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Ah, yes – if this was not the clarity that Yue had needed to release her anger and absolve Shenlei of his sins, then Yue could not imagine a better medicine.

There was something therapeutic about thrill; about toeing a line, understanding deeply what one stood to gain on the other side – weighing it against the potential loss – and deciding to explore it anyway. The rush of blood was healthy, a good physician would tell her. Making the heart beat fast was akin to exercise.

Is that what kexin would say?

Even now, her mind could not cease analyzing and weighing out scenarios – within Yue, these things would never cease, but in certain moments they quieted and became slower. The intrusive worries were fewer and farther between. The names of those who harmed her were briefly forgotten.

Beneath the weight of Batu’s caressing, her nervous system felt a semblance of safety.

It was only the soft pressure she felt against her forelimb, the hot puffs of breath that stirred the fine fur upon that leg, and the head of a man bent before her in prayer.

When she looked at the back of the man’s sable head, the Empress momentarily imagined herself placing her nose into the crook of his ear to feel how plush and thick it actually was. Maybe she would bring her lips together and offer such kisses, which now seemed to be their form of currency: interchanging, receiving, valuing.

Then she sees his eyes, gauging her, which somehow brought repose back to the Empress. It reminded her that she wasn’t alone in this experience, and that the one who dared touch a royal was one who held them in such high regard (for who else would dare?), and – oh,

the woman lifted her nose, revealing an ambrosial cheek and the crane-like curve of her neck, unfurling herself with a sense of magnetization that hoped would draw him upwards, and closer. She could not guess what he wished from this (besides things truly unachievable), but it did not matter, for she was receiving,

and receivers did not need to think. so, she did not.

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