Chapter 31 - The Road That Does Not Yet Exist

The Silk of Fate

Chapter 31 – The Road That Does Not Yet Exist

The sky over Dadu was silver with haze, the kind that softened the sun and made the air heavy. Idran walked the palace garden alone, his sandals nearly silent on the stone path. But inside, his thoughts were anything but still.

Would you leave with me?

She had asked it so gently.

Not with desperation. Not even with hope.

Just… possibility.

And it had lodged itself deep in his ribs like a thread tugged too tight.

He didn’t answer her that night.

Because the truth was—he didn’t know.

He hadn’t come here to fall in love. He hadn’t come to be tested like this. He was supposed to observe. To represent.

But now?

He thought about her every time he prayed.
Every time he opened a scroll and saw a word she once quoted.
Every time someone bowed to him too quickly, as if reminding him he was a guest, not a person.

Hasan found him sitting by the scholar’s terrace, a map spread in front of him—routes back to Tumapel, sea lines, trade ports.

“You’re planning something,” the scribe said quietly.

“I’m thinking.”

“About escape?”

“No,” Idran said. “About beginning.”

Hasan sat beside him without asking.

“Once,” he said, “you told me you wanted to build a kingdom where truth wore no crown.”

Idran didn’t reply.

“You’ve found the truth,” Hasan said. “But not the kingdom yet.”

“She is not a place.”

“No. But perhaps she is the reason to find one.”

Later that night, Idran returned to the observatory. The cracked dome. The stars hidden by cloud.

He sat cross-legged, lit a candle, and took out his journal.

He didn’t write at first.

Just sat with the question.

Then, in slow strokes, he began:

If I leave, I am no longer the prince they remember.
If I stay, I become the shadow they want.
But if I choose her—if we choose each other—then maybe neither memory nor shadow matters.

Maybe we write something new.

He folded the page. Pressed his fingers to the seal.

Then whispered aloud, almost to the stars—

“Yes, Lianhua.”

“If you go, I will go.”