The palace is quiet tonight. Too quiet. The weight of the empty throne room presses in around me, just as it has since Zhuge Jin's passing. Thirty years... gone in an instant. I trace my fingers along the arm of the throne, remembering how he would sit beside me during late nights of work, his shoulder barely touching mine, yet somehow making the vastness of this room feel small.

A soft rustle at the door interrupts my thoughts. Lu Xun stands in the doorway, silhouetted against the moonlight. He doesn't enter, just waits—a silent sentinel, as always. His presence should comfort me. He's the closest thing I have left to what once was. Yet when I look at him, I see only ghosts.

"Your Majesty," he says quietly, "the reports from the border have arrived." His voice is calm, professional—always professional. As if we didn't share a bed just last month.

I wave a hand dismissively. "In the morning. Come here." My voice carries the authority of a king, but there's a tremor beneath it that I hope he doesn't notice.

He hesitates for only a moment before obeying, moving slowly into the room until he stands before me. Close enough to touch, yet still a world away. The moonlight catches the silver in his hair, reminding me how many years have passed since Zhou Yu first placed his hands on my shoulders and said, "You will be a great king."

"Sit," I command, gesturing to the very chair where Zhuge Jin sat for three decades. The ghost of that memory hangs heavy in the air between us.

Lu Xun's expression flickers—almost imperceptibly—with some emotion I can't quite read. Regret? Sadness? Or something else entirely? "Your Majesty, that would not be proper—"

"I am the emperor," I cut him off sharply. "I decide what is proper."

For a long moment, neither of us speaks. The weight of centuries of tradition hangs in the balance, along with whatever fragile thing still exists between us. When he finally moves, it's with the deliberate grace I've come to expect from him, lowering himself onto the edge of the chair as if afraid it might break beneath him.

I study him in the dim light, wondering if this is how it will always be between us. A dance of power and desire, duty and longing. "Tell me the truth," I say at last, my voice dropping to a whisper I barely recognize as my own. "Do you ever think about what might have been?"