Chapter Text
It began, as it always did, above the stairs.
It began, as it always did, in a flash and a heartbeat and a terrible tremor across his skin. He looked down those gilded stairs, watched them shake and move.
He looked down, and moved himself, a leaf in the cruel winds of fate.
Ah but the stairs weren’t shaking, they weren’t moving at all. No, he was tumbling down, each edge bruising black into his skin and making him stronger.
He could feel the stairs, and he knew he wanted to kill his brother.
He could feel the stairs, and had always wanted to kill his father.
No one ever knew how long it took, to fall down imperial stairs. They didn’t realize each stone was precious seconds in free-fall, each edge slowed and stopped you.
They didn’t know, but he did. He knew every stair. It began, as it always did, above the stairs.
It would end at the bottom, where he pulled himself up and the beast in his skin roared. It would end standing above the stairs again, with gentle fingers gripping his.
But it began where he made every one of the most fateful decisions in his life.
⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━⊰
Jin Guangyao blinked his eyes open at the top of the stairs, and felt a foot reaching forward to push him down. A strong leg kicked out, the merciless rage of the man he had always looked up to, of the one he had admired more than any other.
At the head of an army, Nie Mingjue looked like a general come to bring salvation. Jin Guangyao had stood behind him so many times, had stood at his side even more. He had seen the silhouette of a man of war and felt inspiration.
Then he had felt rejection and was all the more bitter for it.
At the top of stairs, though, Nie Mingjue looked like a tyrant king, breaking the clouds from the sky with his scowl.
Or perhaps that was wrong, perhaps Jin Guangyao was the snake being thrown down the stairs. Perhaps this was the punishment he deserved, for all his long years of treachery and deceit.
It didn’t matter, regardless. Son of a whore, the man had said, and so he would die. With the beast in his skin clawing at his bones and raging a tide of venom, Jin Guangyao would ensure it.
But—
But he had already been here. He had already done this, had already driven Nie Mingjue past the edge and through a qi deviation.
Jin Guangyao had felt those terrible stairs but he had dug his teeth into the man before him and snarled.
Nie Mingjue had died a broken and bloody death. Nie Mingjue had been a corpse at his mercy, a dead thorn in his side. Nie Mingjue had been, as always, unstoppable.
Then Jin Guangyao had died too, trapped in a coffin with the man he had once respected so highly. He could remember the feel of dead wood closing in around him, blanketing him in a terrible darkness. He could remember corpse-arms come to rip him to shreds.
He could remember saving Lan Xichen, and that small success made his grave better than these stairs.
What fate was this, that he lived this moment again.
He felt the stairs cut into his skin. He felt them bruise, felt them break him. There would be purpled patterns across his thighs, up the lean muscle of his back. He was a canvas before this terrible brush, and it had painted ink into his bones and across his fingers so many times.
He fell down the stairs and was a boy of twenty again. His hope had shattered on these stairs, shattered and been crushed into pearly powder beneath the heel of Jin Guangshan.
There was sun catching on the gilded steps and making them gleam like a fish decorated with golden scales.
Jin Guangyao stood and walked up them with a pained smile, brushed past the servants rushing to help him up. Their hands weren’t needed, now, weren’t wanted. He had only ever enjoyed one pair of hands on his skin, and they were not here to hold him close.
He did not speak, as he walked. He hardly dared look at Nie Mingjue, exchanging the same words they had spoken before. They were still just as harsh, still just as furious.
He plotted a death, again. Even in a dream, even if it ever stung him, he would plot this death.
He did not think of the gentle fingers of Lan Xichen, did not think of how they had always touched his skin like he was a precious thing.
He did not thing of the sword that had driven through his chest, cracking bone and drawing blood.
Lan Xichen had gentle fingers, he thought, as he stared into the gilded sun. Lan Xichen had always worried for him, he realized, as the man himself rushed from Koi Tower and stared at the broken bond of brothers.
Nie Mingjue was rage and fury, but Jin Guangyao just felt cold.
In the end, he had saved the one person who mattered most, and that was all the he could ever ask for. Murder would be just as bitterly sweet, the second time. This time, he would plan it ever more carefully.
This time, Nie Huaisang would die as well.
He stood and did not shake. He stood and did not smile. Servants were waved away, and disciples calmed.
Jin Guangyao had lived through this moment before and knew how it would end. He did not shake, but it was no easier to bear.
A thousand steps to make him cruel, a thousand steps to break him.
He would feel these bruises later, after he could stare down at Nie Mingjue’s body. He would regret it again, he knew but—
But the stairs couldn’t be forgiven.
In a rush of fluttering white robes, Lan Xichen swept out of the palace, rushing to Jin Guangyao’s side and standing before him.
He couldn’t bear how beautiful the man was, how much care he was given.
Lan Xichen pressed gentle fingers into his wrist, looked at him with such worried eyes. The man’s fingers were trembling, he noticed, and wondered at that. The corner of his devious mind that was dedicated to paranoia and plotting thought it strange.
The rest of him wanted to sooth that trembling away, wanted to make those fingers press into his wrists.
He wanted to flinch away too, with the sting of a sword still echoing in his ribs. He wanted to crawl into the man’s lap and sink into his skin, wanted to never let him leave.
He wanted so much of Lan Xichen. The man had always given him so much, and treated him the same, through years and brothels and fine halls.
Jin Guangyao didn’t want him to die. The beast in his blood swam and snarled at the thought, pressed out like it would consume him.
He had never wanted something so badly, through the entirety of his desperate and greedy life.
It took him less than a day to plan how to kill Nie Mingjue. It took him a few hours to slip poison into his drink, precious moments more to pin the blame firmly on the resentful and pitiable brother Nie Huaisang.
Oh, how terrible a family drama, the gossips would say behind spread fans and with glimmering eyes. A brother driven to poison for his failure, for his weakness and love of fans.
Gossip was poison, and Jin Guangyao had a deft hand for liquid death.
He watched with shocked eyes as Nie Mingjue clutched at his chest, a big hand crinkling the fine silks of Nie Clan robes. He watched the great man reel, watched him topple forward.
Tea cups spilled across the floor as ash and dust, as blood and sand. Polished wood looked so very dirty, when it was stained by broken porcelain and spat blood.
It looked even more filthy, with Nie Mingjue laying prone and broken.
Son of a whore, echoed through Jin Guangyao’s head and kept him from feeling regret a second time.
Light faded strangely from strong eyes. He raced to his brother’s side, pressed fingers that should have healed to the man’s neck. He looked so very desperate, and in many ways he was.
He hadn’t wanted to do this, a second time. His hands trembled across Nie Mingjue, trembled and he did not need to fake it. No qi could stop this poison, no desperate healing could slow it. He had chosen it carefully from the vile plants of Yiling, and nothing could stop its miasmatic spread.
Tea spilled over the polished wood, and Nie Mingjue died. Baxia slipped from a strong waist with a clatter, and Jin Guangyao knew so much regret.
Then he blinked open terrified eyes above the endless stairs.
⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━⊰
He blinked awake, blinked into being, blinked into pain and terrible loss. The light overhead shone so bright, glittering over gilded stairs and across the tiled roof of Koi Tower.
The light glittered off Nie Mingjue too, as the man kicked out at his chest. Jin Guangyao had only a moment to watch that blow fall, to watch it strike towards him.
He would fall again, on this day, with the stairs catching his heels and tumbling him down. The Head Cultivator of all the land, who had worked so very hard to do good, to improve the world and keep people safe, no matter what it took, would fall.
He would fall down again, at his sworn brother’s hands.
But no, no, he had been pushed down one too many times. He had been called whore’s son one too many times too, and Jin Guangyao couldn’t stand for it again.
He had closed his eyes over Nie Mingjue’s corpse for a second time. He had opened them to the stairs and this terrible fall for a third. There was gilded marble surrounding him and glinting in the sun, and it felt like the enemy. But this time it didn’t matter.
This time he would strike first.
Jin Guangyao lashed out, speed assassin-quick and deadly. His fingers gouged forward, cutting into the soft silk of Nie Mingjue’s robes and striking for the heart. He had spent long hours at Wen Ruohan’s side, learning the tyrant’s skill and clever tricks.
He was an assassin, and people so often forgot that.
But Nie Mingjue never had. A snake, the man had called him, and watched him like the hawk come to devour him. Jin Guangyao had only ever wanted respect.
Instead he was given distrust.
So he struck out, but it was a futile attack. Even in this, his brother had him outclassed. The man pivoted on a foot, snarled in rage, and slammed a powerful hand into his arm.
The crack of bone echoed so loudly, in this space above the stairs.
The sound echoed into his ears, into his very veins. It was so much louder than the pain, so much more cavernous. The beast in his skin boiled and roiled at its noise, a wounded creature given to rage.
Jin Guangyao couldn’t help but tremble. He was so used to pain, so used to the sting of sharp knives and the bruises of terrible marble. Jin Guangyao had been thrown down all his life, and he knew all pain as an old friend and older comfort.
Somehow, that resonant crack of fracturing bone was unbearable. He had defeated the man before him. He had beaten his own demons.
He had fed the beast in his skin and regretted it so much.
Whatever fate had cursed him to relive this moment should be burned and devoured, he thought.
The sun glinted so very brightly across his fine robes, but his father thought him unfit to wear them.
Did Nie Mingjue think the same, he wondered, staring at the man’s furious eyes. The Sect Leader looked like a mountain, strong and unmovable. For so long, Jin Guangyao had only wanted to climb his peaks.
Son of a whore, Nie Mingjue had called him three times, and broken his arm.
“You dare strike me,” the man said, and it was like an avalanche had come to grind a voice into being. Once that voice had spoken in his defense, and that man had looked at him with pride.
Now it was fury and clarity, rage and pity. Now Jin Guangyao hated that look.
It was too much, it was all too much. He had broken his masks and cracked his soul open on these steps so many times. He had struck at his brother and revealed his hate, his desperation.
He just hadn’t wanted to fall again.
Sun shining into his robes and burning him deadly, he laughed. Through the pain, through the sharp ache of cracked bone, he laughed.
He laughed and it was far too honest, but what would it matter? Either he would die or he would kill the man before him.
Either way he would open his eyes on these stairs again.
“So self-righteous, brother. So damned self-righteous, always doing the right thing, always so good.” His arm stung, ached, trembled. He hadn’t fallen down the stairs yet but it was only a matter of time, only moments left.
He would open his eyes to the man he had once respected, and he would open his eyes to a pain that went soul-deep and clawing.
“Have you never thought that I was trying to do good too?”
Nie Mingjue’s face was coated in rage, but it broke for a moment, like the clouds parting before the sun. There was a gleam like Baxia’s blade in his eyes, the fury of a thousand storms in his bared teeth.
But for a moment, he paused.
“Your good, snake, was wasted in murder and treachery.”
Jin Guangyao laughed, and it was a bitter sound. All the politeness had vanished from his face, all the masks had cracked. He was speaking the truth, forced out by a broken arm and his own foolish tongue.
But it didn’t matter, couldn’t.
He would just kill the man before him again and open his eyes above the stairs.
He could play out the entire future again, if he wished to. But ever would he be tied to this man, bound to death and the bruises of smooth marble.
Once, he would have loved that with all his famished blood. Now he could only feel his heart twitch and the beast beneath his skin go acidic, could feel it writhe and thrash.
He had fallen down the stairs so many times.
For the long years of his miserable childhood, all he had ever wanted was to earn a father’s approval. In the perfumed corners of a brothel, in the cracks where he couldn’t hear the faked moans, in the places where no hands reached for his mother, he had thought of escape.
Father will come if I am but good enough, he thought, with a child’s folly. It had been the hope he used to chain the beast in his skin, for long years.
Then he had met the curse that was Jin Guangshan. Then he had been thrown down the stairs. Now all he had ever wanted was to devour his father’s legacy and rise above it.
Nie Mingjue had valued him, once. Jin Guangyao had loved him, once, as fiercely as he loved Lan Xichen.
The past was dust ground beneath the heels of fate, beneath the hopes Jin Guangyao once had.
He had stared at Nie Mingjue with such hope, once. He had been—
He had been young.
Now he was old and furious. The beast in his blood had grown into its teeth, and all the love Jin Guangyao had was carefully compartmented away.
Place it in a gilded cage and let it scream. He would not obey it now, not as he heard whore’s son.
Jin Guangyao was too malleable to listen to the commands of a powerless bird.
His arm stung, but Nie Mingjue did not draw his saber. The man was a picture of fierce rage and righteousness, but he had Jin Guangyao in a strong grip.
The white robes of Lan Xichen were a blessing, now, even as they made his masks crumble.
He had laughed too honestly, had spoken freely. Lan Xichen ran forward with worried eyes and Shuoyue bare and deadly, driving Nie Mingjue back a careful step.
Jin Guangyao really needed to kill him.
There was a strange awareness in Lan Xichen’s eyes, like he had been frightened, like he had been broken.
They caught on Jin Guangyao and wouldn’t look away, wouldn’t shift a fraction.
He didn’t know what to make of that, wanted to burrow into the man’s strong arms and never be free. He wanted to run, too, with the memory of a sword buried deep in his chest.
But he could never flee from those eyes.
“Dage, step back.” The words were sharp, from a gentle voice. They held worry, a depth of fear that Jin Guangyao didn’t expect, even with a broken arm and cold sweat across his face.
The rage hadn’t faded from the man’s face, jaw set into fury. But Jin Guangyao couldn’t pay attention to that, only a fraction of him even registering the reaction.
All that he was had focused in on Lan Xichen like the man was a flame and he a beastly moth.
It wasn’t like Lan Xichen to be sharp, and even less like him to stare at Jin Guangyao so.
The man was kind and gentle, noble and soft-hearted. But he was a calm man above all else, a level-headed warrior made to govern a battlefield.
This man with worried eyes and shaking fingers wasn’t him.
“Leave, Xichen. This is between us.” Nie Mingjue’s eyes were hot as fire, hot enough to burn Jin Guangyao to pieces. The man had never been inclined to cold rage, had never known the restraint of a revenge served frozen and endless.
That made him all the more dangerous now, but it didn’t matter.
“It is no matter, brother,” he said, with a polite smile. The First Jade needed to go, needed to step careful feet away from this cursed place.
Above the stairs was not a space for Lan Xichen and his gentle kindness, and Jin Guangyao couldn’t kill Nie Mingjue with Lan Xichen standing proud and protective.
But the man shook his head, and Jin Guangyao felt his heart sink.
“No, brothers, I will not leave. A-yao is hurt, brother. I will not let you do more.” The man glanced at the stairs again, glanced at them more times than he should have.
Jin Guangyao, with the whole of his spider’s mind focused on Lan Xichen, noticed.
Something was wrong, and he had a terrible inkling of what.
Fed by the need to know, by the need to help Lan Xichen, Jin Guangyao killed Nie Mingjue in his sleep.
This time, he watched his brother die and let himself feel regret. He hadn’t wanted this, not the first time and not the last.
He had never wanted this.
⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━⊰
Jin Guangyao had a theory to test, and ever had he been a man of facts and careful observation.
The next time he blinked above the stairs, he did not move to stop Nie Mingjue. He let each bruise purple his skin, let marble stairs press cold and terrible over his bones.
His arm did not crack. He did not cry out. He stood, at the bottom of the stairs.
The golden sight of Koi Tower greeted him, glimmering in the sunlight like a dragon with such beautiful scales.
He had never seen anything he hated more.
The same scenes played out, and he made the same motions, spoke the same lines. He noticed Nie Mingjue’s fury, the way his hands shook with rage.
Even now, the man was on the brink of a qi deviation, and after that last quiet death, Jin Guangyao couldn’t help but feel—
Worry.
But that was not for now, that was not the purpose of this terrible fall. He had killed again, stained his fingers bloody and grimy. In the light of this beautiful sun, he was filthy with his origins and his deeds.
He had done it for Lan Xichen and his too-knowing eyes. Those eyes stared at him now, strong and deep with the bones lining the ocean floor.
They were lovely.
“A-yao,” the man said, and all of that terrible kindness came with it. Jin Guangyao couldn’t bear that look, couldn’t bear those gentle eyes and the lips that moved like they held regret.
There was so much pain in that face, and he had sworn to never hurt this man.
“Do you—”
Jin Guangyao cut him off with a soft hand and a masked kindness. They were in the walls of Koi Tower, and he could not see the stairs inside this dignified courtyard. Gentle flowers waved in the sunlight, but Jin Guangyao could not see their beauty.
He could not relax, even now.
“Ah, brother I am fine, truly.” He smiled as he spoke, smiled past the bruises. His arm ached with a phantom pain, his mind whirled with a thousand thoughts.
It had been needed but—
He hadn’t wanted to fall down the stairs again. The bruises felt so fresh now, digging into his back like fire and dark memories. He had almost cried out, before the fall, had almost reached out. It had been so much, to bear that pain again.
Jin Guangyao had killed every man who had thrown him down stairs. He had never regretted it, though he had regretted the need.
Now he had let himself fall. Would he need to break his own bones just as thoroughly?
But Lan Xichen just looked at him with dark eyes and reached out cautious fingers.
“How many times have you fallen down the stairs, A-yao,” the man asked, and that question sunk into the air like it had been made of gold and weighed down with iron.
It was a question Lan Xichen would never have thought to ask, the first time. It was a question that answered so many of Jin Guangyao’s questions.
It was a question that hurt so much.
“How much do you remember, brother?”