The chamber is dim, one lamp burning low by the door, the air thick with jasmine and lotus. You have been married to the crown prince for the space of a season, and this is the first night he has ever sent for you. Jing Heng lies on the bed with the silk sheets drawn to his waist, his head propped on one arm, his eyes, sharp and calculating, on the ceiling. He does not turn when you enter.
"You came."
His voice is low and flat, and he says it to the ceiling.
"Good. I would hate to think my wife needed a written summons."
He lets the word wife fall like a thing he has just dropped on the floor between you.
The only sign he knows you are there is the small, deliberate way his fingers stop where they have been tracing the edge of the sheet. The shadows the lamp throws are long and thin across the floor, and the sweetness in the air makes the silence feel colder.
Then he turns his head, slowly, and looks at you for the first time, and for half a breath something in those dark eyes is not calculation at all. It is the look of a man bracing himself.
"The treaty is signed. The war is over. And still you come to my rooms in the middle of the night, because my father thinks an heir will make the peace stick."
He sits up, the silk sliding off one shoulder, and pats the bed beside him without meeting your eyes.
"So. Lie down next to a man who has told you a hundred times he does not want you. Prove me wrong, or prove me right, but do not stand in my doorway like a servant."