Chapter Text
The marriage coordinator’s name was Madam Hu Fenglan, and she had been arranging royal ceremonies for thirty-one years without a single one going wrong. She intended for this record to remain intact, regardless of what the participants thought about it.
Madam Hu was sixty-three years old, came up only to Minghao’s shoulder, and carried a scroll at all times that seemed to contain the complete layout of every formal event that had ever occurred within the Xu palace.
She had organized three royal funerals, two coronations, one emergency treaty signing conducted during a flood, and the wedding of Minghao’s parents, during which she had mentioned once and only once that the groom had arrived late.
This had not happened since.
Madam Hu had restructured the entire pre-ceremony schedule of every royal wedding afterward to prevent it.
When Minghao was informed that the full wedding rehearsal had been scheduled for the following morning, he nodded pleasantly with a false smile.
Then he spent the evening coming up with convincing reasons to be unavailable.
The next day began with Minghao in the east library. This was not unusual. Minghao used the east library often, and the staff were accustomed to his presence there in the mornings when he wanted quiet.
What was unusual was the way the prince seemed to be deliberately hiding. It was the way he had positioned himself behind the largest shelf in the corner where the light was sufficient enough for reading but required some squinting and the way he had surrounded himself with enough open books that looked like he was conducting a research project.
He was not conducting research. He was conducting an escape and the library was on his side.
There were three entrances, two of which required navigating past reading rooms where junior scholars worked in the mornings and who, out of respect or fear, would not point out the prince’s location to anyone asking. The third entrance opened onto the inner courtyard and could be used as an exit if necessary.
Minghao had been there for only forty minutes when the shelf beside him moved.
Madam Hu’s face appeared around the edge and she looked anything but pleased, but also as if she had anticipated exactly this and allowed it to run its course before arriving.
“Your Highness,” she said, moving the shelf more aside to have better access to him. “The rehearsal hall is ready.”
Minghao looked at her with wide eyes, in shock and awe of how easily this frail woman moved the shelves with ease. He looked at the open books surrounding him, then back at her.
“I would love to attend, but I am in the middle of something very important.”
“You have been in the middle of it for forty minutes.”
“It is a complicated matter.”
“I am sure it is.”
“It concerns regional water systems.”
Madam Hu glanced down at the nearest book. “That is a poetry collection.”
Minghao closed it. “Metaphorical water systems.”
Madam Hu smiled. It was not a kind smile. “Your Highness, you of all people know better than to lie to me.”
Minghao looked toward the courtyard entrance. A junior coordinator was already standing there, hands folded, blocking it with the practice of a palace guard. He knew all his escape methods wouldn’t help him out of his one.
Minghao looked back at Madam Hu and sighed. “You planned for this.”
“I have known you since you were eight.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only answer you need. Now come.”
She reached out a hand, and Minghao reluctantly took it.
--------
Across the military compound, Wen Junhui had been in a meeting since dawn.
This was not fabricated. There genuinely was a meeting, a regular review of the northern camp’s supply chain, which had been scheduled for two weeks and which Junhui had marked as essential on multiple occasions.
He sat at the head of the table with his senior officers arranged around it and worked through the agenda with intense focus.
Well, mostly intense focus.
If some part of his attention registered that the morning was passing, that a rehearsal was scheduled, and that each completed agenda item was reducing his available reasons to not attend, he gave no indication of it.
He completed the supply chain review.
He initiated a secondary discussion on training ground maintenance.
Seungcheol slowly lowered his brush. "The maintenance review," he said, "was not on today's agenda."
Junhui did not look up. "I added it."
"You added it three minutes ago."
"The records indicated-"
"Junhui."
Junhui turned a page in his report.
Across the table, Mingyu glanced between them and wisely said nothing...For about three seconds. Then he ruined it.
"Are we hiding?"
Junhui’s hands tightened around the report. "We are not hiding."
Mingyu narrowed his eyes suspiciously and hummed. "If you say so."
Silence.
"Because it feels a little like hiding-"
Junhui slammed the report down on the desk. "We are simply discussing maintenance. How does that mean we are hiding?”
"Because we have been discussing maintenance for forty-seven minutes." Seungcheol added, now beginning to side with Mingyu.
"The condition of the training grounds is important. This is a subject that can be discussed for hours even.”
"The training grounds are fine, Jun.”
"Well, the eastern field drainage system—"
"Junhui," Seungcheol interrupted again, setting down his brush. "Are we going to also keep ignoring the woman outside?”
A brief pause.
Junhui turned his back from them and picked up a new report. “There are often people outside rooms."
"This particular woman has been outside for quite some time now…"
"That is her decision."
"Junhui she also has been knocking for the past five minutes."
Mingyu leaned back in his chair with a sly grin. "You know what Seungcheol….I think I remember hearing something about a wedding rehearsal today."
They both noticed the way Junhui tensed.
Seungcheol smirked and folded his arms, “You’re right, Mingyu. I heard that too. And it looks like our general is scared.”
Junuui growled slightly. “I’m not scared.”
Seungcheol raised a brow. “Then?”
Junhui stayed silent and soon the door was finally shoved open.
Everyone stared wide-eyed as small woman walked in with fire in her eyes as she approached the general.
She stared right up to him and smiled tightly, “Wen Junhui, you are delaying rehearsal time, and I do not appreciate my schedule being interrupted.”
Junhui was about to respond until he was grabbed by the collar of his tunic and began to get dragged out by Madam Hu.
--------
Junhui arrived moments later through the far entrance, guided by Madam Hu who kept her grip on him. She let go suddenly, causing him stumble slightly forward. He managed to catch his balance, but now he was standing a few feet in front of the prince.
Their eyes met across the half-prepared ceremonial hall. Between them stood a chaos of wedding preparation.
Table settings arranged in precise lines, bolts of red silk being measured against the ceremonial arch, junior coordinators consulting security, servants moving floral arrangements from one side of the room to another under Madam Hu’s narrow-eyed supervision.
Minghao’s expression showed that he held Junhui jointly responsible for this.
This was not fair. Junhui had clearly been dragged from something against his will too, and the evidence remained visible in the document still in his hand and the faint tightness around his jaw.
Minghao did not care. Fairness had not been extended to him lately.
Junhui looked at him, then at the room, then at Madam Hu, who appeared between them.
“Wonderful,” she said. “Now we can begin and ensure that this wedding goes smoothly.”
Minghao looked up at Junhui who was currently keeping his eyes on Madam Hu.
Madam Hu looked delighted by neither of them.
“We will begin this rehearsal with the most important part. The spoken vows.”
Minghao immediately disliked the word spoken.
Junhui did not visibly react, which was more irritating than reacting.
Madam Hu gestured toward the ceremonial dais. “Both of you. Up.”
Neither moved quickly enough. Madam Hu’s smile sharpened. “Today.”
Minghao ascended the dais first because he refused to be herded. Junhui followed because he seemed to have accepted that Madam Hu could not be defeated through ordinary means.
They stood on opposite sides of the reading stand.
Madam Hu looked between them and the large gap they left. “Closer.”
Minghao did not move. Junhui did not move either.
Madam Hu sighed. “I have coordinated royal ceremonies through war, flood, plague, famine, and once through a groom fainting into a bowl of lotus soup. Do not test me before breakfast.”
She pushed Minghao forward, the omega gasping as he almost bumped into Junhui’s chest. Junhui felt his hands reaching out to stabilize the prince. Instead, he balled up his fists and stepped forward as instructed.
“Better,” Madam Hu said.
It was not better. It placed Junhui close enough that Minghao became aware of the small embroidery of his robes, the faint scent of cold air that clung to him from outside, and the stillness he carried like armor.
Madam Hu unrolled a ceremonial scroll and placed it on the stand between them. “The traditional marriage vows,” she said. “Today, you will practice the full verbal exchange. The court will expect clarity, eye contact, and proper pacing.”
“Eye contact?” Minghao repeated.
Madam Hu looked at him. “You will be married in nine days. Looking at one another should not require negotiation.”
Junhui’s gaze lowered to the scroll. Minghao decided he hated him slightly for being able to look so unaffected.
“The vows are given in two parts,” Madam Hu continued. “The public vow, spoken before the court, and the binding vow, spoken during the ribbon ceremony. The first is formal. The second is traditional.”
“Traditional?” Minghao said, already suspicious.
Madam Hu ignored the tone. She turned to Junhui. “General, begin.”
Junhui read the first line silently. Then his eyes lifted to Minghao’s face. Directly. Not past him. Not through him.
At him.
Minghao had a sudden wave of self consciousness under the generals intense gaze. He even began to feel warm in his cheeks despite a cool breeze flowing through the hall. He looked away until Madam Hu glared at him, forcing him to meet those eyes once more.
Junhui’s voice filled the hall.
“Before Heaven and Earth, before crown and court, I take you into my household and bind my name to yours.”
Minghao had read court vows before. He knew the structure, the formal rhythm, and the language were meant to sound grander than the people speaking it usually felt.
It was different out loud. It was worse out loud. But Junhui continued, still looking at him.
“I vow to guard your dignity as I guard my own. To honor your place beside me in prosperity and hardship. To keep faith with you before family, court, and kingdom.”
The hall seemed quieter than it had been a moment ago. Or perhaps Minghao had simply stopped hearing it.
He disliked the vows. He disliked the way Junhui said them without ornament and somehow made them sound more serious because of it. He disliked, most of all, that none of the words sounded like possession.
Madam Hu nodded, satisfied. “Your Highness.”
Minghao took the scroll. The paper felt unnecessarily heavy. Ridiculous. It was paper. He cleared his throat.
“Before Heaven and Earth, before crown and court, I enter your household and bind my name to yours.”
The words felt strange in his mouth. Too intimate for a political arrangement. Too beautiful for something that had been decided for him. He continued anyway.
“I vow to stand beside you in prosperity and hardship. To keep faith with you before family, court, and kingdom.” His eyes dropped to the next section. He read it once. Then again. His grip tightened on the paper.
“No.”
Madam Hu closed her eyes briefly. Junhui looked from the scroll to him.
Minghao tapped the line with one finger. “This section requires me to vow obedience.”
Madam Hu opened her eyes. “It is simply traditional wording.”
“I noticed.”
“Your Highness—”
“I will not say it.”
Madam Hu folded her hands over her scroll. “The court expects the traditional form.”
“The court expects many things for me. The court is often disappointed.”
Madam Hu inhaled through her nose. Minghao’s voice stayed calm. That was important. Rage, when properly handled, should be precise.
“I will vow loyalty. I will vow good faith. I will vow to stand beside him, since the wording apparently allows me that dignity. But I will not stand before the court, the officials, every noble with an opinion, and declare that I owe obedience to any person living.”
Madam Hu held his gaze. Then, slowly, she turned to Junhui. Of course she did. It was the turn of a woman who had found one participant difficult and was transferring the problem to the other. She had clearly assessed that the general would be more practical. More obedient.
Minghao looked at Junhui before he could stop himself. Junhui was reading the section, thoroughly and without expression. He reached the end and then he set the scroll down.
“Remove it.”
The hall went still.
Madam Hu blinked once. “General, I beg your pardon—”
“The obedience clause,” Junhui said. “Remove it.”
“It is part of the traditional vow.”
“The rest of the vow shall remain intact.”
“It has been included in royal marriages for generations. The court believes obedience is crucial in a marriage.”
“It does not need to be included in this one. If the court has an issue with it then I can personally take it up with them.”
His voice did not rise. It did not sharpen. That was what made it difficult to argue with. Junhui spoke with the calm certainty of a man who had given orders long enough that dressing them as suggestions had stopped occurring to him.
Madam Hu stared at him in disbelief.
Meanwhile, Minghao was still looking at Junhui. He had expected indifference. Perhaps impatience. Perhaps the quiet disapproval of a man who thought Minghao difficult and inconvenient and far too sharp for his own good.
He had not expected immediate agreement. He had not expected Junhui to remove the blade before Minghao had finished preparing himself to bleed on it.
“This does not make me grateful,” Minghao said. The words arrived before he had decided what to do with them. They were defensive, honest, necessary even.
Junhui turned to him. “I was not asking you to be.”
Minghao had no immediate response to that, which was infuriating.
Madam Hu watched them both before she let out a heavy sigh and began to scribble aggressive notes on her scroll. “I will rewrite the section,” she said. “You will receive the revised vow by afternoon. Until then, we proceed with the ribbon ceremony.”
Minghao looked away first. It felt like losing something. He did not know what.
--------
The ribbon ceremony was worse. Madam Hu explained it while assistants arranged the ceremonial table beneath the arch.
The table was lacquered black, polished to a shine, with a shallow bowl of water, two small jade cups, incense, and the practice ribbon laid across a folded cloth. The actual ribbon, Madam Hu informed them, would be finer. The practice ribbon was still red enough to look dangerous.
“The red ribbon symbolizes the joining of two lives,” she said, lifting it with both hands. “Not ownership. Not conquest. A path tied together before witnesses.”
Minghao looked at her. Madam Hu looked back. “Yes,” she said. “The wording has been adjusted.”
“By you?”
“By someone sensible and who wishes to waste no more timing during this process.”
“So by you.”
Madam Hu’s mouth twitched. “Hands.”
“Joined hands,” she started. “The current royal ceremony binds the hands palm to palm. It is meant to represent action taken together.”
Minghao immediately regretted every part of this ceremony. Junhui extended his right hand first. Palm up. Of course he did. He approached even humiliation like a military exercise.
Minghao looked at the offered hand. Then at Junhui. Then back at the hand. It was only a hand. A large hand, yes. Broad, scarred lightly across the knuckles, fingers long and still. But just a hand.
Minghao placed his palm against it. Warm. That was the first thing he noticed. The second was size. Junhui’s hand nearly swallowed his.
Minghao immediately decided this observation was irrelevant.
Madam Hu wound the ribbon around their joined hands. Once. The silk slid across Minghao’s knuckles and over Junhui’s. Twice. The ribbon drew them closer, not by much, but enough that Minghao felt the change. Three times. Madam Hu tucked the end and stepped back.
Their hands were bound palm to palm.
The hall seemed to hold its breath. Minghao stared at the ribbon. Junhui stared somewhere over Minghao’s shoulder, which was somehow both considerate and irritating.
“Now,” Madam Hu said, “the binding vow.” Minghao looked at her. “There is another vow.”
“There are several.”
“Of course there are.”
She ignored him. “This vow is spoken directly to one another. No court dialect. No formal distance. The old language is intimate by design.”
“Madam Hu,” Minghao said carefully, “do you perhaps hear yourself when you say these things?”
“I have been saying them for thirty-one years.”
“That was not an answer.”
“Too bad.”
Junhui’s mouth did not move. But Minghao saw, unmistakably, the faintest shift at the corner of it. Almost a smirk.
He looked sharply at him. Junhui’s face returned instantly to stillness. Minghao narrowed his eyes.
Madam Hu tapped the scroll. “General, you may begin.”
Junhui lowered his gaze to the words. Then to the ribbon held their hands together. Junhui could feel the softness of Minghao’s palm through the press of silk, the elegant line of his fingers, the faded stains of paint on his fingertips.
Junhui began. “With this hand, I receive yours.”
Minghao’s spine went very straight.
Junhui continued, voice even, but quieter now. “Before Heaven, before the earth beneath us, before those who came before and those who will come after, I vow to walk beside you.”
The words should not have sounded like that. That was Minghao’s first problem. They should have sounded formal. Hollow. Ceremonial. A string of pretty phrases tied around a political transaction.
But Junhui did not know how to perform prettiness. He said things plainly. Which made them sound dangerously close to true.
“In peace, I will not abandon you. In hardship, I will not turn from you. In anger, I will not dishonor you. In silence, I will remember you are still beside me.”
Madam Hu nodded once. “Your Highness.”
Minghao would have preferred a battlefield. At least then everyone would admit someone was trying to wound him. He looked down at the scroll. Then at Junhui.
The general’s expression was unreadable again, but there was a faint tension in his jaw now. Not discomfort exactly. Something controlled with effort.
Good. At least Minghao was not suffering alone.
“With this hand, I receive yours.” His voice did not shake. Small mercies.
“Before Heaven, before the earth beneath us, before those who came before and those who will come after, I vow to walk beside you.” The ribbon seemed warmer. That was impossible. “In peace, I will not abandon you. In hardship, I will not turn from you. In anger, I will not seek to wound you, I will seek to heal you.”
That was worse. Not morally. Morally it was better. Personally, it was worse.
Junhui’s gaze stayed on his. Not smug. Not amused. Attentive. As if the words mattered because Minghao was saying them.
It was unbearable.
Madam Hu examined them for a moment, then moved forward and unwound the ribbon with efficient fingers. The separation was immediate. Cool air replaced warmth. Minghao flexed his hand once before he could stop himself.
Junhui’s eyes flicked down to his palm before he quickly looked back up.
Madam Hu pretended not to notice. “We will repeat the full ribbon sequence twice more before the wedding,” she said. “The final knot must hold for the first five minutes of the feast. Practice keeping your hands steady.”
“I have steady hands,” Minghao said. Madam Hu looked at him sharply. Minghao looked away. Junhui said nothing.
--------
Junhui was called on before the rehearsal fully closed. One of his commanders appeared at the hall entrance, slightly breathless and visibly reluctant to interrupt a room Madam Hu currently controlled.
He stopped at the doorway and met Junhui’s eyes, then gave a short nod that meant what it meant.
Junhui’s expression changed. Not much. But enough to bring tension in the room.
The slight awkwardness of the rehearsal vanished. The man standing beside Minghao became the commander soldiers followed into battle. Focus settled over him instantly. Minghao noticed. Of course he noticed.
Madam Hu consulted her scroll. “We have covered the essentials. I will send the revised vow text by afternoon.”
Junhui nodded. “Thank you.”
He stepped off the dais and retrieved the document he had left on the side table. Then he paused.
He turned back and bowed. Not the abbreviated court bow. Not the shallow acknowledgment of a man leaving a room. A proper bow.
He held it for a moment. It was respectful, unnecessary.
Minghao could only stare at him.
As Junhui straightened, their eyes met briefly. Then, he turned and began to walk away.
The hall resumed around Minghao as if nothing had happened. Silk was measured. Assistants crossed the floor. Madam Hu began terrorizing an assistant over candle placement.
The morning continued with complete indifference to the silence Minghao now stood inside. He looked at the door through which Junhui had left. Then at his own right hand. The ribbon was gone, yet the warmth remained.
That was irritating.
Everything about Wen Junhui was becoming increasingly irritating.
That should have made things simpler.
Unfortunately, it did not.
Minghao took his outer robe from the side bench and put it on with more force than necessary. Then he left through the opposite door.
--------
The message reached the military compound before midday. Junhui read it standing, too on edge to sit. He read it once. Then again. Then he folded it with deliberate hands, set it on the desk, and looked at the wall for a moment.
Commander Gui stood on the other side of the desk and waited. He had known Junhui long enough to understand that silence was not emptiness. It was calculation.
“How credible is the source?” Junhui asked.
“Three separate intelligence reports,” Gui said. “Independent channels. The details align.”
Junhui looked at the folded paper, a familiar fire building up.
Gui’s voice lowered. “Then you saw the name.”
“I saw it.”
The reports described a new military force. Not a border conflict. Not a territorial skirmish. A deliberate campaign in the outer provinces, moving through smaller cities with the organized precision of something that had been in the works for years.
Three cities in the eastern territories had lost governing officials in the past four months. Two garrison commanders had been found dead. Supply routes serving the kingdom’s eastern trade lines had been quietly redirected.
This alone would have been concerning. What made it something else was the leader.
The Li clan.
The reports named a figure who had risen to command the new Li force within the past eighteen months. Unknown before that. No record in the capital’s intelligence archives. Appearing as though from nothing.
Young. Junhui’s age, approximately. An alpha, by all available accounts, with a strategic mind the second report described, in language that suggested the writer had been unsettled by the evidence, as uncommon.
The Li clan was not gone. It had never been gone.
Gui had told him this on a dirt road when Junhui was twelve.
“They are connected to half the court’s administrative offices. What happened to your family will not be punished.”
Fifteen years. And they were not only intact. They were expanding. Someone had spent fifteen years building something in the east while the capital looked elsewhere.
While the king directed his attention toward trade routes.
While the military’s budget stagnated.
While commanders petitioned an increasingly distracted crown.
While Junhui stood on a ceremonial dais with red silk around his hand and wedding vows still too recent in his mouth.
Somewhere far beneath discipline, beneath strategy, beneath the locked rooms where he kept every unwanted thing quiet, old anger opened its eyes.