Empire’s Curse (Drakkon #1)

Chapter 38

When Daiyu stumbled home that night, nobody questioned why she was there or what had happened. They even seemed to believe her pathetic lie that she just came to visit. Nobody batted an eyelash at her red and swollen eyes, her unkept hair, or her messy dress. They didn’t even say anything a week later, when she continued living home as if nothing had happened. She didn’t have the gall to tell them what had actually happened and news of her embarrassment hadn’t reached the village yet.

Even though she was home and back into the rhythm of things—milk the goats next door, take out the chickens’ eggs from the broken coop, harvest vegetables from their garden for breakfast, visit the partially destroyed rice paddies in the afternoon—she was numb down to her core. This was what she had wanted all along. To be back home. To wear her scratchy, worn dresses. To slip into her dried-grass sandals and walk through the village. To eat dinner with her family.

But she felt empty. Like someone had scooped out everything that made her who she was and tossed it aside. She was just falling into the motion of things but not really thinking.

And it was made worse when, after eight days of being back on the farm, Muyang’s men never came for her. She had thought Muyang would drag her back to the palace and punish her for fleeing from him again, but nothing happened.

She was already forgotten, it seemed.

On the eighth day, when she was kneeling on the ground in their home garden, with the barely repaired bamboo fence stretching above her, and her hands buried deep in the soil as she rummaged for beets, Lanfen finally spoke up.

“What happened?” her younger sister asked from beside her. She had her own grass-woven basket on the ground next to Daiyu’s, but hers was filled with sweet potatoes instead of beets. “Everyone’s worried about you, but you won’t say anything.”

“Nothing happened.” She pulled out a cluster of beets with dried dirt clumped at the spindly roots.

“Really?” Lanfen stared at her in disbelief. “Then why are you home? Aren’t you supposed to be in the palace?”

“I told you, I’m visiting?—”

“Daiyu, tell me the truth.”

“Lanfen—”

“I know you’re lying. You’ve got everyone worried.”

Daiyu placed the beets in the basket and busied her hands by digging through the dirt once more. Guilt formed in the pit of her stomach. She had married Muyang for her family’s sake, and now she was forsaking them again, all because she had made a rash decision to leave. It was for the best, she had told herself, but at the same time … all of their hopes of wealth and status would be dashed once she revealed the truth.

How was she going to tell them all that Muyang had humiliated her in front of the entire empire and instead of bearing with it, she had escaped back home and nobody had even come back to fetch her? How was she going to tell them that she was actually unimportant to Muyang? That she had na?vely thought she could handle being his wife?

Was it better to leave this village? For them to pack their bags and make a run for it? Even though Muyang’s men hadn’t come back for her?

“Daiyu?” Lanfen touched her hand, forcing her back to reality. Her sister’s kind, soft-brown eyes seemed to plead with her as she scanned her face. “What happened? Really?”

Her throat tightened. “Nothing?—”

“Daiyu.”

“Okay, fine.” She plopped another beet into the basket, this one smaller than the rest. Her voice wobbled and she wiped the dirt from her shaky hands. “On the last day of the festival, Muyang chose Wang Yanlin to light the lantern instead of me. You know what the lantern lighting symbolizes, don’t you? Whoever lights the first lantern is the emperor’s favored woman, or favored family, and it shows how important she is to the whole empire. Instead of choosing his new bride to do it, he chose the woman who ruined everything for me!”

Lanfen’s brows pulled together. “Oh.”

“Everyone was laughing at me.” Her cheeks warmed as the memory of the noblewomen snickering behind their hand fans resurfaced. She wanted to duck her head into the coil, silty soil and forget about it all. “They don’t think I’m meant to be the empress. And why should I be? What qualifications do I have? I don’t know how to read, or write, or recite poetry. I wasn’t born into a wealthy, influential family. I don’t have any connections. I don’t know any social etiquette. I’m just … just Yin Daiyu.”

“Oh, Daiyu, I’m so sorry.” Unshed tears glistened in her eyes.

“Why are you crying?” Daiyu laughed softly, though her own eyes stung. “It’s over now. I’m back here and … and it seems like I’m forgotten anyway.”

Lanfen quickly wiped her face. “So what happened afterward? Did the mage bring you here?”

“He did.”

“And … well, did you talk to His Majesty?”

“About what?”

Lanfen gave her a strange look. She lowered the lumpy sweet potato into her own basket. “Well, about what happened at the festival. Did you talk to him about it? What did he say?”

She tried to recall their conversation, but she could only remember her vivid rage and her screams. Nothing else computed in her mind. “We … sort of talked.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I yelled, mostly.”

“And?”

“And what?” Daiyu was beginning to grow frustrated. Didn’t Lanfen understand the magnitude of the situation? Or how horrible Muyang was for choosing Yanlin instead of Daiyu to light the lantern?

Her sister crossed her arms over her chest and lifted a delicate brow. “Please don’t tell me that you didn’t even hear his side of the story? Did you even give him a chance to apologize? Or to … I don’t know, maybe understand the situation a little bit?”

“There’s nothing more to talk about?—”

“Daiyu! Really?”

“Lanfen, stop that!” Daiyu angrily wiped her dirt-stained hands against her skirts and pointed an accusatory finger her way. “I did everything I could in that palace. I would have never made a good empress, and you know it. Nobody wanted me there anyway, and there’s no way I can handle being his wife in the first place. I don’t want him to marry hundreds of women and for me to be forgotten within the folds of them all. I don’t want to be stuck in the Lotus wing with the whole lot of them! You saw what it was like! You know how terrible they are.”

She was being mean and she knew it, but her heart was aching and she didn’t like how Lanfen didn’t seem to understand what she was saying. She wanted to continue to wallow in her self-pity, not think about what she should have said or done.

“Daiyu, I know they’re terrible people. The women at the palace were mean to me too, and they were mean to all the women who were commoners like us, and I’m really grateful for you helping me get out of there—but that doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t … you didn’t discuss any of this with His Majesty. You just … ran. Like you always do.”

She flinched back like she had been slapped. “A-Are you serious?” Her voice wavered and cracked with mortification. A surge of anger filled her tone. “I married him for you, for all of you! And this … this is how I’m treated when I want to go back home? When things don’t work out in my marriage?”

Lanfen reeled back. “You did this for us?”

“Why else would I marry him?!”

“Daiyu …” Horror leeched onto her sister’s face, soon replaced with a furrowed, angry brow. “Are you kidding me right now? You seriously married him for us? I don’t believe it for one second! You … you couldn’t have.”

“Why else would I marry such a cold, twisted person like him? Hm?” Even as the words tumbled out of her mouth, hot and fiery and quick, she didn’t completely believe them. “I wanted you all to be happy. For you to gain wealth, and status, and a good life.”

“You were going to sacrifice yourself for us? Daiyu, do you have any idea what you’re saying? You think that would make any of us happy?”

“Why else did you think I married him?” She gave her sister an incredulous look. “Did you think I wanted to be with him at first? He’s the emperor! How could I say no? I had no choice and once I realized that it was perfect for everyone, I married him. I just didn’t expect … I just didn’t—” The fight seemed to leave her. She hadn’t expected it to hurt so much when her heart broke. When he had shattered it in a single moment.

“But you seemed so happy.” Lanfen opened her mouth, then clamped it shut as if rethinking the words. “You … you seemed so in love.”

Her shoulders shook and scorching, stabbing pain entered her chest. Like her heart was cracking all over again. She hated the realization as it hit her with full force. The reality was that she had somehow fallen in love with the wicked emperor. She had found herself happy at the thought of being with him. She had enjoyed their long nights together. Had relished the feeling of sleeping in his arms. Of kissing him. Of hearing his velvety voice.

And she didn’t want to share him.

She didn’t want him to be with Yanlin, or anyone else.

She wanted to be the only one who was important to him. She wanted to be his only wife. His only lover. His and his alone.

“That’s what makes this all so much harder.” She cried softly, the tears streaming down her crumpled face and falling onto her lap. She ducked her head, hating how broken she sounded. Hating that she was in love with Muyang. “I can’t go back there. Not when he … when he doesn’t even care for me. When I’m just one of the many other women.”

“Then why did you run?”

“What?” She lifted her chin. She couldn’t believe the callousness on her sister’s face, or the hardness of her tone.

“You do this every time,” her sister said, voice low and fierce. “You run at the first sign of trouble. You’ve been trying to protect yourself for so long since Heng’s death that you run away whenever you can. You can’t just … flee whenever things get hard. You have to deal with your problems.”

“What? Lanfen, you don’t understand?—”

“No, I understand.” She reached forward and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her slightly. “I understand that it was difficult for you to see him choose another woman to light the lantern, I really do, but you need to talk to him about it. You need to hear his side of the story. You have to argue and fight for your marriage. You can’t just give up! If you truly love him, then you’ll face him. And if you decide you don’t want to be with him anymore, then you tell him that. But don’t just run away from it all.”

“But I don’t always—” The words dried up at her throat. It was true, she realized. Whenever she came across a tough situation, instead of dealing with it, she ran away. She was always running. Always looking for a way out.

She never stayed and fought. Never looked for another way.

But the thought of returning to the palace was too painful, too raw. She didn’t know what to say to Muyang, what to tell him, what to feel when Yanlin would inevitably be by his side. It was made worse by the fact that he didn’t even bother to bring her back to the palace. He had allowed her to run.

“Do you love him?”

She had never thought she would fall in love again after Heng. But she had somehow fallen harder for Muyang. Whereas her love with Heng had been sweet and simple and happy, her romance with Muyang was tumultuous, fast, chaotic, and full of passion. Full of longing. Full of thrill.

She loved the way his voice sounded. Loved the way he laughed. The way he captured everyone’s attention with a single glance. She loved the way he made her feel—like she was something to want. That she was beautiful and worthy.

She wanted to learn so much more about him. About his past. About what shaped him to be the way he was. About … everything.

She wanted so much out of this marriage.

“Yes, I love him,” she whispered. “But it changes nothing. He’ll still be with other people?—”

“Did he say that?”

“What?” Daiyu shook her head. “No, but it’s obvious he will. Why else would he choose Yanlin? And besides, he’s the emperor?—”

“What if he chose her to light the lantern just because of her father? You won’t really know until you ask him, but it’s not like he’s chosen her as a wife or concubine yet. And has he told you that he’ll take on more women? Emperor Zheng Feng Mian never took another wife, so it’s possible?—”

She was already shaking her head. “But his wife was the dragon empress and the rightful heir to the throne. I don’t compare?—”

“It doesn’t matter. As the emperor, it’s his decision on whether he wants to marry multiple women or not. Have you asked him what he wants?”

Her shoulders sagged. “No.”

Lanfen continued to stare at her. She sighed, loud and long, and wrapped an arm around Daiyu’s shoulders, squeezing tightly. “I’m not here to tell you how to live your life, Daiyu. At the end of the day, I just want you to be happy. So do whatever you think is best for you.”

“I … thank you.”

She laced her hands together on her lap and stared down at the wriggling bugs in the holes where the beets had been, and then at the piles of vegetables between them. Her heart felt too heavy to do anything.

She loved Muyang, but was she ready to go back to the palace and face him? To face the humiliation he had cast upon her? Wasn’t it his job to run here and beg for forgiveness? Was it even appropriate for her to go back there now? A small part of her had wanted him to come rushing to the farm and beg for her to return to the palace—it was the only reason she hadn’t made her family pack up and leave just yet.

Yes, she always fled from her problems, she realized that now, but her ego was bruised and battered. She couldn’t just … return, could she?

But she had never fought for anything seriously in her life. Even before Heng’s death, she had just passively let everything happen. She had allowed him to go to war even though she hadn’t wanted him to. She had allowed everything to go whichever direction without her input and had run away at every tiny disruption.

She couldn’t run away from Muyang. She had to face him, she had to march back in the palace and demand his apology. Demand him to explain himself, and then make the decision of whether or not to stay with him. She had to try something.

“You know what …” She turned to her sister sharply, steeling her resolve with every second. “You’re right. I can’t just leave things off like this. I’m going to go back.”

Lanfen smiled. “I’ll support whatever you decide to do.”

She jumped to her feet. “I’ll be back, Lanfen. Wait for me!”

She didn’t wait for a response as she rushed back into the house, eager to return to the palace.