Everything the future empress spoke of—the worries, the fears—was within the range of what he had already predicted.
Still, facing him, a being who was no longer fully human, she did not shrink away.
She spoke clearly, her tongue sharp.
She was a woman of proper age, so it was natural she would dream about her ideal partner, but surely she must learn to compromise.
"This will drag on for a long while again," Somnus muttered with a sigh, his true feelings slipping out.
When Senel said she envied him for being loved by Li Shen, the words slipped from him without thought.
She could say such a thing only because she did not know the truth.
"Li Shen does not love me."
Even stripped of memory, even trembling in fear, the first name Li Shen had reached for, the one he cried out, was not him.
It had been the name of another man—someone with the same hair, the same face, the same voice as him, a man who was already dead.
There was no way he could win against that man.
