Chapter 33
Her dress was prettier than anything she’d ever seen before. With its heavily embroidered gold beads along the sleeves, the skirt, and the belt, Daiyu could barely walk without feeling like she was carrying the weight of the empire on her body. Scarlet silk covered everything that wasn’t doused in gleaming gold. Her hair was woven together into a high updo with a fancy gilded headdress to go with it and her makeup covered her face like she was a painted doll.
She should have felt beautiful when she entered the palace hall, with everyone gaping and gazing at her like she was a prize, but she felt out of place. Like a picturesque statue forcing itself to walk when its legs were too stiff. She didn’t belong among these nobles. Or at least, she felt like she didn’t.
They stared and sent their greetings when she was seated on the dais, but she couldn’t ignore the fakeness of their smiles. The way they seemed to laugh behind their bejeweled fans. Or the way the women sized her up like she didn’t belong.
And the women … Oh, the women.
They were dressed just as fancy as she was, even though she was the bride. It was clear what they were trying to do. They wanted to steal Muyang right from under Daiyu’s nose. At her own wedding to him.
It was bizarre. It was infuriating. And she hated them all for it.
“I thought you would look happy on your wedding day,” Muyang murmured into her ear, his warm breath tickling her neck and sending a shiver down her spine. “If you grind your teeth any longer, I’m sure people will think I’m holding you against your will.”
Daiyu barely glanced over at him but eased the iron-like grip she had of her own hands. She couldn’t look at him the entire evening. Not with the dancing people performing dragon dances, or the hum of the music weaving through the intricate vermillion-and-gold décor of the grand hall, or with the throngs of people dressed in clothes worth more than a brick of gold. She was on a battlefield of her own with all these luxuries surrounding her, and the last thing she needed was the distraction Muyang offered.
Because he was a grand, grand distraction that took the cake.
Dressed in deep maroon robes laced with gold, with his inky, midnight hair pulled together by a dragon-carved gold crown, he appeared like a famed dragon emperor. There was something hauntingly beautiful and terrifying about the smile he wore. Like he was a demon-general that had been victorious in battle. And Daiyu couldn’t meet his gaze, not when he took her very breath away.
Not when he was sitting inches away from her.
“Daiyu.” He grasped her hand and she inadvertently jolted at the small touch, her gaze flying over to meet his glittering, black eyes. “You’re not acting like yourself.”
Her throat was too tight, her hands curling together subconsciously, and her head was too heavy with the ornaments hanging into her hair. She couldn’t see past the sea of unfamiliar faces regarding her like she was a sheep sent to slaughter. Even Muyang’s words seemed to come out garbled, like she had a filter covering her eyes and ears that only honed in on the negativity geared her way.
“Daiyu?” He squeezed her hand.
“I’m well,” she finally managed, searching through the crowds for Wang Yanlin, who—she was sure—would inevitably cause a scene. She could have been any of the fancily dressed women crowding the dais, the tables, and trying to catch the emperor’s eye. She could have been waiting to sink her teeth into Daiyu when she wasn’t looking.
Muyang intertwined his fingers in hers, forcing her to rip her attention away from the hordes of people. He watched her with a grim expression. “What’s bothering you so much that you can’t even look at me?”
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to meet your gaze?”
“You are my wife today.” His voice was smooth and he brought her hand up to his soft mouth, planting a kiss against the back of her hand. “You should look at no one but me.”
“Your Majesty, what are you doing?” she whispered, feeling the stares being sent their way.
“Muyang.” He leaned closer as he murmured into her ear. As if they were sharing a lover’s secret. As if they were the only two people in this crowded room. “Call me by my name.”
“We’re not alone.”
“We could be.”
“If you desire it, Your Majesty, then I will oblige,” she said without thinking too hard about what she was saying. The response came automatically, just like the other phrases she had learned to say while at the palace. “But,” she included, glancing over at him with a raised brow, “I would prefer to stay at my own wedding.”
“Then we shall stay.” He kept her hand on his lap, his voice dropping an octave lower. “But I will keep this hand in mine until it’s time we leave.”
She could feel the flush of warmth scaling up her neck. With the amount of powders and makeup she had caked onto her face, she doubted anyone else could tell. “Why?”
“So you don’t flee at the first chance you get,” Muyang said with a touch of amusement. “You look like you either want to run as far away as possible, or that you want to skewer a few people alive. If it’s the latter, we can certainly change our plans for entertainment for the evening.”
A soft laugh escaped from her lips. The first crack in her barrier. “I’m not thinking of destroying anyone, Your Majesty.”
“Muyang.”
“Muyang,” she added in a whisper.
Seeming satisfied with that answer, he turned to stare at the people enjoying their wedding. She could see the Peccata in the distance, congregating around one of the tables stacked with food. They ate and laughed amongst one another. A few tables away, she spotted Commander Yao Bohai, General Fang, and his wife Jia, and a few other familiar faces. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the drinks, the foods, the entertainments. In the center of the hall, dancers bedecked in colorful, vibrant costumes danced whilst telling the story of the victorious dragon empress who defeated the Kadians decades ago. Musicians filled the edges of the hall, their music filling the spaces harmoniously.
Muyang nodded his chin toward the people. “What do you think when you see all these people, Daiyu?”
She looked back at the scene in front of her. “I see people who are happy.”
“Happiness is what you see?” His dark, inky brow rose. “I see people who will eat us alive if given the chance. I see people who will bury a dagger into our backs if we turn away from them. I see people who will greedily open their hands for whatever we give but would never do the same. I see people whose loyalties are so flimsy I can tear them with a single flick of my finger. These people, Daiyu, are now your subjects as well.”
Coldness swept over her, even though the room was warm with body heat. Her fingers inadvertently curled within his hand, her throat closing. She noticed Atreus, Nikator, Vita, and the rest of the Peccata smiling at something the demon-child was saying. “But not all of them are disloyal.”
“Certainly not all.” His gaze seemed to follow hers, and she noted the way his midnight eyes seemed to soften for a split second. But there was a steely edge in his tone as he spoke next. “But people change. Times change. Power changes.” He rubbed his thumb in slow circles against the palm of her hand. “You will learn much about being in the helm of power, Daiyu. What it means to have people bow down at your feet. To know what it feels like to be backstabbed. To feel the burn of betrayal from those who you thought were your closest allies. There is much you will learn by my side. I hope it isn’t selfish of me to expose that all to you.” He placed a gentle hand on her cheek, studying the blush that crept up her face. “If I were a better man, I would shield you from all of that, but I think that would be a disservice to you. As an empress, you will be stronger and more prepared.”
Somehow, all the people seemed to blur away until it really was just the two of them—or at least, in Daiyu’s perception, it seemed that way. She didn’t notice the stares, or the music, or the loudness of everything else. He was clear and she was somehow caught in a moment of clarity.
“You …” Her voice tapered off with astonishment, losing its strength. “You wish to make me your empress?”
“Yes.” He brought her knuckles to his lips again, watching her the entire time. “I would like for you to be by my side for all of eternity. For as long as I rule. For as long as I take breath.”
The empress role was usually left off to a woman of great noble birth, someone who was bred to rule the empire. Someone who had power to use. Someone who … wasn’t her.
And yet he wanted to make her the empress of the empire. His empress.
It was almost too much to take in. Her head felt like it was ready to burst. Like a thousand ribbons had been stuffed inside her, overwhelming her, and were about to explode in an entertaining array of colors. And through all the messiness of her feelings, she could pinpoint a singular thread of happiness that coursed through her. At the giddy excitement that both terrified her and thrilled her.
“I … I don’t know what to say,” Daiyu finally whispered. “I would need to think about it, Your Majesty.”
“Think on it a moment longer.”
“I … I will.”
Muyang, true to his word, held her hand for the rest of the evening. Even when the food was laid out in front of them, and when the drinks were poured out, and when people came up to greet them, he didn’t release her. He would rub circles against her knuckles, her palm, and the back of her hand slowly as if telling her he wasn’t going anywhere. It had a calming effect on her, surprisingly, even though a few months ago she would have felt unnecessarily tethered to him. But now it felt intimate, gentle even.
At one point, in the back of the hall, she spotted Feiyu. He wore his dragon mask as usual, this time gold and red, clashing with his emerald and silver mage robes. He gave her a wave at one point, which Muyang didn’t seem to notice, before he disappeared minutes later in a swathe of dark shadows.
“Lord Wang,” Muyang said. “I’m glad to see you could make it here.”
Daiyu’s attention swiveled to the tall, slender man kneeling in front of them below the dais. Clad in expensive, bright-purple silk robes, with sharp eyes and an even sharper smile, Lord Wang appeared just as wealthy and irritating as she would have expected him to. A young woman kneeled beside him. With sweeping black hair that was pulled into an intricate updo with various gold dragon-engraved hairpins intertwining through it, and garbed in vermillion and gold silks, she was dressed just as luxuriously as Daiyu was. A sapphire-encrusted necklace dazzled against her chest, glimmering in different shades of blue every time the light shone on it.
That must have been Wang Yanlin. The woman who everyone thought Muyang would marry, and who had likely spent her whole life training to be a royal woman. And here she was, dressed like she was a bride herself.
A surge of unexpected rage and jealousy rushed through Daiyu’s system and she clenched her hands together tightly.
“Congratulations on your union,” Lord Wang said, oblivious to Daiyu’s razor-like glare that was honed in their direction. “You both look splendid together.”
“Congratulations, Your Majesty,” the woman said in an overly saccharine voice. She batted her eyelashes up at him from where she was kneeling.
“What’s your name?” Daiyu asked, unable to keep the edge out of her tone.
The woman’s gaze cut over to her and she shot her a sweet smile. “Wang Yanlin.”
“I hope you enjoy the rest of our wedding,” she continued with forced politeness. “Lady Yanlin.”
They both bowed once more and dispersed into the crowds once more. The entire time, however, Daiyu couldn’t stop from glaring daggers at the cursed woman. She was the one who had burned her family’s rice fields. Who had poisoned Daiyu and had her kidnapped. Now that she had a face and a name, she couldn’t stop the swell of pure hatred that burned her chest.
Muyang seemed unbothered by their entrance and continued to greet the rest of the guests who congratulated them in the same manner. Daiyu tried to keep up with the polite act, but it was hard when every other woman her age, or younger, was dressed like Yanlin—with the intention of upstaging her. They all batted their lashes at Muyang, giggled, and smiled as if to gain his favor. She hated the way they acted. Absolutely abhorred it.
It was hard to keep a straight face when every other person was thinking about shoving her from where she sat. She could read it on their faces. The nobles wanted their daughters to be in her place. The daughters wanted to smite her where she sat. And the rest of everyone seemed to sneer down their noses at her, like she shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
At her own wedding.
The only thing that staved Daiyu’s anger was seeing Lanfen, Ran, Qianfan, and the rest of her family smiling cheerily and eating at one of the nearby tables. They were all dressed nicely, in clothes finer than they had ever owned, and they all seemed oblivious to the tensions and drama and gossiping around them. She could see their starstruck, awe-filled gazes at the sights they saw, at the dances and performances and music.
She wished nothing more than for them to continue to experience the luxuries of the palace and royal life without the negative bite of all the nobles. She was reminded once again why she was doing this, why she was putting herself in such an uncomfortable position.
“You don’t seem to like the festivities of our wedding.” Muyang rubbed her hand again, bringing her back to reality—back to him. “What troubles you? Is it the music, the dances? Or perhaps the stories being performed? What isn’t to your liking?”
Daiyu turned her body toward him, willing herself to ignore the people in her peripheral. “The wedding is just as grand and beautiful as I thought it would be,” she said, “and I have no problems with any of it. The décor is fabulous, the music is enchanting, the dances extraordinary. But … it’s the people that bother me the most.”
“The people?” He canted his head. “What about them bothers you?”
“Can I be fully frank with you?”
“Certainly.”
She didn’t know what brought upon this level of truthfulness from her, especially since she had resigned herself to dealing with her problems herself and not involving him, but she couldn’t hold back the thorniness she felt when she looked upon the nobles. Maybe it was because he held her hand so gently that she felt compelled to spill to him, but she quickly said, “I feel as though they don’t think I belong here. I’m not one of them and they know it. I can feel it in the way they look at me.”
Muyang was quiet for a moment, observing her with an unreadable expression.
“I probably sound silly,” she said with a short laugh. Maybe it had been a mistake to say that to him, to reveal that she was already buckling under the pressure of everyone’s gazes.
“No, I understand.” He grasped her chin gently and turned her face so she was looking directly at him. “Do you think these people like me? A usurper? They used to look at me the same way. But then I killed each and every one of them who dared to disrespect me, and soon, they were all bowing their heads at me.”
“But I’m not you.”
“Soon, all these people will call you Your Majesty. They will bow down when you walk by. They will whisper pretty nonsenses into your ear. They will seek your approval, your favor. And you will have to know who to trust and who not to. In my experience, it’s a good thing that you haven’t been enamored by the glamour of this place, by the glamour these people inspire and strive toward.” He grazed his knuckle against her chin ever so softly, the light touch sending a ripple of electricity through her flesh. “Remember this uncomfortable feeling. Remember their faces. Remember it all because they will fall at your feet eventually, and you will have to remember how they treated you today.”
Daiyu found herself bobbing her head, her throat tight with unshed tears. She was afraid that if she spoke, her words would be strangled and she would weep. Not because the pressure was high, but because he understood. Because she wasn’t crazy to be feeling this uncomfortable, thorny feeling.
“I hate that on this auspicious day, your attention is driven toward these people,” Muyang continued, his gaze searching hers. “When it should be geared toward me and our union.”
“I’m sorry?—”
“Don’t apologize.” He pressed another kiss on the back of her hand, black eyes never straying from hers. “This is your first day of power, Daiyu.”
That power wasn’t because of her but only because she was now married to him. When she looked back at the hall, the tightness of her body didn’t ease in the slightest because she had no power of her own. Not here, in this den of vipers. Not among this court who would viciously tear her apart if Muyang wasn’t holding her hand.
But she was now married to the cruel emperor, and she planned to use that to her advantage. She could become their nightmare, she realized. She could become worthy of being the wife of the wicked.