Katya’s maids helped her dress in the beautiful heavy silk dresses that she was slowly becoming accustomed to, but left her hair unbound after brushing it until it gleamed like a waterfall of liquid gold.
Eunuch Pang arrived to take her to the Imperial Study.
She didn’t understand every word he said, but she understood that is where he intended to take her, just like the previous mornings.
And Katya refused.
She shook her head in the negative, signaling she would not comply.
Her maids, who were genuinely coming to care for her, exchanged nervous glances.
No one refused the Emperor.
Ever.
Pang began to sweat profusely and chatter in fast paced Chinese that she had no hope of understanding.
Finally Pang threw her a look of actual terror and fled her mansion to report back to Emperor Wenzong.
When Wenzong heard Eunuch Pang stammer out that Katya refused an imperial command, his brain experienced a massive, structural short-circuit.
In forty years of ruling, Wenzong’s word had been the law of physics.
If he commanded a man to die, the man thanked him for the honor.
If he summoned a consort, she spent hours bathing in perfumes to prepare.
But this woman refused him?!
He couldn’t fathom such a thing.
He jumped up and ran from the study, imperial decorum be damned.
The sight of the calm, clinical Emperor physically leaping out of his throne, knocking over his inkstone, and literally running through the imperial corridors threw the entire palace staff into a state of apocalyptic panic.
The servants had never seen Bixia lose his cool, let alone look frantic and frazzled.
He was no longer acting like a god; he was acting like a desperate, terrified man trying to hold onto the only thing he actually loved.
Wenzong kicked open the doors to the Palace of Solitary Radiance, his heavy silk robes disheveled, his chest heaving as he prepared to roar his anger.
He expected her to be cowering, or at least bracing for his wrath.
Instead, Katya stood perfectly still in the center of the room.
Her unbraided hair fell wild.
Her blue eyes were completely frozen, devoid of the warmth she showed him during the desk kiss.
She did not kowtow.
She did not bow.
She looked at the absolute master of millions as if he were nothing but a common stranger who broke her trust.
Seeing her complete lack of fear does something completely overwhelming to Wenzong.
He realized you cannot bully someone who is entirely unafraid to die.
Wenzong had spent his life using his terrifying imperial posture to crush generals and kings.
But Katya’s absolute indifference to his status stripped him of his weapons.
His furious, booming voice died in his throat.
He realized that his crown, his armies, and his absolute laws meant absolutely nothing to her if he did not have her heart.
For a man who just discovered his humanity, her cold silence was more terrifying than an assassin’s blade.
When she refused to address him with honor or proximity, he realized she genuinely believed he spent the night in Consort Shu’s bed.
He saw the raw, hidden hurt beneath her stubborn chin.
The realization hit him with agonizing weight: He didn’t break her discipline; he broke her heart.
He didn’t want her to kowtow.
He didn’t want her to use his honorifics.
The very reason he was obsessed with her was that she was the only person alive who looked past his golden robes and judged him, the man.
Her defiance forced him to drop his pride completely.
He realized he couldn’t order her to come to his study as a sovereign—he had to plead with her as a man.
Wenzong closed the distance between them, his boots clicked against the stone floor, his breathing ragged.
He stopped just inches from her, his large, weathered hands trembled as he reached out—not to strike, but to desperately grab her shoulders.
He spoke in a low, cracked, and intensely raw Russian whisper, his mask completely shattered in front of the empty pavilion, “You think I touched her, Katya?
I sat at her table and the food tasted like sand!
I looked at her face and all I could see was your tears!
I ran through the palace in the dead of night because my body refused to be near anyone but you!
I just tore up the customs of forty years to grant her family an adoption decree just so I could keep myself for you!
And you look at me now as if I am your executioner?”
Katya’s frozen posture fractured.
Her blue eyes widened as the realization of what he actually did hit her brain like a lightning bolt.
She looked at his frazzled hair, his wrinkled silk, and the absolute, terrifying vulnerability in his dark eyes.
The impasse began to crack.
She stood staring at him, her breath hitching in her throat, her brain violently struggling to process the sheer, colossal weight of what this sovereign had just done.
He hadn’t just thrown an imperial tantrum.
He looked frazzled.
His silver-streaked hair was loose, his expensive royal silks were wrinkled, and his dark eyes were wide with a desperate, terrifyingly raw vulnerability she had never seen on a man’s face before.
He had completely abandoned his crown, his logic, and his dignity—all because he was terrified of losing her.
The lingering bitterness of her jealousy vanished into thin air.
Before Wenzong could finish catching his breath, Katya stepped directly into his space.
She didn’t bow, she didn’t use an honorific, and she didn’t say a single word.
She simply reached up with her linen-wrapped hands, wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, and buried her face directly into the crook of his collarbone.
Wenzong let out a low, ragged sound that was half a groan and half a sigh of pure, suffocating relief.
His large, powerful arms locked around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest so hard it bruised.
He buried his face into her wild, unbound blonde hair, breathing her in like a dying man finally breaking the surface of a frozen river.
He truly couldn’t hold anything back from her now.
The stoic Emperor who had treated people like chess pieces for forty years was permanently gone where she was concerned.
He was completely defenseless against her, entirely willing to strip his soul bare just to keep her anchored to his side.
Once the emotional storm settled, Katya finally agreed to go with him.
When they walked back through the palace corridors, Eunuch Pang and the maids trailed fifty paces behind them, keeping their heads down, completely traumatized by the morning’s events.
They entered the forbidden Imperial Study, and the dynamic of the room changed forever.
Wenzong cleared a small, comfortable corner of his desk, pushing aside ancient legal texts to make room for her.
For the next few days, Katya sat across from him, reading the leather-bound Russian books she had discovered, occasionally looking up to ask him what a complex Chinese character meant.
Wenzong would take a break from his grueling statecraft, look at her unpainted face, and patiently teach her the language of his ancestors, his low baritone voice wrapping around her native tongue with a deep, quiet pride.
They were happy.
They were safe.
But the quietness of the library was a fragile bubble, and the palace outside was already curdling with new malice.