The doors to the Emperor's chambers had a way of closing like a sentence.
Mingyu heard the finality of it even after he stepped away, even after the eunuchs fell into place behind him and the guards matched his pace, even after the lamp in the alcove bowed with the draft and then straightened as if pretending nothing had happened inside that room.
He didn't look back.
He felt her still—the warmth of Xinying's forehead under his mouth, the small shift of her body as she settled into the mattress because he told her to. He carried the fact that she was resting the way other men carried swords. It changed the angle of his spine. It changed what he would and would not allow tonight.
"Clear the way," the senior eunuch murmured, and the corridor obeyed. Maids pressed back against lacquered pillars and lowered their eyes. A clerk with an armful of scrolls stepped into a shadow and became furniture. The palace knew how to make itself thin around a man who had somewhere to be.
