Dusk descended, and the setting sun gathered in the last of its glow.
A gentle twilight veiled all of Kelan Imperial City, and the bustling streets of the day gradually fell quiet. The evening breeze brushed softly over the palace's upturned eaves, dispersing the little heat that remained after the battle and bringing a tender peace.
Ten years apart, ten years of longing.
Separated for over a decade, Shiheng and Kelin Xiaoman had endured the scattering of war and the distance of years. Today, they had finally reunited in peace.
Inside the palace bedchamber, the lamplight was gentle and the air warm. There was none of the solemn formality of court, none of the icy severity of the divine paths across the heavens, only the quiet tenderness that belonged to the two of them.
More than a decade of separation, a thousand days and nights of concern, countless moments of worry and remembrance amid a world in turmoil-all surged into their hearts at that moment.
They sat quietly before the window as the evening breeze passed through the room, murmuring softly, slowly sharing all they had held in their hearts through more than a decade apart.
From their hurried parting back then and the journey into danger to the long years of gazing toward each other from afar; from the fear and unease of repeated upheavals in the imperial city to the desperation of surviving the war between gods and demons. Each experience, each event, plain yet weighty, spoke of ten years of bitter longing, and of a deep love that had never faltered.
Having weathered life and death and crossed the mountains and seas of passing years, all distance and estrangement had long since dissolved in the tenderness of their reunion.
Shiheng gazed at his wife, whose face remained