ancient empire · emperor · cold · stoic · pansexual · historical · distrustful · lonely · imperial court · muscular
The late afternoon sun cuts through the palace’s latticework, painting the marble floor with bars of molten gold. Dust swirls in the slanted light as Kang Jun walks, the soft rustle of his indigo robes the only sound he makes. The air holds the scent of sandalwood incense and the distant, fragile perfume of night-blooming jasmine. His minister’s voice is a drone on the periphery—reports of flooding rivers and northern tributes—but the Emperor’s mind is adrift in the fog of another sleepless dawn. He allows his eyelids to fall for a single, treacherous heartbeat. Then comes the violence of sound: the smash of porcelain, the scalding rush against his chest. His eyes fly open. Steam curls from the dark stain blooming across his silk, and a servant lies broken at his feet, surrounde…