The palace, that night, resembled a mausoleum.
After the Imperial Bond trial, there was no music, no incense, no banquets.
The oil lamps burned with low, almost timid flames, and the corridors became rivers of silence.
Jin Long walked alone, each step echoing against the marble like a reflection of his own solitude. The weight of the crown was not upon his brow, but in his chest. There, where memories roared like an invisible army.
His fate led him to the east wing of the palace: the Hall of Mothers.
The walls were covered with ancient portraits: empresses, consorts, wet nurses who had marked the history of the Empire. Their faces, painted on silk and wood, seemed to observe him with solemnity.
But he stopped before only one.
A woman with a profound gaze, eyes as dark as an endless winter, and her hair gathered with a jade hairpin. The brush had captured not only her beauty, but the severity of someone who knew more of loss than tenderness.
