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The wedding had left Yue feeling suspended in time.

She had been wholly raised within the cultural ideas of a harem, and educated to lead one when she had come of age. The Empress would say that she thrived within the confines of cumulative female strength, and she did so here and now, but her stomach maintained its uneasiness.

She had watched Ye Lanyi and her husband leave to celebrate their wedding, arm-in-arm. Her own children had been formally presented and were now known to the world. Shenlei was known to have his heir, and Tianlong had its peaceful successor. Factions gathered from far and wide to witness the splendor of a dynasty.

and no one seemed to need the Empress.

Yue was not one who relished the spotlight. She wore it well, but Heaven’s Mercy had always seen the attention of many as a price to pay for her position, not an end-goal of it all. She used these moments to observe, and to be still, in a way that she had not been able to since before Satriya’s own wedding.

Even before then, the woman hadn’t truly known rest and obscurity, as she had fought tooth and nail to bring Tianlong back to life, and then after the healer’s song which had bestowed her coat with a glittering luminescence, but had also spirited the princesses so far away.

She settled herself high above, as a spectator, wrapped in the sarlag. In many indescribable ways, it still smelled of Batu, even though his presence at her side had faded.

Another reason her mouth set itself into a small, mousy line at the tip of her pale muzzle.

She noticed a man watching with a similar thousand-yard stare and thought for a moment that his pelt was an interesting hue. The orchid recognized him as the guard sent by Lyra, to steward Fen and her cohort in the last leg of their journey.

The Empress smiled towards him, tipped the edge of her metaphorical hat, and then turned to the match below.

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