Love and Duty
The days that followed passed with careful restraint, each one layered with formality that concealed more than it revealed. Yang Yuhuan resumed her place within the inner palace, attending rituals, observing etiquette, speaking only when spoken to. To the court, she was calm, devoted, unchanged.
Inside, she was anything but.
She felt the emperor's presence even when he was nowhere near—an awareness that followed her through corridors and courtyards, through the soft rustle of silk and the distant murmur of court affairs. It was not desire alone that unsettled her, but the knowledge that she mattered in a way that could not be named.
Xuanzong, too, found no refuge in duty.
Council meetings stretched long into the day, officials debating grain, borders, tribute. He listened, responded, ruled—yet his thoughts wandered. More than once, a minister repeated himself before the emperor realized he had not heard.
"Your Majesty?" an attendant prompted gently.
Xuanzong nodded, offering a measured reply, but his patience wore thin. Duty had always steadied him. Now it felt like a wall closing in.
That evening, rain returned to Chang'an.
Yuhuan stood beneath the eaves of the inner court, watching droplets gather and fall from the curved tiles. A familiar voice spoke behind her.
"You favor quiet places."
She turned and bowed. "Your Majesty."
Xuanzong stepped beside her, leaving a respectful distance between them. The rain blurred the palace beyond, enclosing them in a moment that felt oddly separate from the world.
"When I was young," he said, "I believed duty and desire moved in the same direction. That a ruler could want what he must do."
Yuhuan listened, saying nothing.
"I was wrong."
She glanced at him, careful, searching his expression. "And now?"
"Now," he said, "I understand the cost of wanting what should not be taken."
The honesty in his voice stirred something painful and tender in her chest. "Then let it go," she said softly. "If it will harm the realm."
Xuanzong smiled faintly. "If only letting go were an act of will."
They stood in silence as rain traced silver lines across the courtyard stones.
Far from the inner palace, Prince Li Mao knelt before an ancestral tablet, incense burning low. He prayed not for answers, but for endurance. Whatever had been taken from him, he would not disgrace his lineage by resisting fate.
Back within the palace walls, Lady Yang received subtle signs of success—an invitation here, a favor there. She read them carefully, pleased but cautious. Power, she knew, rewarded patience as much as ambition.
That night, Yuhuan lay awake, her thoughts tangled between the emperor's words and her own conscience. Love and duty did not stand opposite one another, she realized.
They stood side by side.
And choosing between them would demand a price she was not yet ready to pay.