The courtyard outside the princess's residence was bathed in the pale, sharp light of late morning. Shen Han had not planned to be here. He had spent the last hour walking with the restless, ground-covering pace of a soldier with too much to think about and no enemy to strike.
He moved through the Tughril palace with a map in his head that no longer fit the reality before his eyes. Eventually, his feet pulled him toward the one person who was supposed to be his North Star.
He stopped at the edge of the stone archway, his hand resting on the cold stone.
Lian Zhi was there. She sat on a low stone bench, a scroll spread across her lap, reading with a focused intensity that suggested she had claimed this corner of the morning for herself. Her hair was pinned simply, without the heavy gold ornaments of a Hua princess or the fur-lined crown of a steppe queen.
