“May I address the High Princess JingYi directly?”
ShunLi didn’t answer immediately. He leaned back, the fingers of one hand tapping once, thoughtfully, against the arm of the throne. His gaze drifted briefly toward the right-hand screen. Then he inclined his head, a gesture of permission that was also a concession to his own curiosity.
“You may.”
Alexander bowed low in thanks. His spine straightened as he prepared to deliver the words he had rehearsed repeatedly on the journey here. Words he had rewritten in his mind a hundred times, agonized over each night in silence beneath the foreign stars.
And in that suspended heartbeat before the throne,he forgot every single one.
The silence stretched. His mind was a perfect, blank void. At the dais, ShunLi’s gaze held him, the emperor’s expression indiscernible save for a crease at his brow—a man torn between intervening and giving Alexander more time to sort this out.
His own heart thudded, a deafening drum. The great golden chamber, the nobles, the banners—it all dissolved into a blur, colours bleeding together. All that remained was a screen of bamboo slats.
When all else fails, speak from the heart.
The words returned to him not as a rehearsed speech. They rose unbidden, like bubbles breaking the surface of a still pond. His gaze locked on the bamboo screen to the left. If he could not see her obsidian eyes, then at least he’d imagine them steady on him.
“JingYi.” His voice was low, carrying through the silent hall. “For years, I believed my purpose was to restore my House. I was wrong. Duty became obsession. In serving its ghost—” His throat went dry. He swallowed.
“I hurt you.”
The vast quiet swallowed the admission. He let out a shuddered breath.
“You were never just my wife. You were the raven who saw the path when I was blind. Without you, I am just a wolf, circling an empty den.”
The world narrowed to the space between them. His Xûengua failed him; he switched to Isseric. “You annulled ourmarriage to set me free. I am that free man. And my first free choice . . . isyou. I love you. I choose you—not as duty, restitution, or strategy. I choose you as the only woman I see. The only future I want. The only soul that is my home.”
Silence followed. No stir from behind the screen. Heartbeat thundering in his ears, his hand clutching the carved box—his anchor, his tether—and slid it forward across the polished floor.
He faced the screen and opened the latch.
Light spilled out—soft at first, then blinding. Three nights Su Jiang had let the crystal drink the moon, and now it released that stolen light in waves. Gasps rippled through the hall. Officials strained for a glimpse. Even the emperor leaned forward, his careful mask slipping for just a breath.
Inside lay a crown—a wreath wrought in the shape of raven feathers, each plume cut and polished from the limyerite crystal he had acquired, its pale flaw gleaming. Between the feathers, delicate strands of gold filigree wound together, binding each piece into wholeness. The entire creation was so beautifully translucent that, against her hair, it would appear black.
“I seek no kingdom, no crown,” he told her. “But know this: Wherever you are, in my heart and in my soul—youarequeen.”
Silence reigned in the hall, so heavy he could hear the blood pounding in his ears. Then, the sharp rattle of bamboo slats broke it.
Alexander’s heart stilled, but it wasn’t JingYi’s screen that moved. It was the other one, lifting to reveal a pair of dark, blazing eyes fixed on him. The dangling golden ornaments of her headdress swayed and jingled as she leaned forward. In that moment, he understood: The rumours of an impossibly beautiful Xûen Omega princess were not exaggerated.
“Pretty words, Lord Wulfbane.” High Princess LinXin’s voice carried across the hall. “But what gives you the audacity to think my sister should choose you? You’ve already failed her.Disappointed her. Driven her away. What makes you worthy of her now?”
Her fan tapped its lacquered edge against the arm of her chair. The hall stirred. Nobles craned their necks, some nodding in agreement, others waiting to see what he’d say in his defence.
He cleared his throat and said, “Your Highness, you mistake me. IknowI am not worthy.”
The murmurs rose again—surprise, disapproval, curiosity. He let them swell and die before he went on.
“I have disappointed her, so I will learn. I have hurt her, so I will mend. I have failed her, so I will rise, again and again. I ask only for the chance to prove it.”
A silence, absolute and suffocating, swallowed the hall. Alexander remained on his knees, the weight of his own words and Princess LinXin’s searing judgment holding him down. He dared not look at JingYi’s screen. He could only wait.
Then—a rustle. A faint, deliberate shift of silk against wood from behind the left screen. Every gaze snapped toward it. The bamboo slats trembled, then began to rise. Alexander’s pulse hammered in his throat as the screen revealed the one figure he had ached to see.
JingYi.
She descended the dais in a gown of jade and gold, silk flowing like water over her form, embroidered lotus catching the light with every step. A phoenix crown rested on her brow, golden strands swaying, framing a face he had memorized in darkness. Her uneven steps—a rhythm he knew in his soul. When she was close enough, she extended her hand. His own shook as he took it, instinctively firming to anchor her.
