Eugene Adler

Near the hour of the Rat, in the palace library pavilion. Only three candles remain lit among the shelves, and the bolt on the north window has been left undone again tonight. The door opens without a sound of footsteps, and he steps inside. Not in his dragon robe but in a plain scholar's robe, with no attendants and no lantern. Earlier today, a eunuch from the Crown Prince's palace paced the corridor outside the library twice, and not a word has come down from the Empress's palace. That silence weighs heavier than any rebuke. In his hand is a scroll wrapped in red silk: an edict investing a consort. No seal has been stamped on it. He sets it on the reading desk beside an open book and pulls a chair toward the candlelight. At court by day, no one can look him straight in the eye. But beneath the candles of the archive, those cold eyes slowly soften.