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The first time you see someone die, you are ten, and your father has dragged you out to witness a border skirmish. You don’t want to go, but most in the Nie sect are exposed to bloodshed at a younger age, and there is a war coming, so all your pleading falls on deaf ears.
“To let you avoid your duty any longer would be irresponsible,” your father says, and you know that is that. Nies are not irresponsible. They are also not cowardly, idle or deceitful, but you already know by then that you are barely considered a Nie, and certainly not a good one. It doesn’t bother you and it never will, and when you are older you will be grateful to the bone to your family for never letting it matter. For now, though, it is just part of who you are and you do not give it much consideration.
Your brother insists on going too, and though your father rolls his eyes in fond exasperation at the two of you, he allows it. Nie Mingjue beams, and tells you to stay close to him, an order which you, for once, plan on following.
It turns out that position is an excellent one to pay witness to the battle that follows.
This is the first time you have ever seen your father and brother in a real fight, the first time you see them kill. You’ve tagged along unwillingly on night-hunts before, and you expect much of the same-- danger, yelling, some blood perhaps, but an inhuman face dead at the end of the hunt, and very little guilt or horror. But it’s not like that.
The dispute is over some contested part of territory between the Nie and Wen sects, some irrelevant piece of farming land that you don’t believe has any strategic value whatsoever. Like so many other things in the cultivation world, it is clear to you that this is about pride. The Wen sect troops outnumber the Nie by nearly double their number, but the majority of them are not cultivators. Some are even carrying farming equipment as weapons, and they wear no armor, just threadbare robes. You think, perhaps, seeing the fear on their faces, and the way the Wen soldiers shove them forwards, that they are farmers who have been conscripted into battle.
You have heard often that the Wen Sect has ten soldiers to one of the Nie, but you have never thought about where those soldiers come from. You have never had to. But before you can ask your brother about it, to wonder at what these men are doing on the battlefield, your father is ordering you forward, and you maneuver yourself behind your brother, frightened by the clanging of swords already starting up ahead.
The battle is a nightmare of blood and steel and dirt. Your sword is limply held at the ready, but there is no need for it. You are behind your brother, and he carves through the Wen battle lines like…like a butcher cutting meat.
Blood sprays into your face as he slashes at the men, and you make a horrified noise, trying to scrub at your face, but someone lunges at you and you duck behind your brother again.
“Huaisang, block him!” your brother snaps, and then does it himself without bothering to wait. In another move, maybe two, he has disarmed the cultivator, and slashed his neck open in a smooth motion. You watch, transfixed, as the man gurgles his way to death, blood staining the ground a brilliant red. You do not ever remember seeing paint that bright.
You cannot recall the rest of it. You come back to yourself at the end of the battle, your hair disheveled and out of its customary braids, your clothes soaked with sweat and blood. This should annoy you.
Instead, you lurch away from the smell of death and heave until there is nothing left in your stomach.
Once Jin Guangyao is dead, you do not return to Guanyin Temple for a very long time. There is little reason to, after all. What is left for you there except the dead?
You carry your dead inside yourself every day, anyway. Journeying there would be the height of pointlessness. But then, the reports start trickling in from Yunping, of strange noises heard at night, of fearful townspeople too afraid to walk past the building at night.
You could ignore this, if you felt like it, leave it to Jiang Cheng to sort out. It is, technically, his problem. But you have given up shirking your duties lately. It is the price you swore you would pay, for the years you spent chasing the only thing you wanted. You sigh, and start making plans to leave.
When they bring you home, you slip the pitying gazes of the men in the courtyard to hide in your mother’s room. They tell you she is the one you take after, but you have never seen it. Your mother is pale and fragile and pretty, like you, but there is nothing of fear or indecision in her gaze, only the blunt assessment of someone sizing up an opponent on the battlefield. Some cultivators wonder, when they think they cannot be overheard, why your father married a foreigner with soft hands and softer silks, but you never really have. She might not have been born here, but she belongs. She is a better Nie than you are, even.
That assessing gaze is on you now as she rebraids your mussed hair in the traditional Nie style with brisk efficiency.
“I’m not a fighter,” you say unhappily. Your mother’s face, blurred in the bronze mirror before you, does not change. “They all know I’m not. Why did they even bring me? It was stupid.”
There is a long silence, while she works, fingers tugging gently at your scalp.
“You had to see,” she says, finally, the first words she’s spoken since you arrived. “You are not a fighter, A-Sang, but you had to see. Some truths have to be known.”
You blink at her words, tilting your head up to look at her upside down, making her tsk and tap you sternly on the nose. You giggle and she smiles, though her eyes stay serious.
“What truths?” you ask her.
“The truth of the people around you,” she answers easily. “You do realise you are surrounded by killers, don’t you?”
You have never heard it put that way before. It makes you afraid, and you try to plaster a more serious expression onto your face, knitting your eyebrows seriously.
“It’s better not to move your face at all, if you’re trying not to show your fear,” your mother says.
“I tried that,” you say. “It doesn’t work for me. I can’t change what I am. I have to make them think I’m something else. They have to do it to themselves.”
Your mother hums wordlessly. If it were your father or brother here with you, such a statement would start a fight, but that is not your mother’s way. She finds a path over or around or under the problem, and carries on. “Keep practicing.”
She works on your hair in silence for a little longer, and you do not rush her, keeping your eyes on the watery, weak afternoon light spilling in through the windows. It is winter in Qinghe Nie, and it will be full dark very soon.
Your mother ties off your finished braid, smoothing down your hair even though it is fine as silk and never tangles, just like hers. “There,” she says. “Face me, if you would, A-Sang.”
You do so obediently, and she nods at the sight of you in satisfaction. “You are surrounded by killers,” she continues, picking up where she left off. This is one of your favourite things about your mother-- she knows you can keep up, the way no one else in your family does. “Your father, your brother, your cousins-- every other cultivator in the Nie Sect. They kill so often it has become second nature to them, so often they don’t think about who or why they’re killing anymore. I expect none of them even understand why you were so upset. You are surrounded by killers, and you are not one.”
“Not yet,” she adds carelessly, and it will be a few years before you realise she was certain you would be, one day. “But you will always be surrounded by those stronger than you. I want you to remember-- and this is important-- that you need to know what they are capable of. You must always keep in mind just how dangerous the people around you are.”
“But Da-ge wouldn’t hurt me,” you protest in the smallest of voices. To suggest otherwise is sacrilege. Worse, even. “A-die wouldn’t either.”
“It’s not about who would hurt you, A-Sang.” Your mother tilts her head, her eyes deep and dark, still lakes at midnight. They make you think, always, of drowning. “It’s about truth. If you see someone, truly see them, right down to the parts of them that you despise, or fear, they will never be able to surprise you. Your father has taught you a thing or two about the value of surprise in a fight, has he not?”
You nod. “But I don’t want to fight Da-ge.”
She smiles then, a real one that warms her eyes all the way through. “I don’t want you two to fight either. But your brother has his sword,” she says. “You must find your own weapon to wield. And that is why I told your father that he had to bring you to the battlefield today.”
No one ever calls your conversations with your mother lessons, but you learn, and you learn well.
It takes a few days before you are willing to admit that you will need help.
Your brother was one of the most powerful cultivators in the world; Jin Guangyao was one of the cleverest. If anything of either of them remains, this is going to be a dangerous task.
Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have run off together again; no one knows where, and you do not want to waste time tracking them down. Besides, part of you thinks that they deserve the break, and you are always loath to interrupt them. You owe them, after all.
There is only one other person you know who you could trust with something so delicate and dangerous.
“Damn it,” you say to the ceiling. The ceiling is unimpressed.
Your mother does not like the Lan boy your da-ge always talks about. She does not show it, and you are certain neither of them know, but she does not. You ask her about it, once.
“I do not dislike him,” she says, mildly, and sips her tea. You wait, and she continues, “I imagine he is hard to dislike. But really, I didn’t think you could drill kindness into someone like a reflex until you met him. If it wasn’t so foolish, I would be impressed.”
You are offended by this. You like Lan Xichen-- maybe you like him more than is sensible, but you are too young to notice how futile your affection would be-- and you want to defend him.
“Being kind is a good thing,” you protest. “That’s what everyone says.”
“Nothing is ever good or bad all the time,” your mother muses. “Even cruelty has its place on occasion, or so I’ve found. But knowing when to be unkind is very important, A-Sang, when it comes to protecting yourself, so you should learn it well.”
Nies are good at protecting themselves. You are not a good Nie, and it doesn’t bother you-- but you do like pleasing the people you love, and so you nod seriously, tiny brows drawn together in consideration.
Like in so many other instances, your mother turns out to be right. It doesn’t change anything.
Guanyin Temple sits in the middle of Yunping like a gaping wound. Where once it was the busiest part of the district, now it lies empty and bereft of visitors. The citizens skirt round it, eyes averted as though they think the misfortune of the place will stick to them if they stare too long.
You’re steeped in bad luck as it is, so you aren’t too worried. Fishes don’t fear the water, after all.
As you approach the building, a tall figure unfolds itself from a side street, making you start with shock. For a moment you think, ridiculously, that it is a ghost-- but then your eyes fix themselves on that familiar face.
“I didn’t think you’d really come,” you say blankly. He’d still been in seclusion when you’d sent the letter, and the Lans did not leave seclusion lightly. Lan Xichen does not reply, only gestures wearily at the temple’s entrance.
You walk into the building side by side, neither of you willing to break the silence, uncomfortable though it is. Thankfully, once you set foot in the entrance, there is no need for it. Your brother’s coffin is rattling ominously in the darkness, the chains you had placed barely containing it.
“Stay behind me,” Lan Xichen says shortly, drawing his sword and stepping forward. Shouyue glows a little in the darkness, the same colour as the moonlight.
“Shouldn’t the seals have held longer?” you peer out from behind. “The seals we placed on the Burial Mounds after Wei Wuxian died had to be renewed annually as well, but that was the Burial Mounds. Even my brother can’t harbour the resentment of thousands of brutally killed soldiers.”
“You trapped him in there with the man he hated most in the world.” Lan Xichen’s voice is flat. “Don’t underestimate him. And don’t forget Jin Guangyao is there as well.”
It wasn’t you who trapped Jin Guangyao there-- that hadn’t been planned-- but you take his meaning. The two of you approach the coffin cautiously. It starts to rattle more violently, seemingly sensing your presence, but nothing else happens, the seals still holding strong. Lan Xichen casts a spell, then another, then shakes his head.
“Another proper calming spell should keep them quiet for another year. We should look for a more permanent solution in the meantime.”
You nod obediently, and he starts to walk closer, but he draws to a stop as the coffin leaps, slamming against the chains. You cast a glance at his face, noting the way he has gone pale, and sigh. You had hoped to avoid this, but there is something you can do to help. Stepping out from behind Lan Xichen, you pull a knife out from your belt and stride up to the coffin, ignoring the shrieks that have started to escape from within. In a brisk motion, you slide the blade across your forearm. Blood splatters down onto the coffin below. Lan Xichen starts forward a little, alarm in his eyes, but the violence of the rattling pauses for a moment, and you nod at him to continue.
He pulls out his flute, shutting his eyes as he starts to play. Slowly, the noises within lessen, and then cease completely. It hurts, and you didn’t know it would. Not for your brother-- that’s an ache that goes bone-deep, and you cannot bear to dig it out, but it is also not new-- but for Jin Guangyao. You want him back, the way a child wants to wail for a lost toy.
You don’t forget you loved him, usually, but you forget how it felt, and the memory of it burns because you had loved his softness the most. He hadn’t been a fighter either, and you had not had that since your mother. He’d been a killer, though. You don’t understand why he needed to hide that so much, surrounded as he was by people with blood on their hands, but then, you played at being weak, too.
You would have loved him-- the real him, that is, not the lie he fed you. That is the thing that stings. You might have been the only person who could have. You are used to looking at those you love, and feeling disgust.
The murder of your brother rendered that line of thought pointless, though.
“I know you all want me to be able to control myself,” you wail once to your mother-- maybe the last thing you ever said to her. “But I can’t. I can’t be anything but what I am.”
She tilts her head and looks at you, and though she is weak from illness (from poison, but you don’t know this yet), her gaze is as inscrutable as ever. “When did I ask you to control yourself, A-Sang?” she says. “You should be as you are. It’s everyone else I want you to keep hold of.”
“Huaisang,” Lan Xichen says, sharply, and it breaks you out of your daze. “That’s enough.”
You realise you have been standing and staring blankly down at the coffin though the spell is over, dripping more and more blood on its lid. There is a small puddle of the stuff by now. Awkwardly, you clear your throat and pull bandages out of a qiankun bag you have strapped to your side, and begin wrapping yourself up. It’s a clumsy effort, especially as your fingers are stiff and frozen from keeping still for so long.
Hands cover yours, and Lan Xichen takes over for you without a word. You let him, watching as he cleans the wound and bandages it with clinical efficiency. He doesn’t let himself touch you more than he has to, you notice.
“I’d let myself bleed out,” you say, because you are tired of dancing around it.
“You might,” he says flatly, which stings more that you would like to admit. He ties off the bandage and steps back. “Go home, Huaisang.”
“You go,” you return. “I’m going to stay here for a while.” You’re visiting family, you think hysterically. Why shouldn’t you linger? The ghosts like you better than just about anyone, anymore.
“The temple isn’t stable,” he points out, gesturing at the dilapidated structure around you. He is correct. It is difficult to believe it has only been a year. You haven’t bothered to maintain anything but the main hall, after all.
When you only shrug at him, stubborn, he exhales in exasperation. “Huaisang--”
“Am I still your responsibility?” you ask, acidly, and he flinches. “No, I thought not. Leave, already.”
You plop down on the floor, and watch him tense up, clenching his fists. You half wonder if he is going to hit you, if you annoy him enough, and you are almost obscenely delighted by the idea. But in the end, Lan Xichen keeps his customary calm, and sits down some distance away from you, his lips in a tense line.
“Seriously?” you ask him in disbelief, but he will not meet your eyes. “And they call me difficult to understand.”
He does not reply, and in the gloom the grim set of his face makes him look unnervingly like his brother instead. You snort to yourself, curling your arms around your knees like a child. It isn’t like he hasn’t seen you less dignified, after all.
That’s the best part of the persona you crafted for yourself. You never have to keep up appearances, not ever. It leaves more free time than anyone thinks, and pride is a worthless concept anyway.
You shift a little, and the movement pulls at your wound, making you gasp slightly. The noise has Lan Xichen moving closer, reaching for your arm in concern, but then he freezes, fingers inches away from your arm.
The two of you are nearly in the same position you were in when you got him to kill Jin Guangyao. You can see that realization skitter across his face.
“Did he move?” he asks, hesitantly.
You tilt your head like one of your birds. “Does it matter?”
Lan Xichen opens his mouth, then shuts it, looking uncertain. “I don’t know.”
“Would it be better if he did, or didn’t?” you wonder.
Lan Xichen shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“Would it--” you start, but he has had enough.
“I don’t know, Huaisang,” he snaps, voice starting to shake. “Can’t you-- I‘ve never asked you for anything-- can’t you just answer the question?”
You consider him, consider yourself. You turn your malice and mercy around in your head like you are holding up glass to light and watching it send bright spots dancing around a room. There’s no point to it, but it’s nice to look at, all the same. Then you lift a shoulder and shrug at him, indifferent, because you cannot decide what to actually be.
Lan Xichen curses viciously, which actually startles you, because he hadn’t even when you were all at war. “Fuck you, Huaisang,” he says, and it isn’t funny in the slightest, but the word sounds so unnatural in his voice that you want to laugh. “Fuck you.”
You shrug again, and you think for a moment that you have finally angered him enough to kill you, to hurt you, but he does not. He kisses you.
It’s a brutal kiss. You are too shocked to respond, and anyway all you can think about is that this is some strange lesson about being careful what you wish for. Lan Xichen bites down on your lower lip, hard enough that he draws blood, and it makes you let out a startled whimper of shock. He licks at the hurt, immediately soothing, and instinctively, you nip him right back, hard. He gasps and jerks back, and you see his lips are swollen, the bottom one bleeding. He looks as confused as you feel.
“What--” you say, touching your lips. Your fingers come away bloody.
“I thought it was the best way to get honesty out of you,” he says, and looks-- shocked, as though he hadn’t even known that was what he was doing.
You burst out laughing then, right in his face, and he looks at you as though you’ve hurt him, as though you are still hurting him. You hadn’t believed you still could, and that’s why you stop, cutting yourself off sharply as though you’ve been slapped.
You weren’t laughing at him. It was only that it was something Jin Guangyao would have done. But you have the sense to hold your tongue on that matter.
“You should leave,” you whisper instead. Lan Xichen swallows hard, and rises. He starts to say something, then shakes his head. Then he swivels on his heel and walks away, disappearing out of the entrance.
There is blood on your lips. Yours, or his-- you don’t know. You lick it off, tasting iron, and laugh in the emptiness of the hall, laugh until you’re sick.
Very few people know that you are a killer, but you are, way before Jin Guangyao’s name was ever known to you. Even you did not escape the war without blood on your hands.
It happens like this: your brother, having decided that Qinghe’s frontline is too dangerous for you, decides to send you back to the Cloud Recesses, half-burnt as it is. You disagree-- you’re no fighter, but this is your home, and you want to help-- but he insists, and he has so much to worry about you do not want to add to the list.
You are almost in Gusu when you are ambushed. It isn’t a bad fight-- your brother has sent more guards than he can afford to spare, and so the Nie cultivators outnumber the Wen by nearly three times. You barely see the fighting at first, but then one of the Wen cultivators nearby manages to throw the boy he is fighting backwards, and he trips and stumbles to the ground. The Wen cultivator looms over him, ready to make the killing blow.
You’re not normally the protective kind, but the boy is your cousin, and your junior by three years, so you start forward, drawing your saber in a hasty movement. Before you even know what has happened, you have plunged your saber into the Wen soldier’s back, hilt-deep.
The man chokes, sinks to his knees. You try to pull the saber free, but it is too deep, and the man lets out a gurgle of pain. You stop, horrified, which is absurd. You have just killed him, after all.
Your cousin nods at you, eyes wide, then throws himself back into the fray, like a good Nie. You spend a few minutes hovering next to the Wen soldier as he dies, and then another few dragging your blade free. In the end, you have to brace your leg against his body and push it off the saber. By the time you are done, the fight is all but over.
You head on to the Cloud Recesses. When Lan Xichen meets you, clearly having heard word of what happened, he draws you into a tight hug. You do not protest, but the truth is that you don’t exactly need it. You do not feel guilty in the slightest.
That, you think, should have been your first sign that you were a Nie after all.
Still not a good one, though. When you finally become a good Nie, your brother will be dead, your friend will be responsible, and you will never care about impressing anyone again.
You end up wandering, after. You can’t bear to stay in Guanyin Temple anymore, and anyway, you can’t quite face your brother after hurting his oldest friend. Nie Mingjue would be so angry.
Well, he usually was for some reason or other. You’ve never let it stop you before-- your brother would forgive you anything after all. Still, you cannot help but wonder if he would find what you’ve turned into disgusting.
You wish you cared more about that, but you know he’d love you just the same. Besides, when you think of Nie Mingjue sometimes, all you remember is him blood-splattered and battle-drunk, and it turns your stomach. At least the feeling would be mutual now. At least the two of you would be on equal ground.
Eventually, your aching feet lead you back to the inn you’re staying in. It’s late, so there is thankfully no one around to force you into conversation. You don’t have the energy to play Headshaker tonight, and that mask is slipping anyway. You see it in the way the minor sect leaders defer to you, in the way the other major sects look at you like you’re a threat none of them can parse.
When you push open the door to your room, Lan Xichen stands by the window. You blink at him in surprise.
“How did you even know where I was staying?” you ask.
“I asked around when I got to the city,” he answers, turning. “You weren’t trying to hide.”
You shrug and slump onto the bed. “If you’ve decided to kill me after all, make it quick, would you? I’m tired.”
That makes him flinch. “I wouldn’t…”
“No one would blame you,” you say, and it is true. Not even you would blame him. You have no room to be judging anyone else’s desire for vengeance. “It would be easy.”
“Easy,” he says flatly. “You think it would be easy for me to murder my best friend’s younger brother, whom I’ve know since we were both children.”
“Not in that sense,” you answer, and smile without any real amusement. “But people can surprise you.”
He gives you that same stricken, injured look he wore earlier, and you sigh. You’re not trying to hurt him, but with Lan Xichen, it is as though you are made of broken glass. He’s going to bleed from touching you, but for some reason he won’t stop. It’s maddening.
“Why are you here?” you ask finally.
“I don’t know,” he says, frustrated. “I don’t know anything.”
That produces a real smile from you. “You thought you’d ask the expert, then?”
“I didn’t know where else to go,” he admits, and the misery in his voice hurts. “I don’t… what do I do now?”
You know he’s not just asking about tonight. “You live. What else is there?”
“That’s it?” Lan Xichen slumps against the window. Hair messy and eyes wild, he almost looks like a real person instead of the perfect jade of Lan. “That’s all?”
“They’re terrible, and they’re dead,” you say. “We’re terrible, and we’re alive. So yes, that’s all.” You curl your hand around the fan in your belt. “This isn’t one of your parables, Sect Leader Lan. There’s no lesson or meaning or moral, so stop looking for one.”
Lan Xichen stares at you for a long moment, forehead knit. “Do I know you at all?”
That’s the crux of the matter, the real reason he’s in your room, you suspect. “You know me better than just about anyone else.” You cock your head. “Although I think Wei Wuxian may be in the running. He was the one who found me out, after all.”
Lan Xichen sighs heavily, scrubbing at his face. “I’m going back into seclusion, when I get back home,” he announces, almost to himself. “I wouldn’t have left, except… well.” He looks at you, exhausted. “Can you find a solution to all this?” He gestures vaguely out the window, to Guanyin Temple.
“I’m sure Wei-xiong will have a few ideas, once he comes back from wherever he is.” You shrug, looking at him. “Do you have a room here?”
Lan Xichen shakes his head. “I don’t need to sleep.”
“You look terrible,” you say, without any censure, and jerk your head to the bed. “Go lie down.”
He looks inclined to argue, then visibly decides otherwise, and slumps over to the bed. You toss him a pillow, and then lie down yourself, careful not to jostle your wounded arm. You’re both too tired to make this awkward, which is frankly a relief. You end up watching Lan Xichen’s face in the dark, shadows under his shut eyes which hadn’t been present before. On some strange instinct, you lean forward to brush a kiss across his lips, soft as the brush of a wing.
He freezes, but doesn’t resist, opening his eyes to look at you in askance. In the moonlight that drifts in through the window, his dark, deep eyes are very wide.
You shrug at him, wearily. “We’re alive.”
He appears to consider that, then nods, eyes still on yours.
“Go to sleep,” you tell him, and shut your own.
Nothing has changed, nothing is fixed, but it is a gentle end to a long, terrible night, and you’ll take it. You are, above all things, a master of making the best of a lousy hand.
You listen as Lan Xichen’s breathing evens out with sleep, and by the time you follow, you almost feel at peace.