The night hung heavy over the imperial camp, the muffled roar of soldiers and the distant clash of training spears echoing like a heartbeat beneath the heavens. Tents flickered with lamplight, yet one pavilion remained strangely quiet—the Emperor's.
Inside, Rui sat near the lattice window, his pale fingers trailing against the wooden frame. The soft candlelight painted his face in hues of shadow and gold, his eyes lowered as though he were staring at something far away—something only he could see.
Li Yuan pushed through the flap, the iron of his armor glinting faintly. He had just returned from another council of war, where ministers whispered of omens and generals debated strategy until their voices grew hoarse. But the moment he saw Rui sitting there—distant, unreachable—the world of politics felt like smoke against fire.
"You've avoided me again," Li Yuan said softly, setting aside his gauntlets. His voice carried neither command nor plea, only a trace of weariness.
Rui did not look up. "There is a war outside, Your Majesty. You should be with your soldiers, not wasting time here."
Li Yuan's jaw tightened. He crossed the room, his boots heavy against the wooden floor, until he stood directly behind Rui. "And yet I find no peace among my soldiers. Only here."
Rui's breath caught at the words. He forced himself to look away, out the window, where the night sky seemed unnaturally bright with stars. "You shouldn't say things like that," he murmured. "Not when everything around us is breaking apart."
Li Yuan reached out, his hand hovering just above Rui's shoulder but not quite daring to touch. "Then tell me what you want from me. Tell me to stop, and I will."
Silence stretched between them, taut and fragile. Rui's lips parted, but no sound came. His heart beat painfully against his ribs—half of him longing to yield, the other half terrified of what yielding meant.
"Li Yuan…" Rui whispered at last, his voice trembling, "if I give in—if I let myself be drawn into you—then what happens when the heavens themselves demand a price?"
Li Yuan's hand finally fell onto his shoulder, firm yet shaking with restraint. "Then let them demand it from me, not from you."
Rui turned sharply at that, his dark eyes clashing with Li Yuan's, sparks leaping between them like unsaid words. The tension swelled—close enough that Rui could feel the warmth of Li Yuan's breath, close enough that if either of them moved even an inch, the fragile wall would shatter—
And then it did.
Not by them. By the sky.
A thunderclap ripped through the heavens, so sudden that the candle flames died in an instant. The pavilion shuddered as if seized by invisible hands. Rui gasped, rising to his feet just as a rift split the night above the camp.
Through the window, the stars blinked out, swallowed by a tearing wound in the sky. From it bled a light not of the sun nor moon—searing, white-blue, like lightning frozen into shape.
"Another omen…" Rui whispered, horror and awe mingling in his voice.
But this was no omen.
Figures began to descend, silhouettes of impossible grandeur—gods draped in celestial fire, their eyes twin spheres of judgment. The ground itself trembled beneath their arrival, and soldiers outside screamed prayers or curses as the heavens themselves took form.
The pavilion doors burst open, and General Xie stormed in, his blade drawn. "Your Majesty! They're here!" His scarred face was pale under the firelight that poured from the sky.
Li Yuan seized Rui's hand instinctively, pulling him closer. Rui flinched but did not let go, his knuckles white against the Emperor's grip. For the first time, their hesitation vanished—not because they had chosen to, but because the heavens had forced it from them.
Outside, the gods' voices rolled across the battlefield like crashing seas:
"Mortal kings, stolen bloodlines… your war defies heaven's order."
The soldiers fell to their knees, but Li Yuan stood unyielding, his sword flashing free in defiance. Rui stood at his side, robes billowing in the unnatural wind, his heart a storm of terror and resolve.
The candlelight, the intimacy, the near-confession, all of it was gone. In its place stood something larger, something neither of them could deny:
Their struggle was no longer theirs alone.
The heavens themselves had entered the war.