Yuan stood near the edge of the outer training yard, watching as his men drilled under the pale spring sun. The clang of wooden swords echoed against the walls, but his attention wandered to the shaded pavilion near the entrance.
He hadn't meant to eavesdrop. But then he heard her name.
"Lady Shen was always a rare one," said the governor's nephew—a young officer newly appointed from the capital. "I remember seeing her at the Palace of Arts during the mid-autumn debates. She corrected one of the elder scholars on Confucian doctrine—and did it with such grace no one dared argue."
The other officer laughed. "That's her. The 'Jade Lotus of Luoyang,' they used to call her."
"And to think she married into the Lin household." A low chuckle. "Wasn't there talk she might have been matched with Lord Xu Jin before the proposal came from General Lin's family?"
"Xu Jin?" the other man asked, tone suddenly intrigued.
"The very one. Imperial Minister now, posted directly under the Crown Prince's council. Word is he had eyes for her back then. Visited the Shens twice under the pretense of seeking her father's advice."
Yuan turned away, jaw tightening.
Xu Jin. Of course.
He remembered him—elegant, soft-spoken, the kind of man who quoted poetry as easily as he breathed, yet also expert in swordsmanship and other martial arts. Yuan had seen the way he looked at Yueli at court functions. Admiring, yes. But too long, too deep.
Yueli, of course, had never noticed. Or if she had, she had never let it show.
She remained entirely, infuriatingly, unaware of the effect she had on men.
And now, hearing that he might have had her—that she could have risen even higher than the Lin name—left something sharp and sour in Yuan's throat.
He hadn't spoken to her in days.
Not since she returned from the city and passed him in the courtyard without a glance. Not since the night she looked at him like a stranger and said: So do silences.
He'd thought of going to her room. He hadn't.
He wasn't sure what he feared more—that she would be cold.
Or that she wouldn't.
….
That evening, the sound of a zither drifted from the east wing.
Yuan paused as he crossed the veranda. She hadn't played in weeks—not since the new year.
He slowed, the melody softening into something gentle, almost wistful. It was a tune he remembered. One she played when she first came to live in the Lin estate. A song that reminded him of rain in summer, of water spilling over stone.
He never asked why she played it then. And now, he wouldn't dare ask why she played it now.
But he lingered just beyond the pillar, unseen.
And he listened.
….
Later that night, as he returned to his chambers, he found a letter left on the table. Sealed with the crest of the old southern garrison.
His breath caught.
It was her handwriting. Qingxue.
He opened it slowly.
Yuan,
It has been some time. I hear you are well, and that your name echoes in court as it once did only on battlefields. Do you remember the riverside in Jiangzhou? The way the lanterns floated away that night? I still think of it.
—Q.
His hand tightened around the parchment.
Of course he remembered.
That night. That promise.
The lanterns they'd let go with hopes they had never fulfilled.
And now—now she wrote to him again, as if nothing had changed.
But everything had.
He was married. Bound. And still, a part of him reached toward her like a soldier to his sword.