NOVEL WEB Chapter 263: The Morning After
The first thing I noticed was warmth.
Not the feverish burn of battle, nor the restless heat of campfires with soldiers pressed too close. This was steady warmth, the kind that seeped into my skin and softened my edges until I almost forgot I had edges at all.
The silk canopy above me stirred faintly with the draft of dawn. Someone must have opened the shutters, because thin light cut across the room, striking sparks against the gold inlay of the carved beams. I blinked against it, letting my mind catch up with where I was.
Mingyu's chambers. His bed. My bed now, I supposed.
The weight of the crown was not on my head, but I felt it in my chest. I had chosen this. Not just the marriage, not just the bed, but the life that came with it. An Empress. A wife. A woman who belonged to someone else and yet, somehow, belonged to herself more fiercely than ever before.
I shifted, and the blankets whispered against my bare skin. Memory caught me then—his hands, his mouth, the way he had looked at me as though nothing else in the empire mattered. I felt the ghost of it along my thighs, across my breasts, in the hollow where his body had pressed into mine until there was no space left at all.
My lips curved without my permission. I hadn't thought I could smile like that after everything we had done, everything I had seen. But here it was, soft and dangerous as any blade.
Mingyu wasn't beside me. His side of the bed was warm still, faintly indented, but empty. He had risen early. Of course he had. He was Emperor now, whether the coronation rites had been completed or not. The empire did not wait for dawn to finish arriving.
I turned onto my side and saw the faint shape beyond the screen—the low table, the robes laid out, the place where he had sat last night while pouring wine for us both. It looked different in daylight, stripped of the softness night lends to memory.
But the part that made my breath catch wasn't in the room. It was just outside.
Yaozu.
I could hear the measured cadence of his breathing, the kind he used when standing guard outside a door for hours. Steady, controlled, never betraying boredom or fatigue. He was waiting. Waiting for me, for Mingyu, for whatever storm the palace would decide to hurl against us next.
The guilt pricked sharp in my ribs before I could stop it. He had been mine before Mingyu claimed me with ceremony and silk. He had been mine when there was no crown, no throne, no guarantee of tomorrow. And now… now I had chosen a life that made him a shadow outside the door.
I pushed the covers aside, pulling on the robe draped over the bed's edge. The fabric smelled faintly of sandalwood and smoke, of Mingyu's skin. I belted it tight before stepping across the chamber, barefoot against the polished wood.
When I opened the door, the light struck me full in the face. Yaozu looked up, and for the briefest moment, his composure cracked. He looked at me as if I were still the woman who had pulled him through mud and blood, not the Empress wrapped in crimson silk.
His mouth opened, then closed. He didn't bow. He didn't need to.
"You should be sleeping," he said softly.
"You should be in here with me," I almost said, but the words lodged in my throat and I wasn't able to push them past my lips.
This wasn't the Devil's Playground. Reverse harems weren't a thing here, and now that I had all the eyes of the world on me, it wasn't like I would be able to go against their norms.
No matter how much I desperately wanted to.
Before I could say anything stupid, both Yaozu and I turned to where the sound of footsteps was coming from.
Mingyu.
He came from the far end of the corridor, attendants trailing behind him like ripples in water.
Guards, eunuchs, maids carrying trays—already his day was heavier than any sword he'd ever lifted. But his eyes found mine instantly, and the rest of the world might as well have disappeared.
He dismissed his entourage with a flick of his hand. They melted back, murmuring protests that died at the edge of his glare. When he reached us, his hand landed heavy but gentle on Yaozu's shoulder.
"Don't worry," Mingyu said, voice pitched low so only the three of us could hear. "I will never hurt her by saying she cannot love you as well."
Yaozu blinked, the words catching both of us off balance. Mingyu's grip tightened once, steady and sure.
Could it really be that simple? Could I really have everything that I wanted without it costing me a thing?
"That woman is like the wind," Mingyu continued as if my thoughts weren't racing away with hope. "If I try to hold her too tightly, she'll slip through my fingers. I can learn to share—if it is you."
The air seemed to shift around us, too heavy for breath and too light for standing still. Yaozu's jaw flexed, but he said nothing. I could see the storm in his eyes, the war between pride and devotion, jealousy and loyalty.
And me—I felt something break and mend all at once.
I had spent so long being feared, being used, being envied. I had spent longer still convincing myself I didn't need softness, didn't need to be held. Yet here they both stood—one who claimed me before the world, and one who would have burned the world to ashes just to keep me safe.
I didn't speak. There were no words for this. I simply reached out, catching Yaozu's wrist in one hand and Mingyu's in the other, holding them both like the lifelines they were.
Mingyu's mouth curved faintly. Yaozu's shoulders eased a fraction. And for the first time in too long, I let myself believe I could be more than a weapon. I could be theirs.
Inside, the empire would begin its whispering—about heirs, about ceremonies, about the witch who had bewitched the Emperor. Outside, Yan Luo would sharpen its knives. And Bai Yuyan would not sleep quietly in her gilded cage.
But here, in this narrow stretch of morning, I was allowed to breathe.
I released their hands and stepped back into the chamber. "Close the door," I murmured. "If the world insists on knocking, let it wait a little longer."
And they did.