The banquet for the Northern envoy's visit drew the entire court into the Hall of Lasting Peace in their finest silks, and Yan Zhao, seated at his father's left hand in deference to rank he'd nearly forfeited eleven days into his own marriage, watched the proceedings with the particular vigilance of a man who had learned, the hard way, that court gatherings were rarely as peaceful as their venues claimed to be.

It was Lady Su Wan, a minor nobility, recently widowed, angling with transparent ambition for a more advantageous second match who made the evening's first mistake.

"Consort Ji Chen," she said, settling beside him with the practiced grace of a woman who had spent years perfecting the art of appearing harmless while drawing blood, "I confess myself curious. Qingyun Sect disciples are known for considerable... stamina, are they not? One imagines that must be wasted, in a marriage to a prince so limited in what he can offer in return."

The words were pitched low, intimate, calculated to seem like nothing more than idle court flirtation to anyone not listening closely enough to catch the cruelty folded inside it.

Yan Zhao, four seats away, heard every word.

He watched his husband's face, watched for the flicker of discomfort, the diplomatic deflection he'd come to expect and found instead something that made his blood go very cold and very still: a fraction of a pause before Ji Chen answered, the kind of pause that meant the words had actually landed, however well he disguised it after.

"My husband offers a great deal more than this court seems capable of recognizing," Ji Chen said, light and pleasant, "though I confess I'm flattered you've given his limitations so much thought, Lady Su. One might almost think you'd rather discuss them with me than with him directly."

It was a deft redirection. It was also, Yan Zhao understood with sudden, total clarity, not enough because the damage of the insult had already been done the moment it was spoken, regardless of how gracefully Ji Chen turned it aside, and he was abruptly furious in a way that had nothing to do with his own pride and everything to do with watching someone try to use his disability as a weapon against the one person who had refused, consistently, to treat it as one.

"Lady Su." His voice cut across the table, cold and absolute, and the surrounding conversation died instantly. "I find myself curious about something as well. Tell me in your considerable experience evaluating men's worth by what they can offer in return, as you so delicately put it, what exactly have you offered anyone, beyond a dead husband's title and an appetite for insulting better people than yourself at banquets you were fortunate to be invited to?"

The hall went utterly silent.

"Third Prince—" Lady Su's composure cracked visibly.

"You came to my father's table to discuss my marriage as though it were a transaction you were entitled to audit," Yan Zhao continued, voice never rising, which made it somehow more dangerous than if it had. "I have led armies, Lady Su. I have buried men I loved more than I will ever love most of this court, and I have done it while keeping every soldier under my command alive who could possibly be saved. My legs do not walk. My judgment of character remains entirely intact, and it has just identified you as someone who mistakes cruelty for wit and proximity to power for relevance. I would ask you not to speak to my husband again, in my presence or otherwise, unless you have something to say that isn't beneath the dignity of this hall."

Lady Su rose, color high, and excused herself with as much grace as the moment allowed, which was not much at all.

The silence that followed her departure stretched long enough that Yan Zhao became aware, gradually, of every eye in the hall fixed on him, not with the old pity, he realized slowly, but with something closer to the wary respect he hadn't felt directed at himself since before the poisoning, since before the chair, since before he'd become, in this court's collective estimation, a cautionary tale rather than a man.

Beside him, Ji Chen's expression had gone very still, very careful, and when Yan Zhao finally glanced at him, he found his husband watching him with an intensity that made his pulse do something complicated and unwelcome.

"You didn't need to do that either," Ji Chen said quietly, once the hall's attention had moved elsewhere.

"I am aware that I did not need to." Yan Zhao kept his eyes on his wine cup, unwilling, suddenly, to meet the look on his husband's face directly. "I wanted to. There is a difference, and I find I am no longer interested in pretending there isn't, for your benefit or my own."

Ji Chen didn't answer right away. When Yan Zhao finally risked a glance sideways, he found his husband's jaw working, his throat moving once like a man swallowing something too large, and his eyes, in the lantern light, suspiciously bright.

"Careful, Your Highness," Ji Chen said, voice rough. "A man could start hoping, hearing things like that."

"Then perhaps," Yan Zhao said, very low, surprising himself with the admission even as he made it, "a man should."