Chapter 14
The fourth day of celebration began like any other.
With Vivian.
Hiding.
In her room.
Again.
The message crystal pulsed.
A soft flicker—blue-tinted this time—blinked in the corner of her desk like a polite cough trying not to be intrusive. Not urgent. Not formal.
Just persistent.
She didn't reach for it.
She sat motionless in the quiet of her study, one hand resting lightly on a calligraphy brush she hadn't lifted in half an hour. The scroll in front of her was a half-finished inventory of outer ward patrol enchantments.
Irrelevant now. The last stroke had dried mid-sentence.
The crystal pulsed again.
Fifth time.
She sighed through her nose and flicked it open with a thought.
The surface warmed. Glyphs bloomed to life—tidy, private sigil-scrolls. One after another.
All personal.
All about him.
"Viv, be honest—are you sealing the bond or not?"
—Meilin Zhang, Third Princess of the Floating Jade Court
"I love a man with grit. I wonder if that determination holds up in the bedroom."
—Yin Suri, War College Valedictorian, 4th Cycle
"You can't leave him untouched forever. You know the court has rules about second spouses if a bond is left 'unacknowledged' too long."
—Qiao Lan, Minister's niece, expert gossip
Vivian dismissed them with a flick.
Then a seventh scroll shimmered to life.
And her stomach sank.
"Vivian. You know what I'm going to say. You've made your position clear—no one faults you for that. But you can't ignore what he's becoming. If you don't claim him, someone will. Are you really okay with him having a second or third wife?"
—Shen Minhua, Daughter of the Peacock Sect. One of the Four Great Beauties.
Vivian glared at the message.
Minhua actually signs her name with "One of the Four Great Beauties" now? Of course she does.
She closed the message. Too hard.
She stood. Paced.
Once. Then twice.
Her slippers made no sound on the lacquered wood. The silence of the room felt too symmetrical. Too balanced.
It hadn't been supposed to go like this.
He was not supposed to matter.
That had been the agreement. A ceremonial alliance, cloaked in dignity. Her mother's sentimental debt, dressed up as political obligation. Vivian had agreed because it was clean. Detached. Strategic.
No intimacy. No risk. No weight.
And now?
Now the Empire had watched him take a sword meant to crush him—and fail.
Watched him rise again—bruised, winded—and dismantle her brother in a fight without magic. Without pretense.
No aura.
No swordlight.
Just movement.
Just presence.
The Path Icons had clipped the moment into a dozen trending reels—Ethan catching Nathan's wrist, pivoting, and dropping him to the stone like a bag of flour. The elegance of it—the composure—was already being mimicked in sparring halls across two provinces.
Martial arts based on mechanics, people were saying. Getting back to basics.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
It was what came after.
Yesterday, while Vivian had been attending to other things, a Path Icon—she still didn't know who—had recorded a private meeting: her father. Ethan. Alone in the ancestral hall. The transmission stone. The gift meant to be given publicly… offered in private.
A breach of protocol.
A direct violation of ceremony.
And her father hadn't punished him.
He had accepted the gift. Spoken his approval. Included Ethan by name.
Ethan had done the impossible and given her father a gift he'd wanted for more than twenty years.
To say her father was pleased would be an understatement.
The footage leaked. It spread like a flood after spring thaw.
Everyone saw it.
Even the Imperial Household.
Apparently Princess Sophie had seen it and was already making inquires though none of that was confirmed.
And from there, the moment escalated. Not a scream. Not a scandal.
Just a ripple the size of a tsunami. A perfect wave of respect rolling through every noble house in the Empire.
And she hadn't even known it happened.
That was the part that made her fingers curl too tightly against her palms.
He hadn't told her.
Hadn't sought her permission. Hadn't asked for help. Hadn't explained himself.
He'd just moved.
And now everyone was looking.
She sat back down. Hard.
He hadn't really spoken to her since the wedding.
He wasn't sulking.
He wasn't chasing.
He just… wasn't there.
And yet—somehow—his presence kept expanding.
And bloody hell, everyone was reminding her.
The imperial court's rules were precise: noble marriages had a ceremonial season. Thirty to ninety days. If the bond wasn't sealed—acknowledged—it defaulted to "political." And both parties could pursue other arrangements. The bloodbond would weaken. But it wouldn't sever.
That was fine.
Acceptable.
If her husband had just stayed in the background.
But now?
If a man or woman remained unclaimed during the ceremonial season, they could receive sanctioned proposals. Legacy requests. Consort petitions.
And if the spouse didn't object—
They could accept them.
Vivian could take a partner if she wished. That was her right. Her power. She had intended to do so.
But so could he.
If someone of equal or greater rank issued a formal inquiry—particularly someone from a visible bloodline—Vivian's refusal might won't even matter.
Someone like Shen Minhua.
Who just happened to be obsessed with mana arts and mana-tech.
Or Princess Sophie who was a lore obsessed academic.
Neither would say anything directly. Minuha wouldn't.
She was too elegant. Too smart.
Princess Sophie wouldn' either; she rarely got her hands dirty directly.
But the warning was there.
If you don't move, someone else will.
Not to steal him.
To share him.
Vivian's jaw tightened.
She didn't love him.
She didn't even know him well enough to like him.
But the idea of another woman laying claim—publicly, politically on her husband.
It made something sharp and molten curl low in her gut.
It wasn't jealousy.
It wasn't.
She didn't do jealousy.
She did authority.
And she had left a space. A silence.
Now the Empire was filling it for her.
Vivian turned back to her desk.
Another message was already waiting. Tagged with the seal of the Peacock Sect.
She didn't open it.
Instead, she looked at her reflection in the black-glass window.
Saw the clean edge of her cheekbone.
The slight flare of her nostrils.
The faintest tension at the corners of her mouth.
She was losing something.
And she didn't even know what it was yet.