***

Tian Chengrui sat on the bank of the lake, holding the strands of the black cord in his hand as the sunset on the other side of the lake. He merely wanted to walk around the lake to relive old memories, to retread the steps that had defined his childhood. 

He had not expected to see his son sitting there, looking almost exactly like his mother had when he first met her. 

Chengrui remembered the day clearly. He had finally managed to sneak away from his father’s palace, annoyed with all the lessons about nobility and discovered the lake. His intention had merely been to walk around it to where it met the river, but before he could reach that junction, he had seen her with her siblings. 

She was being stubborn of course, refusing to budge from the mud even as all of her older siblings tried to bargain and plead with her. Chengrui, barely older than her youngest brother, thought she was just being a brat, and did his best to ignore them at first. He couldn’t remember if she had started it or if it was her brother Shi, but all Chengrui had known was one moment he was walking next to the lake in his pristine white and red robes, and the next, he was covered in mud. 

In the present, Chengrui laughed, playing with black cord in his hand. What he would give to go back to those days. Back to when life was simple. When he wasn’t expected to replace his mother as ruler of Xisias. 

Chengrui sighed, leaning back on the grass as the last of the sun’s rays faded and yet his bright smile remained. He knew Jie was likely entertaining the merchant, performing her act flawlessly. After all, their entire lie depended on everyone believing that man was the one Jie used to sneak away to see, that he was the one who had captured her heart at only eighteen. That he was Yao’s father, and not the Crown Prince. 

Anyone but the Crown Prince.

“I didn’t think you would have much to smile about, given our time apart.”

“Heaven gave me one earlier today.” Chengrui answered, opening his eyes to see Jie standing over him. She was dressed in a dress, one meant for everyday wear and he smiled as she knelt next to his head. “Did you get your half?”

“Hmm?”

“This,” Chengrui held up his half of the cord, his smile growing as Jie pulled out her piece. “I recognized him instantly. He looks so much like me, but he reminded me of you.”

“He is quite something, isn’t he?” Jie’s voice was soft as she spoke and Chengrui sat up, leaning over to capture her lips with his. As soon as they touched, he felt something deep inside him relax, like a taut string finally loosened after years of quiet strain. She tasted of plum wine and early summer wind, and for a moment, there was no empire, no court, no bloodline threatening to choke the air from his lungs. Just the two of them and the echo of memories too fragile to be spoken aloud.

When they parted, Jie rested her forehead against his, her fingers brushing his cheek with a touch so gentle he nearly leaned into it. The lake behind them had turned to ink, and across the surface, he noticed the faint lights of his father’s palace. A palace that would soon belong to one of his wives. 

“I brought the plums,” Chengrui whispered, pulling the small package from his robes, gently setting it into Jie’s lap. “I’m not sure how sweet they will be, but–”

“That’s fine. Like his father, he prefers them candided.” Jie interrupted and Chengrui felt his face start to ache from how much he was smiling. How long had it been since he had been this happy, this content. “I doubt he’ll mind or even notice.”

“Well, like his mother, he tends to shoulder heavy burdens alone without leaning on others,” Chengrui pushed back, his happiness fading as he saw the smile fade for Jie’s face. She was looking away from him, the strands of her fair blocking her expression from him. “He showed them to me.”

“He–”

“Two circles, overlapping like ink stains in his hand.” Chengrui answered, noticing the tears in Jie’s eyes. He learned forward, carefully kissing them away from her face. He also didn’t want to see his beloved Jie cry, even if once again, fate had destroyed all of their careful plans. “When did they appear?”

“On his birthday. He didn’t even tell me. He knew I hid mine and just–” Chengrui interrupted her ranting with another kiss. This one was gentle as he did his best to calm her down, not wanting Jie to shoulder the blame for Yao’s fear. He knew she would blame herself, decide that if she had just accepted them herself, then their son wouldn’t have hated his own. He broke the kiss gently, closing his own eyes.

 “I wish I could take you both away with me.” Chengrui whispered, even though he knew it was a hopeless dream. “Then no one would notice the way qi is attracted to him.”

“That would make things worse. A marked Empress Consort? A marked Crown Prince? The advisors would have your head and mine,” Jie scoffed and Chengrui felt his heart twist in his chest. “Not to mention what the Heavenly Sect would do to us. It’s better this way. I can protect him. I can–”

“You don’t get to lie to me.” he whispered, feeling as her tears finally began to flow over his hand. “You can be scared with me, Jie. I’m scared too. Scared for you and Yao.”

The silence echoed around them as the wind stirred across the surface of the lake, cool and steady, brushing over the grass and carrying the scent of damp earth and plum blossoms not yet in bloom. Jie leaned into him then, her shoulders trembling, her fingers twisting tightly into the black cord in her lap as though it could somehow hold her together. They knew this might happen, but it didn’t make it easier to accept. Not after he had finally seen his son.

“I’m glad you got to see him,” Jie whispered and Chengrui nodded, not wanting to interrupt her thoughts. “We’ll be moved to the main residence in the city when he reaches my level.”

“If he’s anything like you, that won’t take long.”

“Worse because of you.” Jie laughed, but it was a hollow sound that reverberated through Chengrui’s chest. “Qi already reacts to him so strongly. We’re lucky everyone thinks he’s just a prodigy like me, otherwise they would have already guessed he has imperial blood.”

“Then we are both lucky his mother is so amazing.” Chengrui pressed a kiss into Jie’s hair, tightening his hold around her shoulders. His eyes flickered to the lights still reflected on the lake from the palace and Chengrui sighed as he released her, slowly working his way to his feet. “I should head back to the palace. I haven’t been there since I greeted my father this morning.”

“What, the First Consort still a fussy old man?”

“You know he’s just worried. Neither of us ever expected I would be the one to replace my mother.” Chengrui shook his head as Jie adjusted the package in her grip, offering her hand to him to help her stand. Yet, as soon as he did, it was as if Jie lost her balance, and Chengrui barely managed to catch her as her full weight landed on him. It was then he realized just how much Jie had changed in their seven years apart. 

She felt soft now in ways he didn’t remember. Not soft in weakness, but soft in the fullness of a body that had borne life, that had endured in quiet perseverance. Her waist no longer tapered as sharply as it once had, her hips fuller, her chest heavier where it pressed against his own. It startled him at first, this unfamiliar weight in his arms, and for a fleeting moment, he mourned how little of her transformation he had been allowed to witness.

Chengrui steadied her, but didn’t let go, his eyes trailing down her face to where her hand rested on his chest.

“Motherhood’s treated you well,” he murmured, the words slipping out before he could decide whether they were safe. “You look… I don’t know if I have the right to say it, but you look beautiful. Even more than before.”

Jie blinked, her cheeks flushed a shade deeper than the last of the sunset. She lowered her gaze, a small smile pulling at her lips, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“I had to grow into myself,” she said quietly, brushing imaginary dust from the front of her dress. “Children force you to. There’s no room to stay the girl I was.”

Chengrui's fingers lingered at her waist, not moving, only holding her there. His voice dropped, not from hesitation but from something older than guilt, something threaded with longing. “I wish I could give you that again.”

Jie’s head lifted sharply and Chengrui almost immediately regretted his words. There was an unmistakable look in her eyes, one he recognized all too well. She stepped forward, closing the space between them before he could retreat from what he’d said. Her hand caught his wrist where it still hovered against her waist, her grip unshaking.

“You can,” she said, voice low and steady, and Chengrui felt his heart move to his throat. “You still can.”

Chengrui laughed softly, but there was no humor in it. His thumb grazed the back of her hand, and he couldn’t meet her eyes. “You and I both know it’s not that simple. We took a chance with Yao and now both you and he are in so much danger because of me. I can’t just because I–.”

“You can.”

“Jie, the merchant–”

“What good is he if he can’t cover for me having a second child?” Jie insisted and Chengrui groaned, struggling to find a way to argue against her. “In fact, it would make the lie more concrete, since no one would doubt that he is Yao’s father if I have a second. So yes, you can want this.”

He opened his mouth, but the words caught in his throat like thorns, tangled in the silence between them. There was something ferocious in the steadiness of her gaze, something Chengrui was always scared and excited to see in her gaze. The same fire that had once made her square off with children twice her size when they tried to take food from her older siblings, the same heat that had made him fall in love with her before he even knew what love meant. It unlocked all of his restraint, just like it always did.

He exhaled, slow and uneven. 

“Your mother must have had excellent foresight when she named you Jie,” Chengrui whispered, wrapping his arms tighter around her waist. Jie chuckled as she wrapped her arms around his neck and he leaned down to press his forehead to hers once more, their breaths brushing against each other like the final threads of a tether being rewoven. “I can never win against you.”

“And you never will,” Jie whispered, and Chengrui let her lean up to close the distance between their lips. This time, he didn’t hold back as he kissed her, allowing his hands to thread through her hair, feeling the texture that had haunted his dreams for years. She melted into him, not in surrender, but in the way two halves find the seam where they once split. Her fingers curled into the back of his robes, and he felt the tremor in her chest as she breathed him in. She always had this way of grounding him, even when the world fractured around them, even when the future loomed sharp and impossible.

The kiss deepened, slow and deliberate, like a promise unfolding between them, stitched with all the pain and patience they’d endured. When they finally broke apart, the air between them shimmered with something fragile but real. Chengrui didn’t wait this time, swifting lifting Jie up into his arms as he began to move through the brush. He didn’t need to think about where he was going; it was the place that was always theirs. Where her siblings never found them, where their first kiss happened and where Yao was conceived.

It was theirs, and always would be.

“Say it,” she said quietly, her thumb brushing the corner of his mouth, smudging away some invisible shadow. “Not because I need to hear it, but because you need to say it.”

Chengrui’s breath caught. There were a dozen truths caught in his throat, all of them jostling to be first, but he knew which one she meant.

“I’ll always love you, Jie.”

***