Tears Of Kai Yuan

-16-

16-

Chang'An Capital

Shensi Province

T'ang Dynasty

Tang Zhen-Ting

"Bow to Heaven!"

I would forever be a Tang, forever the daughter of Akbaru Alinejad.

"Bow to Earth!"

I would forever be an orphan, one tied to my past and defined by it.

I would always be Adira.

"Bow to your Ancestors!"

I was marrying a Li, one of the royal family...but I would never be a Li, I would stay a Tang.

"Bow to your parents!"

For the first time, for the only time, I would bow before my uncle as the man who took me in, the man who adopted me. It was the only time I would ever accept the Zhao as my parent.

And for the first time in many, I would bow before Li Wuji's aunt and uncle, accepting them as my mother and father-in-law as he accepted them as his parents...

Except we both knew that he didn't.

"Bow to each other!"

The veil barely shielded my sight as I turned to face Wuji, seeing the blasted red color that filled my every sense since the moment I stepped out of the paladin.

He stared me in the eye, even with the veil he held my gaze, reading me as though I were transparent.

"Marry me."

"Better to sink together than alone...don't you think?"

"I wouldn't allow you to get hurt."

"And anyways, wouldn't we make an interesting couple?"

A Li...the world would now see me as a Li.

The wife of a bastard boy raised in the palace. The wife of a rake, of an illegitimate child born out of disgrace. They would not see me as the daughter of the great Tang Huixua, they never had anyways...but this time.

This time it would be so much worse.

Li Wuji smiled at me, a small smile I couldn't let escape without one of my own.

At least if I sunk in this sea of cruelty...at least if he sunk...

We'd sink together.

-

Zhao Liangjie

Fireworks echoed in the air and mingled with the sound of children's laughter.

Laughter.

I could've sworn I heard Adira's laughter. There was no doubt it was hers: loud, choppy, bordering that of a man's...and yet somehow delicate, high-pitched like that of a woman's...just like her.

I hadn't heard my sister laugh since...our father was alive.

It was the same now as it was then, she hadn't laughed enough to change it.

"She's on her way to the wedding chambers...I'm sure you'll want to see her before."

I tensed at the voice, not even needing to look to know who it was. "Xie xie."

Li Mei didn't move as I got up from the stool and turned around, staring at me defiantly as though it were some sort of dare.

I wasn't about to take her up on it. "If you would excuse me."