Morning broke over Yan with quiet dignity.
No drums. No horns. Just snow—falling soft as breath, blanketing the courtyard in silence.
Lin Ruoyi stood alone, her red cloak pooling at her boots, her eyes fixed on the horizon. She didn't shiver. She didn't move.
The wound beneath her armor had already begun to seal—healed faster than it should've. She told herself it was the medicine.
But deep down, she knew it wasn't.
He touched her once, and her body remembered something her mind couldn't.
She fastened her whip across her back, ignoring the tight pull at her ribs. Pain was familiar. Safer than memory.
Safer than the ache of two brothers she would never bury. Safer than missing her little sister who still believed the world could be beautiful. Safer than watching her father grow old with war in his bones.
Behind her, servants packed her crates—scrolls, blades, silence. The unsigned treaty.
She had spent the night in the Peace Pavilion, against her own better judgment. She didn't like comfort. She didn't trust it.
But something about him had made the walls stop feeling like a cage.
Inside, Yan Xuan stood behind a screen of sheer silk, watching her through the frosted pane.
He hadn't spoken to her since last night. Not after she left him in that room with her spine straight and her words sharper than her sword.
"I don't belong to anyone."
That should've ended it.
It didn't.
Because she was still here. And so was he.
She was the storm wrapped in silence. And he was the calm that watched it unravel.
He stepped out into the snow without a sound.
She didn't turn. But she knew.
"I thought you'd be asleep," she said.
"I don't sleep," he replied.
"Because you're cursed?"
He smiled—just a hint. Just enough to make his mask gleam in the light.
"Because I dream too much."
Of her.
But never her face.
Only fire. Only that voice.
Only the feeling of someone burning in his arms while he tried to hold her together.
He moved closer. Not enough to startle. Just enough to be felt.
"Your injury—"
"Is fine," she said, too quickly. "You've done enough."
He paused. "That's not what I meant."
She turned slightly, her braid shifting over her shoulder. "Then what did you mean?"
His voice dropped just a fraction.
"Yesterday. What I said about you."
A beat of stillness.
She raised an eyebrow. "About turning me into a negotiation tool? Or about how I should offer myself up for peace and pretend it's patriotism?"
He didn't respond to the bait.
Instead, he said it again—calmer this time. Quieter.
"You're beautiful."
The air around them went still.
Her breath caught. Just barely.
"Is that your tactic?" she said flatly. "Charm me with compliments and make the war disappear?"
His eyes didn't waver. That single golden eye, framed by the mask's shadow, looked at her like he was seeing something sacred he couldn't name.
"No. I said it because I meant it."
And because I've seen you burn alive and still thought you were the most beautiful thing in existence.
She looked away, suddenly unsure of her footing.
"You say things too easily," she murmured. "It makes it hard to trust you."
"I'm not asking for trust," he said. "Just... remembrance."
That stopped her.
Remembrance?
As if—
As if they'd met before.
She didn't know why her chest tightened.
Just then, the stable boy approached. Her stallion huffed, anxious and frost-coated. She mounted, fluid and controlled.
From above, she looked down at Yan Xuan—tall, graceful, untouchable in his own way.
The white of his robe, the dark of his hair, the sharp contrast of gold in his eye. A prince carved from contradiction.
He looked up at her like she was a secret only he remembered.
"I'll deliver your terms to the emperor," she said. "If he agrees, we talk again. If not... prepare your borders."
She turned the reins.
But something pulled at her chest.
She looked back.
Just once.
"You're not what I expected from a prince," she said softly.
"And you," he replied, "are exactly what I remember from a dream I was never meant to wake up from."
She blinked.
Then turned again. Silent. Guarded. Gone.
But before she vanished entirely, his voice followed—quiet, threaded with something raw.
"We'll meet again, won't we?"
She didn't answer.
But she exhaled.
And that breath—shaky, silent, almost human—was the closest she had come to saying yes.
Snow rose in flurries behind her as she rode out.
Yan Xuan stood still long after she disappeared.
Where her footprints had been, frost refused to settle.
His fingers curled at his side, itching with memory.
He had watched her leave once before.
And even now—he wasn't sure if this was the first time... or the last.