The day the palace gates opened for her father, the whole capital seemed to hold its breath.
Lan Yue clutched the strap of the travel bundle slung across her shoulder, feet itching to run ahead. The stone avenue leading up to the Vermilion Gate shone like glass under the sun, guarded on both sides by bronze beasts with bared teeth. Rows of armoured soldiers stood at attention behind them, spearpoints catching the light. Compared to them, she was only an eight-year-old girl in a plain blue tunic, dust on her boots and excitement in every step.
"Yue'er." Her father's voice pulled her back. "Stay close."
Lan Zhen did not raise his voice, but even in a simple dark uniform he carried the weight of command. Today he wore a new set of armour—lacquered black, the plates edged with silver. The seal of the royal family glinted at his belt: proof of his new rank.
"Father," Yue whispered, eyes wide, "from today, you're the King's Chief Guard?"
"If His Majesty does not change his mind before the ceremony," he said dryly.
He reached out and straightened the knot of the cloth wrapping her bundle, fingers work-rough and careful. Only then did she notice that under the steel, his hand was trembling slightly. Lan Zhen, who had fought bandits on the northern border with a broken rib and never flinched, was nervous.
Yue's chest filled with a strange fierceness. She grabbed his hand with both of hers and squeezed.
"You'll be amazing," she said. "You always are."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "Is that so?"
"Of course. Someday I'll be like you," she added, chin lifting. "I'll become a guard and protect the King too."
Lan Zhen paused. For a moment something complicated flickered in his eyes: pride, worry, resignation.
"Guards don't wear hair ribbons," he said at last, reaching out to flick the red cord tying her hair.
"Then I'll cut it," Yue shot back instantly.
He actually laughed, soft and short. "Don't say that in front of your mother."
Before Yue could answer, a clear shout rang out from ahead.
"The Chief Guard-designate of the Royal Guard, Lan Zhen, has arrived!"
The great doors of the Vermilion Gate began to swing inward. Yue's breath caught as the world beyond revealed itself: layered roofs of glazed yellow tiles, painted beams like rainbows caught in wood, stone steps rising toward the throne hall like the back of a great dragon.
And at the edge of that world, three figures waited.
The first was a man in his forties in an embroidered dark robe, his bearing quiet but unmistakably noble: the King's younger brother, Prince Rui, the one tasked with receiving them. At his side stood two boys in pale brocade—one taller, one shorter, both straight as young pines.
The taller boy wore indigo, his belt clasp engraved with the royal emblem. His black hair was tied up with a jade crown, his features still losing the last traces of boyhood but already clearly handsome: straight brows, deep-set dark eyes, lips pressed in a line that seemed used to obedience from others. He looked perhaps thirteen.
Beside him, the younger boy in pale green was all bright eyes and restless energy, around eleven years old, gaze sweeping the courtyard as if everything were a new game.
Lan Zhen stopped a respectful distance away and went down on one knee, fist across his chest. Yue copied him, small body folding neatly, eyes lowered to the polished stone.
"Your Highness," Lan Zhen said. "Lan Zhen, commander of the North Border Guard, greets Prince Rui and Their Highnesses the Princes."
Prince Rui stepped forward with a smile. "General Lan, rise. His Majesty remembers well the arrows you took for him. Today is only what you deserve."
Lan Zhen rose but kept his head slightly bowed. Yue stayed kneeling, palm damp against the ground. Her heart thudded in her ears. She had never before been so close to royalty. She could feel their gazes, cool and weighing, brush over her small figure.
"Is this your daughter?" The question came not from Prince Rui, but from the older boy.
His voice was calm, light, but there was a core of steel in it, like a blade sheathed in silk.
Yue's head snapped up before she could stop herself.
For a breath, their gazes locked: his dark and unreadable, hers wide and direct. From this distance she could see the faint curve of his lashes, the fine line of his nose. A very faint scar—white against tanned skin—cut through his right eyebrow, old but not yet faded. It lent his face a gravity beyond his years.
She did not know royal etiquette well enough to lower her eyes.
"Yes, Your Highness," Lan Zhen said. There was a hint of apology in his tone. "Forgive her lack of manners. She was born in the barracks."
The older boy's eyes did not move away from Yue. Something in them shifted—just a shade, as if a stone had dropped into still water beneath ice.
"What is her name?" he asked.
"Lan Yue," she answered before her father could.
The younger boy in green let out a muffled laugh. Prince Rui's smile deepened. Lan Zhen's fingers twitched as if he wanted to clap a hand over her mouth.
The older boy's lips quirked almost imperceptibly. "Lan Yue," he repeated. "Moon of the Lan family."
He took two steps forward. The movement was unhurried but precise, like a sword stroke.
"Lan Yue," he said, voice very slightly lower now. "You raise your head and answer directly to a prince. Are you not afraid?"
Yue straightened her back.
"I'm a guard's daughter," she said. "I was taught that when someone speaks to me, I should listen clearly and answer loudly, or orders might be missed on the battlefield."
There was a short silence.
Then, unexpectedly, the younger boy in green clapped his hands once.
"Brother, I like her," he declared, grinning. He stepped forward until he stood beside the older boy, eyes almost level with Yue's. "I'm Zhao Yuan, Second Prince. When I become General, you can be under my command!"
"Second Brother," the older boy said, a faint warning in his tone.
Prince Rui chuckled. "Yuan'er, you are still years away from commanding more than your own inkstone."
The younger prince—Zhao Yuan—pouted but subsided.
The older boy inclined his head slightly, eyes returning to Yue.
"I am Zhao Shen," he said. "Crown Prince of this kingdom."
Yue's breath stuttered. She knew the crown prince's title, of course, from stories told around winter fires. But seeing him up close, hearing him state it in that quiet, matter-of-fact way, made the world feel suddenly very sharp.
"From today," Zhao Shen continued, "your father will protect my father."
His gaze brushed over her again, slower this time, as if taking measure not only of her clothes and posture, but of something beneath.
"And you," he added, "what is it that you wish to protect?"
Yue's answer rose without thought.
"The King," she said. "And my father. And…" She hesitated for the first time, then lifted her chin a little. "And this palace. All of it."
Zhao Yuan laughed again, delighted. "Ambitious!"
Zhao Shen's eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger, but in concentration. Then, to everyone's surprise—especially Yue's—he smiled properly for the first time.
It was like watching ice thaw in early spring.
"Very well," he said softly. "Then grow quickly, Lan Yue."
He turned, the jade crown in his hair catching a ray of sun.
"When you are strong enough," he said over his shoulder, "come and show me whether you can stand in front of what you want to protect."
Yue watched his back as he walked toward the inner courtyard, flanked by banners and guards, his dark hair a ribbon trailing behind him like a quiet promise.
Something small and burning settled in her chest.
She touched the worn hilt of the wooden practice sword at her belt, hidden under her cloak, and thought:
I will.
She did not know that from the moment she met his gaze at the gate, the Crown Prince's life had quietly, irreversibly, bent toward hers.
Nor could she know that years later, when steel and fire would rain over these same stones, he would remember this sunlight, this red ribbon in her hair, and the way her voice had not trembled when she spoke to a prince.
For now, she was only eight.
And he, watching her from the shadowed archway of the Vermilion Gate, had just fallen a little liking to the little girl.