Five years had passed since her wedding procession crossed the palace gates.
Five years—and the inner court still whispered.
The Queen Yǐn Lìhuá sat upright before the bronze mirror as dawn filtered through the silk curtains, pale and restrained. Her hair was arranged neatly, every pin placed with careful symmetry. Nothing about her appearance suggested neglect, nor longing, nor ache. She had learned long ago how to make stillness look like dignity.
Outside, the palace was already awake.
She rose before the servants arrived, as she always did.
When the door opened, she was already dressed.
The King Wèi Zhèn of Wèi kingdom arrived late to the morning meal.
As he always did.
She waited without impatience, hands folded calmly on her lap, gaze resting on the steam rising from the dishes she had personally overseen. The soup was kept warm. The rice had been replaced once already.
When footsteps sounded, she stood.
"You're back early today," she said softly.
He nodded, removing his cloak. "The council ended sooner than expected."
She stepped forward to help him unfasten the clasp. Their fingers brushed—briefly, accidentally. Neither reacted.
Five years had taught them restraint better than any lesson.
They sat opposite one another, the table between them both a distance and a boundary. She watched him lift his spoon, hesitated for the smallest moment, then taste the soup.
"It's good," he said.
She smiled faintly. "I'll tell the kitchen."
She did not tell him she had tasted it herself first, as always.
They played chess in the afternoons.
Not as king and queen—but as equals.
He favored long strategies, patient and decisive. She preferred quiet traps, sacrifices made early for victories much later. More than once, she had cornered him without his noticing until it was too late.
"You let me win," he accused once, frowning at the board.
She shook her head gently. "You didn't see it."
He studied the pieces again, then laughed softly. "I rarely do."
In moments like these, the palace felt distant. Almost unreal.
Almost like a life that could have been.
She took care of his robes, his seals, the placement of his sword by the bed—always close enough, always ready. When he returned from war, she stood beside him through the rituals, her expression composed even when blood stained his armor.
He never let her see his wounds.
She never asked.
They understood each other in that way.
Too well.
On the night of their marriage, he had not touched her.
She remembered it clearly.
The candles. The red silk. Her hands trembling beneath the sleeves as she waited.
Instead, he had asked for her hand.
Then he had taken a blade, made a small cut across his own palm, and pressed the blood into the cloth meant to prove her purity.
"You will always be protected," he had told her, voice steady, eyes resolute. "But I cannot be someone else for you. I cannot love you."
She had nodded.
What else could a queen do?
Now, years later, she watched him from across the chessboard, the way his brow furrowed when he thought, the way his gaze softened when it rested on her—just for a heartbeat too long.
Affection lived there.
She could see it.
But love?
She did not know.
And she did not ask.
Because queens did not ask.
They waited.
They endured.
They loved in silence.
And so she remained—his queen in name, his companion in habit, his unspoken truth in a palace that never listened closely enough to hear her heart.