In the dim quiet of night, long after the final palace drum had sounded and the servants retired to the shadows, the Emperor sat alone in his private hall, staring at an unfinished scroll.
He had dismissed all advisors, ignored the stack of memorials that required his seal, and silenced the eunuchs outside.
For the first time in years, he was not the ruler of the land.
He was just a man—haunted.
The strokes of the brush on his scroll had once flowed effortlessly, as natural to him as war or strategy. But now, each stroke paused halfway, stuttering like a heartbeat caught between life and death.
And every time he closed his eyes, her voice returned. Not Lady Yan's soft, measured courtly tone—but the voice of a different woman.
A girl from dreams. A girl who wore short, rough clothes and clutched her books like armor. A girl who looked at him like she hated him… and yet mourned him at the same time.
"You don't even see me, do you?"
"Why does it always hurt to be around you?"
He didn't know who she was. But her words pierced deeper than any assassin's blade.
In the modern world—before the fall—Kai Ren had always walked past her.
Eira Lin.
She had been in the same faculty, though several ranks lower in the university's obsessive meritocratic ladder. He had seen her in the corridors, arms loaded with books and folders, hair tied in messy buns, always late, always apologizing.
She was forgettable in that world. A quiet girl who wore grief like perfume, unnoticed by most.
But once—just once—he had noticed her.
He remembered walking into the university café one rainy evening, soaked and furious after a failed group defense. She had been behind the counter, writing something in a notebook instead of manning the till.
"Service," he snapped, impatient.
She looked up, startled. "Oh. Sorry, I—"
He didn't let her finish. "If you're going to write poems at work, at least serve the customers first."
Her face fell. She turned away silently, hands shaking as she prepared his coffee.
He had never thought of that moment again.
Until now.
Because the woman in the Phoenix Palace, the one they called Lady Yan… looked at him with the same hurt in her eyes. That quiet, familiar ache.
Meanwhile, beneath the stars in her chamber, Eira lay on a woven mat, staring at the wooden ceiling beams.
"Sleep, Your Grace," Mei urged softly. "You've walked too much today. You'll make yourself sick again."
"I'm not sick," Eira murmured. "Just lost in a world I wasn't meant to find."
Mei blinked. "Is this a poem?"
"No," she said, sighing. "It's a confession."
After Mei left, Eira sat up, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders, and walked quietly toward the edge of the balcony.
There, in the sky, the stars glittered in clusters she didn't recognize.
Constellations had changed. Her world was gone. And yet, the Emperor—the man she once loathed, the man who reduced her to tears with words that cut deeper than he ever realized—was here.
But he wasn't Kai Ren anymore.
Or maybe he was. Maybe this world hadn't changed him at all, just stripped away the power games, the career pressures, the masks they wore in their old lives.
Maybe now, he was finally the man beneath all of that.
And terrifyingly… maybe she was beginning to understand him.
The next morning, chaos erupted in the Inner Court.
Servants whispered of a stolen heirloom—a royal jade comb last seen in the Phoenix Palace. Eira was summoned immediately, accused without evidence.
She barely had time to defend herself before a cold voice cut through the courtroom.
"Enough," the Emperor declared from his throne. "Lady Yan's chambers shall be searched—by my personal guard only. If nothing is found, the matter ends."
Whispers surged.
Eira stood frozen. The Emperor… was defending her.
Later, she stood in the gardens, breathless, trying to understand why.
He found her there again, as if fate refused to keep them apart.
"You should be more careful," he said, folding his hands behind his back. "Enemies come in the form of smiles here."
"I'm aware," she replied, "but I've lived in a world where cruelty was just as subtle."
He looked at her. "Tell me about it."
"Would you believe me if I said there are cities built in the sky?" she asked, smiling faintly. "Metal chariots. Light that doesn't need fire. And people who forget to look at each other because they're always looking at glass in their hands."
"I dream of that world," he said quietly. "Every night."
Their eyes met.
And something fragile and dangerous passed between them.
He took a step closer, barely a breath apart.
"I never saw you," he murmured. "Not in that world."
"You never looked," she replied.
"I see you now."