaval in the capital: the remnants of the Right Chancellor’s faction had not been completely rooted out, and on the very day of the execution, they launched an ambush in the open street in an attempt to rescue Wen Zongshen. My uncle’s imperial guards managed to drive them back. My uncle himself, who had been overseeing the execution on imperial orders, was wounded in the attack. Wen Zongshen was then transferred into the prison of the Imperial Tribunal, and to prevent any further incident, my aunt went to the prison personally and put an end to things with a cup of poisoned wine.

The situation in the capital had become completely untenable, a true collision of fire and water. In the south, Prince Jiangning was already sword-in-hand and ready to strike — the vanguard forces of his army had quietly broken camp. Then, at precisely this moment, the remnants of the Right Chancellor’s faction had dispatched their covert agents to attempt the life of Prince Yuzhang. All of this together had given Xiao Qi the best possible pretext to move his army south. The garrison forces of Ningshuo were disciplined and battle-hardened, the troops formidable and well-ordered, and the provisions and supply lines ready and waiting. Xiao Qi left two hundred and fifty thousand soldiers to hold the northern frontier, and personally led a crack force of one hundred and fifty thousand cavalry. Three days from now, he would march directly on the capital.

I accompanied Xiao Qi up to the city wall to review the troops at their drills.

It was not the first time I had witnessed the might of his forces, yet when the three armies raised their halberds together, crying out as one, and the thunder of hooves drove up clouds of dust rolling across the ground — I was shaken again by the sight of this iron and blood, just as I had been on the day at Zhaoyang Gate, three years before.

I looked at the line of Xiao Qi’s profile beside me and saw the embroidered golden coiling-dragon crest on his black battle robe blazing in the evening light.

The Xiao Qi of today had his wings fully grown, and the edge of his sword already gleamed sharp and bright in the open air.

Even the vast and boundless sky above Ningshuo and the northern frontier might no longer be able to hold this man — with iron in his bones and ambition without limit.

That night, I directed Yuxiu to pack up my belongings in preparation to depart the following day alongside the main army moving south.

It was Yuxiu’s first time leaving Ningshuo to journey far from home, let alone to follow a military campaign. She was both anxious and excited all at once.

Watching her pack away bundle after bundle of heavy winter clothing, I smiled and said, “The further south you travel, the warmer it grows. By the time you reach the capital, you will not need any of these heavy things. Leave them behind.”

Behind me, however, I heard Xiao Qi’s voice, quiet and contained, say, “Take all of it.”

He came into the inner chamber in long strides, his armor still on. The maidservants all quickly lowered their heads and withdrew.

I looked at him with a light smile. “In this you are not knowledgeable — if we were in the capital right now, it would already be the season for sheer sleeves and silken skirts, gauze and ribbon. Who would be wearing anything so heavy and clumsy?”

Xiao Qi said nothing. He only looked at me, and something in that gaze made a quiet unease begin to rise in me.

I stepped forward to help him unclasp his chest armor, saying with a teasing note, “Going around in that cold shell even when you’ve returned to the residence — is that comfortable?”

“You are missing home.” He caught my hand, his gaze reaching deep and still. “You want to go back to the capital very much, don’t you?”

I stopped. The thought I had been most reluctant to touch was spoken aloud in a single phrase, and for a moment I felt myself sinking, then quickly forced a faint smile. “We are about to go back after all — and yet I find I’m a little sorry to leave Ningshuo.”

He reached up and brushed my hair at my temple, a flicker of regret moving in his eyes. “Once the situation settles, I will bring you back to the capital. I will not make you wait long.”

I went still, stepped back one pace, and fixed my eyes on him. “You do not want me to go with you?”

“Not this time.” He drew a letter from his sleeve and held it out to me. “The Left Chancellor’s letter — you may read it now.”

It was the letter from my father, the letter he had refused to give me yesterday, saying I should read it when we returned from our outing.

I was slightly lost for a moment, a blankness passing through me. I took the letter but found I could not bring myself to break the seal.

The moment I heard he would be marching south, I had not hesitated for even an instant. I had not thought of the danger of the campaign. It had seemed a matter of course that I would stand alongside him in whatever came next. And beyond that, my parents and family were still in the capital — still under the shadow of Prince Jiangning’s advancing army. In this moment of crisis, I was a daughter of the Wang Family. I had to stand by my family through whatever came, face life and death beside them. There was no ground to retreat to.

“I am going back to the capital.” I raised my eyes and met Xiao Qi’s gaze, my voice cold and clear. “Do not even think of leaving me here alone.”

He looked at me, and spoke slowly. “Tomorrow at first light, you will set out for Langya.”

“Langya?” I thought I had misheard. He had said Langya — the ancestral home of our Wang Family. Why would he mention it so suddenly?

“The Grand Princess has already gone to Langya.” Xiao Qi pressed his hand gently to my shoulder. “You should go to her.”

My mother had gone to Langya at a time like this — that sudden, startling news left me standing still, a vague sense of something forming at the edge of my understanding, though my mind was still a blur. My hand tightened on the thin letter, and it felt as heavy as a thousand stones.

I broke the familiar seal on the brocade envelope and read it quickly, line by line. By the end, my grip was no longer steady, and the pale sheet of paper slipped from my fingers.

Xiao Qi said nothing. He only held my shoulders and watched me in silence.

In the letter, my father said only that my mother had taken ill and it would be good for her to rest away from the capital. She had already gone with Aunt Xu to the old ancestral home in Langya. The journey was long, and she was alone, missing her daughter terribly — she hoped I could come to be with her.

I covered my face. My thoughts were a flood, and at the same time there was a cold, crystalline clarity moving through me like ice water.

Mother. My poor mother. In the midst of all this mounting crisis, no one had thought of her situation — I had very nearly passed over her myself. Who would spare a thought for a woman shut away in the inner chambers of a noble house? Her name had almost been forgotten entirely, reduced to a title — Grand Princess — or a role — wife of the Left Chancellor and Duke Jinguo.

That weak and gentle Emperor trapped under house arrest — he was not only the Emperor. He was her brother. The imperial family, stripped of power and dignity by her husband’s household — that was the family she had always held with pride. She was Grand Princess Jinmin, the only sister of the reigning Emperor, and imperial blood ran in her veins. I did not believe that at a time like this, my mother would choose to run away. She was gentle and kind, but she was not a coward.

This journey to Langya was not her choice. She had been sent away by force — my father had driven her out, unwilling to let her witness the conflict between his own household and her family.

Should I call my father merciful? Or cruel?

When I thought of him saying she was unwell, that she missed her daughter — I could hold back no longer. I turned and pressed my face against Xiao Qi’s chest, and wept.

I at least still had his arms. But my poor mother, at this moment, had no family beside her at all — only Aunt Xu to keep her company.

Xiao Qi patted my back gently and let me weep without interrupting me, allowing me to bury my face against his chest until his garment was wet with my tears.

After a long while, he sighed quietly. “Be strong. When you see your mother, you must not cry like this.”

I nodded through the sobbing. He lifted my face in his hands — without the gentle tenderness of his usual comfort — only gripped my shoulders with an unyielding certainty and said, “Here, you had me to lean on. In Langya, you will be the one others lean on.”

“Yes. I understand.” I forced back the tears, bit my lip, and raised my chin. “I will set out tomorrow.”

For a moment we held each other’s gaze, neither speaking. The cold resolve in Xiao Qi’s eyes slowly melted away, and what remained was something helpless, and something deep and tenacious.

Yesterday he had not let me open the letter. He had set aside his urgent military affairs, dressed in plain clothes, and taken me out to see the open frontier meadows — and he had given me the happiest day I had spent in Ningshuo. The happiest day I had ever spent in my life, in truth.

He had known that parting was coming the next morning, and had only wanted to spare me one more day of sorrow.

Parting again — another parting. When Zidan was sent to the imperial mausoleum, I had thought the days remaining to me would be drained of all color. I had not even been able to bring myself to go and see him off. Yet this parting I faced in silence, with a quiet vow to myself — this parting was so that we might meet again. Just as he had left on our wedding day, only to return to this reunion that felt as though it had come too late.

The lamp burned bright. The night had grown very deep, but still I wanted more time with him — more conversation, more of simply looking at him. He took me firmly in his arms and carried me to the bed, insisting I settle in and sleep. I closed my eyes but kept hold of his sleeve and would not let go.

“I will be back soon.” He pressed a fond kiss to my brow, helplessness threading his voice. “Huai’en is still waiting in the west hall. I’ll send him off and then come stay with you — be good and sleep first.”

I murmured an answer and let my fingers slip quietly past his collar, glancing up at him from beneath my lashes. “Without this burden weighing you down, things will be easier for you.”

His lips lingered at my brow, and he laughed quietly in return. “A woman like you — fierce enough to charge the front lines — is no burden at all.”

I flared up in annoyance and gave his chest a sharp pinch. He caught my fingers and kissed me hard on the lips.

Lying there against the pillow afterward, replaying the way his breathing had grown ragged, that helpless, unraveling look on his face — I could not hold back a soft laugh. As he had scrambled to collect himself and hurried out, he had pressed his lips to my ear in mock indignation: “You impossible creature — I’ll deal with you when I’m back!”

The warmth crept up into my cheeks, and my mind wandered back to the night before in the little wooden shelter, and my face burned even hotter. In one night, the strange and wondrous change from girl to woman — it seemed as though nothing was different, and yet everything was different.

I tossed and turned, unable to sleep. At last I sat up, and my eyes fell on the embroidery frame resting on the desk — the outer robe still unfinished. I let out a quiet sigh. Needlework had never been something I enjoyed from childhood. The work of thread and needle was never meant to be done by my own hands. My mother had forced me to learn it against my will, and even so I had remained clumsy and unskilled. That day, for some reason, I had listened to Yuxiu’s ill-conceived suggestion and taken up the fabric to sew. Though the better part of the work had already been done by Yuxiu, only the pattern of the collar’s trim remaining for me — that intricate coiling-dragon design would take no small amount of effort.

I reached for the half-finished robe and stared at it for a long moment, then pulled on my outer garments, turned up the lamp, and began to embroider, one stitch at a time.

The night deepened, the water-clock marking each watch in steady drips, and without my noticing it was already past the fourth watch of the night.

Xiao Qi had not come back. I could not hold back the tiredness any longer, and laid my head on the pillow with the thought that I would rest for just a brief while before returning to the embroidery.

Half-dreaming, I felt someone trying to take the robe from my hands. In a rush of alarm, I jolted awake — and it was Xiao Qi.

Seeing me wake, he took the robe from my hands, and without even looking at it, tossed it aside. His expression was faintly displeased. “What trouble are you making instead of sleeping properly?”

I stared at him, then looked at the robe discarded on the floor — one dragon’s claw still unfinished. A flare of anger rose in me. “Pick that up.”

I pointed at the robe and said sharply, “I embroidered through the entire night. If you dare leave it on the floor, don’t expect me to ever make you anything again.”

“Made for me…” Xiao Qi stared, and then obediently bent down and picked it up. He shook it out and looked at it, and then stood motionless, speechless.

His stunned expression made me laugh despite myself. I picked up an embroidered pillow and threw it at him, feigning annoyance. “You don’t want it? Then I’m not making it either.”

He only smiled, folded the robe with care, set it back beside my pillow, and said with all seriousness, “Never mind finishing it. I’ll wear it as it is and let everyone come and admire what my A’Wu has embroidered — a three-legged coiling dragon.”

I wanted to laugh and cry at once, raised a hand to strike him — and was pulled laughing by him and tucked back against the pillow. The lamp swayed gently, and the gauze curtain spread out like wisps of smoke.

Beyond the curtain, the morning light of sunrise began to fill the long frontier sky.

In the early morning light, I helped Xiao Qi fasten his headwear. He was tall enough that I had to rise onto my toes to help him secure the crown piece. He caught my waist and said softly, with a smile, “When I married you, I thought you were still a child…”

I went still. Without quite knowing when it happened, my eyes had grown warm. I sighed gently, “Three years in an instant. The little girl of back then has already grown.”

“This time, I will not make you wait long.” He held me close. “We came through together when life and death hung by a thread at the edge of a cliff — whatever fortune or hardship lies ahead, I will face it with you. A’Wu, I need you to remember: as it was then, so it will be for all my life.”

We held each other’s gaze. His eyes seemed capable of holding every joy and sorrow of my entire life.

I smiled and nodded firmly, unable to find my voice, fighting back my tears with everything I had — refusing to let myself cry in the moment of parting.

As it was then, so it will be for all my life — those eight quiet words entered my heart in this moment, and would never be erased from it again.

Xiao Qi entrusted his most trusted deputy general, Song Huai’en, to escort me on my departure.

I walked out of the gate of the residence without pausing to look back, without letting Xiao Qi see me off.

I boarded the carriage. The escort column fell into formation. Hoofbeats began to ring, quick and steady, and the scenery along the road swept past and away.

Only then, at last, did I turn to look back — and let my tears fall, silently, down my face.

When I had first come to Ningshuo, I had been carried there against my will. Now, in leaving, the circumstances were no less hurried and helpless.

When I arrived, I had come alone, not knowing whether I would live or die. Now, in leaving, I was no longer solitary or without anchor.

Three years had passed in a turning. Fate had risen and fallen, traced out one enormous and winding circle — and arrived, in the end, at the shore of what had always been meant to be.

He was still there. I was still here. Neither of us had walked away. And neither of us would miss the other again.