The posture inadvertently hiked the thin silk tunic up her thigh, exposing a long, smooth expanse of pale, bare leg to the projection array.

Wangchen’s eyes tracked the movement.

The Glacial Marrow beneath him cracked loudly in the dark, a sound the array fortunately did not transmit.

"You will not believe the week I have had," Ji’an chattered on, her eyes shining as she looked into the frosty mirror. "I was traveling with my little brother, Xuan. And guess who decided to invite himself into my carriage? The Imperial Second Prince. That guy, Xiao Yichen."

In the freezing dark of the cavern, the ambient temperature plummeted.

The name struck Wangchen like a poisoned dart.

The image of the beautiful, manipulative Prince sitting in a confined space with his Ji’an, with this breathtaking, wet-haired, thinly dressed guy, caused a sickening surge of pure jealousy to rise in his throat.

"The Second Prince," Wangchen repeated, his voice silky, dangerously soft.

"How... unfortunate. I hope he did not cause you any distress."

’If he touched you,’ Wangchen vowed internally, his fingernails digging so deeply into his own palms that they drew blood.

’If he even looked at you the way I am looking at you right now, I will travel to the capital and freeze the blood in his veins until his heart shatters like glass.’

"He’s a psychopath!" Ji’an complained, throwing her hands up in exasperation, completely missing the homicidal aura radiating from her bestie brother. "He literally used my little brother as bait to get us ambushed by the Blood-Iron Syndicate! I had to kick the carriage door off its hinges! And then, we got dragged into this underground fortress..."

Ji’an launched into a highly animated, deeply expressive retelling of the infiltration.

She told him about the Null-Stone cuffs.

She completely omitted the part where she dressed up as a submissive and meek male servant and did a lap dance to assassinate Blood-Hand Tu, summarizing it merely as "I managed to hit the boss with my spatula while he was distracted!"

But she did not omit the aftermath.

"And after the dungeon," Ji’an sighed, rubbing her temples, "we had to rush to the capital for this massive Imperial Banquet. My eldest brother, Vanguard Commander Lin Feng, just returned from the war!"

Wangchen sat perfectly still.

Another man.

Another name.

Another variable surrounding his treasure.

"The Vanguard Commander," Wangchen smiled, tilting his head slightly, his dark eyes never blinking. "A grand reunion, I assume?"

"It was a nightmare," Ji’an groaned, leaning forward again, resting her elbows on the bed, looking at him with wide, exhausted eyes. "My brother’s terrifying, Wangchen. I swear, he can read minds. I did this sword dance at the banquet, and the noblewomen started looking at us weirdly. So I tried to run away. Even if he is my blood sibling, I can’t understand him at all!"

Ji’an paused, shivering slightly at the memory.

"And you know what he did?" Ji’an complained, gesturing wildly.

"He grabbed me by the back of my collar. He literally picked me up off the floor and carried me out of the banquet hall like a sack of flour. In front of the Emperor! It was so humiliating. And then he cornered me in a pavilion and started interrogating me."

Inside the seclusion cavern, the darkness became absolute.

The black ice creeping across the walls of Wangchen’s tomb exploded outward in jagged, lethal spikes.

’He carried him?’

The thought echoed in Wangchen’s fractured mind, a violent, unacceptable violation of his territory.

Another man had put his hands on her.

Another man had asserted physical dominance over her.

Another man had isolated her in a dark pavilion.

It didn’t matter that it was her biological brother.

In Wangchen’s twisted, possessive reality, no one was allowed to touch her.

No one was allowed to carry her.

No one was allowed to corner her but him.

The jealousy was no longer a cold, creeping thing.

It was a roaring, monstrous fire.

He stared through the projection at Ji’an.

She was looking at him with such absolute trust.

She was complaining to him, venting to him, entirely comfortable in her sheer, clinging nightgown, utterly unaware that she was speaking to a predator far more dangerous than any prince or general.

"He carried you," Wangchen repeated.

His voice was no longer a smooth hum.

It was a low, rough, gravelly rasp.

He leaned closer to the projection, his face filling her vision.

His dark, bottomless eyes bored directly into hers.

"That must have been... very upsetting for you, Brother," Wangchen whispered, a terrifyingly sweet, breathtakingly fake smile curving his lips.

"It was awful," Ji’an sighed, resting her cheek against her hand, her damp hair falling over her arm. "This whole place is awful. The politics, the constant scheming. Everyone wants something from me."

She looked into his dark eyes, her own silver-flecked gaze softening with a profound, genuine affection that made Wangchen’s heart thump wildly in his chest.

"I miss the mountain, Wangchen," Ji’an said softly, her voice carrying a vulnerable, quiet truth. "I miss our courtyard. I miss... I miss you, Little Puddle. It’s too loud here. I just want to come back and cook for you."

The absolute, devastating sweetness of her confession hit Wangchen like a tidal wave.

She missed him.

She was surrounded by imperial wealth, surrounded by powerful men who wanted her, and yet, sitting in her bed, wearing nothing but damp silk, she was looking into a mirror of ice and telling a monster that she wanted to come home, back to him.

The overwhelming rush of dark, triumphant euphoria that flooded Wangchen’s soul was intoxicating.

’He wants to come back to me,’ Wangchen thought, a genuine, terrifyingly beautiful smile finally breaking through his mask. ’He is mine. He has always been mine.’

"And I miss you too, brother Ji’an," Wangchen murmured, his voice dropping to a hypnotic, impossibly tender whisper. "The peak is... very cold without you. The tea feels like it has no flavor."