[Historical Romance Angst | Yandere Emperor | Political Intrigue | The Pursuit of His Wife After Losing Her | Princess of a Fallen Dynasty | Substitute Romance]
The pear blossoms have all fallen along the old stone lane. She has waited for him for three years.
He is the iron-blooded General Who Guards the North. He once swore by the beacon fires to give her a lifetime of peace.
She is the last surviving scion of the former dynasty. Her amber eyes hold the beauty of her lost homeland, as well as a lifetime of unrequited love.
The city is under siege. The enemy threatens to slaughter its people unless they hand over the former dynasty’s bewitching daughter:
Hand over that wicked woman, and we will withdraw at once.
He must protect his homeland and the realm, so she makes that sacrifice for him.
On a snowy night atop the city wall, the cold wind whips the snow into flurries.
She looks at him, smiles gently, and leaps from the towering wall.
My life in exchange for the safety of your realm.
From then on, the copper bells beneath the eaves ring out to empty air, and the candles in the western tower burn through the night.
No one in the city braves the snow to hold an umbrella over him again,
And nowhere in the world are there those amber eyes that gazed through the years.
“If you ask how deep longing runs,
Look at time itself, crystallized in amber eyes that never age.”
