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I blinked away the mist in my eyes. Now that he was here, I realized how much I didn’t want to leave him.

How much I wished to keep him at my side despite everything.

Icy flakes continued to fall from the sky, dusting us in white.

“Fei’er.” My heart leaped at the way he said my name. The softness of it, coated in the affection I didn’t deserve.

Perhaps more than his darkness, I had always feared this gentler side of him. I had feared it before, and I feared it now. The way it threatened to thaw my heart, dissolve the resolution I’d sacrificed too much not to keep.

The Siwang I wanted to see was the ruthless prince whose ambition could swallow mountains. I wanted him to be the emperor his father expected. Selfish and cruel, a man willing to do anything and everything to get what he wanted. However, if Siwang were such a man, he would never let me go. If he were such a man, I wouldn’t love him so…

I wanted Rong Siwang to be a villain, easy to hate, easy to leave. Not a kind man who loved me more than I deserved, who would rather break his own heart than see me unhappy.

For a held breath, I thought he would reach out and kiss me, ask me to stay.

He didn’t.

“Talk to me,” he whispered. “Say something.Please.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Aren’t you going to miss me?”

“No.” A lie. The crueler I was to him, the easier it would be for him to forget me, the shorter his suffering would be.

I owed him too much. This small mercy was the last thing I could offer him.

“What do you feel right now?” he asked.

My eyes darted toward the courtyard, where I could no longer see Fangyun’s shadow. “I’m worried about my family. My parents have grown accustomed to life in the capital, as the parents of the future empress. My sister was barely two years old when we left the small village where I was born. She’s never known a life not bathed in luxury. I’m scared she won’t be able to adapt.”

I’m scaredI’mnot going to adapt,I thought silently.That I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life, running away from you.

“That’s not what I meant, Fei.”

“I know.”

He took a step closer. His long, elegant fingers brushed a stray strand of hair from my face. “Even if you don’t want to marry me, you don’t have to leave. If you’ll bow your head and apologize, I can beg my father for mercy, let you and your family stay…. I will take care of you for the rest of our lives, Fei.”

Take care.Notlove.I noticed this subtle choice of words.

“Your father won’t take back this decree. Everyone has a limit, and we’ve pushed the emperor beyond his. It is a miracle that I am walking away from the capital in one piece.”

Siwang’s other hand reached forward, as if to touch me; then he stopped himself. Something flickered in those eyes. Hate, or heartbreak? His hand trembled in the space between us, suspended in motion, so afraid of my rejection.

Then Siwang look a deep breath and stepped back, straightened his posture.

“Would you stay if I promise to change things?” A murmur, no louder than a breath. “What if I promise to marry only you? I’m willing to be yours and yours alone, Fei. If you choose me, then I will also choose you. There won’t be any consorts or concubines. I will love only you. Forever.”

My heart jerked in my chest.Yes,a voice deep inside me replied.Yes, I would stay.

But this wasn’t just about us. Freedom was only one half of truth, and I couldn’t tell him the other half, because if I did and his fatherfound out that I had magic, he would never let go. He would use me and my visions against the world and treat me like a weapon in his warfare.

So I forced myself to laugh. “Do you want to be the emperor of emperors that much? When will you realize that the prophecy is just nonsense? I’m not some magical rite to unite the continent.”

In fact, I might bring about the downfall of everything you and your family have built.

Something blazed in Siwang’s eyes. “Stop painting my intentions as things they are not! That’s not why I’m proposing this, Fei, and you know it.”