12. Pre-Wedding Nerves
Pre-Wedding Nerves
Emperor Ren
I have read this security report six times.
The guard rotation has not changed. The perimeter checks are identical to the ones I approved this morning. The document sits on my desk like an accusation, its edges worn soft from handling.
You are not reviewing security.
I am being thorough.
You are wearing a hole in the paper. Tianlong’s voice curls through my mind, equal parts amusement and irritation. Your wedding is in nine hours. Most men would be sleeping.
Most men are not responsible for the safety of an empire.
Most men are not staring at the same page while their thoughts circle a woman in the east wing.
I set down the report. Pick it up again. Set it down harder.
The candle has burned low. Beyond my window, the palace sleeps—or pretends to. Guards walk their patterns. Servants move through darkened corridors. Somewhere in the east wing, in chambers that will officially become ours tomorrow, she is either sleeping or not sleeping.
I find myself hoping she is not sleeping. I find myself hoping she is as restless as I am, turning in sheets that smell of lotus oil, thinking of—
You could go to her.
Protocol dictates—
Protocol. The word drips with three thousand years of disdain. You are the emperor. You dictate protocol.
That is not how protocol works.
It is exactly how protocol works. You simply lack the courage to admit it.
I should argue. I should point out the importance of tradition, the weight of ceremony, the political implications of being seen entering her chambers the night before—
I am already reaching for my coat.
Finally, Tianlong says. Something interesting.
The corridors are quiet.
I know every shadow, every turning, every guard watching from alcoves they assume I’ve overlooked. Twenty-two years of navigating this palace have taught me its rhythms better than my own heartbeat.
I am walking toward the guest suite. She agreed to this—one night of tradition, symbolic separation before the ceremony. I walked her there myself at sunset, kissed her forehead, returned to chambers that felt wrong without her in them.
That was six hours ago. My feet have made the decision my mind would not.
I reach her door before I’m ready for it. I should not be here.
The door opens before I can knock.
She’s awake. Of course she’s awake. She stands in the doorway in a sleeping robe of pale silk, her hair loose around her shoulders, and the lamplight catches the grey at her temples—the grey she refuses to let her ladies touch, the grey I have traced with my fingers more times than I can count.
One eyebrow rises in an expression I have learned to read as amusement.
“You’re supposed to be asleep,” I say.
“So are you.” She leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over the swell of her stomach. “And yet here you are. Outside my door. At midnight.”
“I was concerned about security.”
“You were concerned about security. In the guest wing. Where I am the most dangerous thing for three corridors.”
“…Yes.”
Her mouth does that thing—the left corner first, almost imperceptible, then the right catching up. I have catalogued every variation of that smile. This one means she is deciding whether to let me keep my dignity.
“I was waiting,” she says. “I gave you four hours before you cracked. You lasted six.” She tilts her head, studying me. “Impressive restraint, Your Majesty.”
Something shifts behind my ribs.
Those words should not affect me this way. Your Majesty from her mouth has never sounded like a title. It has always sounded like a dare.
“I knew,” I manage. “I knew you would be awake.”
“Then why did you agree to this ridiculous tradition in the first place?”
I have no answer. Or rather, I have an answer—duty, propriety, the weight of ceremony—but none of it matters now. None of it has mattered since sunset, when I watched her walk away and felt the silence in our chambers settle over me like something I could not breathe through.
“Come in.” She steps back, and this is an invitation and a surrender and a victory all at once. “Before someone sees the Emperor lurking outside a lady’s door like a lovesick page boy.”
I should protest the characterisation.
I step inside instead.
The door closes behind me. She smells of the pink lotus oil she smooths into her skin each night, and underneath it, something warm and familiar that I have never been able to name. Something that is simply her, simply home.
“Six hours,” she says again, softer now. Her hand finds mine in the half-dark. “I’m actually impressed.”
“I tried.”
“I know you did.” Her fingers lace through mine, and she draws my hand to rest against the curve of her belly. Beneath my palm, something flutters—a kick, a turn, a small life making itself known. “We both knew you would cave.”
“You could have stopped me. Sent me back.”
She looks up at me, and in the low light her eyes are dark and knowing and full of something I do not deserve but will spend the rest of my life trying to earn.
“Now why,” she says, “would I do that?”
I have no answer for this either.
She moves to the bed and sits on the corner.
Not the center. The center is where Dumpling has arranged himself with deliberate precision, orange fur bright against the dark silk, occupying the exact space where a second person might sleep.
His eyes open as I move closer—golden, knowing, insufferably smug.
“He knew you would come.”
“The cat knows nothing.”
“He has been saving your spot.”
“The cat,” I say carefully, “is territorial.”
“The cat is a prophet.”
Dumpling yawns. It is, somehow, the most self-satisfied expression I have ever witnessed on a living being.
“The cat is judging me.”
“The cat judges everyone.” Lián moves past me, and the scent of lotus follows. “You are not special.”
Lián settles into a chair by the window, tucking her feet beneath her. The moonlight catches the slight curve of her stomach—visible now, undeniable, a truth that still stops my breath when I allow myself to look.
“The physician came by earlier,” she says.
“Is everything—”
“Fine. Everything is fine.” Her hand rests on the curve, a gesture I have noticed becoming automatic. “Apparently she is a pomegranate now.”
I wait for context. None arrives.
“A… pomegranate?”
“The baby. They measure them in fruit.” Her voice is dry, her eyes bright with something caught between amusement and exasperation. “Last month she was a lemon. Now she is a large pomegranate. I have killed men with pomegranates.”
I have no response to this.
“Well.” She tilts her head. “One man. The point stands. It is not a reassuring unit of measurement.”
She is remarkable, Tianlong says quietly. Do you understand yet how remarkable she is?
I understand. I have understood for some time.
“You’re doing the face,” Lián says.
“I do not have a face.”
“The ‘I am the emperor and I have no idea what to do with this information’ face. You have it right now.”
She is not wrong. Your face is extremely loud. Tianlong agrees.
“My face,” I say with what dignity I can muster, “is appropriately neutral.”
“Your face is a declaration of bewildered affection and you know it.” She unfolds from the chair, and suddenly she is closer, and the room feels smaller. “Why are you here, Ren?”
The question hangs between us. I could answer with protocol—checking on her wellbeing, ensuring her comfort before tomorrow. I could answer with politics—discussing the ceremony, the guests, the implications.
Instead, I tell her the truth.
“I could not sleep.”
“Neither could I.”
“I kept reviewing security reports. The same report. Six times.”
“I kept counting the ceiling tiles. There are two hundred and forty-seven. Two hundred and forty-six and a half, if you account for the one the masons ruined.”
“That seems excessive.”
“So does reading a report six times.”
We stand in silence. Through the window, the moon hangs heavy and full, washing the room in silver. Tomorrow, everything changes. Tomorrow, we become Emperor and Empress in truth, bound by ceremony, witnessed by thousands.
Tonight, we are just two people who cannot sleep.
“Do you want to go flying?”
The words leave my mouth before I have approved them. I watch her expression shift—surprise, then consideration, then something that might be delight.
“Flying.”
“Tianlong. The mountains. There is a place I know, where—” I stop. This is madness. “It is late. You should rest. Tomorrow is—”
“Yes.”
“—a significant day, and the ceremony requires—”
“Ren.”
“—your presence at dawn for preparations, and—”
“I said yes.”
Silence.
“Oh,” I manage.
“Yes.” She is smiling now—not the sharp smile she uses as armor, but something softer. Something real. “Let’s fly.”
The passage to Tianlong’s lair is hidden behind silk hangings in my private corridor.
Blood and intent—my palm against cold stone, a pulse of warmth, and the wall shifts. Some things respond only to dragon-bonded. Some secrets have been kept for centuries.
The stairs spiral downward, worn smooth by generations of feet. The air grows warmer as we descend, carrying the scent of minerals and ancient fire. Crystals bloom from the walls—phosphorescent blue-white, grown over millennia in response to dragon presence.
Lián’s hand finds mine in the darkness. Her fingers are cool against my palm. I do not let go.
“Are you certain you should—”
“If you finish that sentence, I will push you off the dragon.”
She would, Tianlong confirms. And I would not catch you.
“I was merely—”
“I am eighteen weeks pregnant, not dying. I have fought wars in worse condition.”
“You have never been pregnant before.”
“I have never been a lot of things before.” Her grip tightens on my hand. “I am learning as I go. Get on the dragon.”
The lair opens before us—vast, glittering, ancient beyond reckoning. Tianlong waits at its heart, coiled among gold and crystals the size of men, his scales catching the light. His eyes—each larger than my head—fix on us with an expression I have learned to read as approval.