Work Text:
Alternate universe -, reversal of role in some case. Warning for child death in this chapter specifically.
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Six heirs, and one spare. That was how it was going to go.
But soon, not even a few months after the last child was born, it was five heirs and one spare. The first child from the poison clan came down with a strange sickness that would not go away, no matter how proficient the poison clan was with their medicine.
And then it was four heirs and one spare. And people started to talk, villages started to talk. Those outside the sect, started to talk. After all one baby was unfortunate but understandable. But two in the span of a few months, especially those children, heirs of the current sect lord?
It was an assassination of heirs. guards were deployed , maids and hand servants were screened harsher than.
but.
But it keeps happening. One heir after the other, months apart start to die. Mothers cried, their tears useless against the onslaught of death.
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One heir, one spare lives now. Lady Mu in a sense of sacrifice, stops an assassin, her body stabbed in place of her one hope for the Wise Clan. The assassin dies with Lord Mu hands in their chest. but the known culprit cannot be said out loud. For he is-
the assassin is a guardian of the sect, and a rage starts to simmer.
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Young eyes stare at one another, the barest sense of recognition is done but for now, the two children have barely met. But Lord Mu knows the priorities of safety, for as long as the spare is safe and happy. So too will the heir be safe.
this is the only way, for now.