The Luxury of Vengeance

relentless push of Bao's erection inside of him. Only when he was seated fully inside did he lean down to take Chien's lips in a possessive kiss. The shift in position made Chien arch under him, torn between wanting to get further away from the intense pleasure and allowing himself to drown in it. Bao did not give him a choice however. His right hand tightened on Chien's waist in a way Chien knew would leave marks later.

  It seemed no matter how tightly Chien clung there was no way he would keep Bao with him. It would be so much easier if he could explain it, if he could put into words why the Empress could not be allowed to live. All of this darkness had begun with pointless death and it seemed that would be the only way it would end.

  He would have been content to have it last forever, to stay on that precipice of intense pleasure. But it was not possible. He came not with a shout, but with a choked whimper. He lay there pliantly in the aftermath, trying and failing to catch his breath as Bao finished, his mouth worrying the skin just above Chien's pulse. He made scarcely a sound when he came and not for the first time, Chien sincerely regretted the secrecy their affair required. In the aftermath, he could feel the gentle breeze bringing him cruelly back to reality.

  "I will not tell the Empress." Bao's hoarse voice broke the silence, and though Chien knew he ought to be applauding his victory, he felt nothing but guilt. Bao was not built for this sort of deception. It would weigh heavily upon him. Bao was built for far more courageous deeds than Chien would ever accomplish.

  "What would make you happy, Bao?"

  Bao's mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally found his words. "It is a useless exercise to dream." He started to stand, but Chien yanked him back down until he lay beside him.

  "Give me this."

  "I might have liked to return to my home, to teach them the things I have learned here in the palace and ensure that they never know hunger or desperation again." His hand hovered over Chien for a moment, and Chien could see in his eyes an emotion so intense it humbled him. But he shook his head and pulled his hand away and Chien knew that he was not the only one who desperately needed distance.

  And still, Chien's hand rose tentatively to brush against Bao's cheek, but Bao pulled back at the last minute. He sat over Chien for a moment, Chien's hand still awkwardly hanging in the air. "This path you're on. It only has one ending, you know."

  "Success. It's the only ending I can allow myself to contemplate."

  Bao did not say anything for a long minute. "I hope it is worth it then."

  Chien thought of what the Empress had taken from him, what he had sacrificed so that he might finally pay back what she was owed. Thirteen years of pain could not easily be erased in a single night, but it had to begin somewhere didn't it? "It will be." He answered, though by that time his answer echoed in an empty room.

  And this time, he had no one to blame but himself. It was not his aunt who had chased Bao away. It would all be worth it, he reminded himself. The goal. The end result, it was all that mattered.

  His heart told him differently.

  His aunt summoned him to appear in court the next morning. It was hardly surprising. Likely she wished to punish him for his actions the night before. His body ached as he dressed himself. He dismissed the servants, wanting a moment to himself. A time to mourn what he had so effectively ruined. A chance to remember the last kiss he'd shared with Bao, that possessive hunger that had seemed as if it might never be satisfied.

  With a frown, he purposefully dismissed the thoughts. There would be time to linger on such things later. A time to regret and mourn. But right now, he had to focus. The Dragon had been right. There was no room for weakness in his plan. His aunt would capitalize upon any weakness and use it to destroy him. What he faced tonight was a truly dangerous foe, not a courtier caught off his guard. Tonight. Tonight. The word circled in his head. Everything was going perfectly and this would all come to an end tonight. Was that possible? The thought gave him pause.

  Whatever his aunt had planned for him, however, it seemed she intended to make him wait. She busied herself seeing to the petitioners who had travelled to the palace to ask the Empress's favor. Many of them were requests that the Empress speak on their behalf to the Dragon. As the Empress was his servant, it was appropriate that she might hold his ear.

  On the tier below the Empress, the two princes sat. Custom dictated that the day of a duel, the men involved should spend their day in the Meditation Hall, meditating to the Dragon. It should hardly have surprised Chien that the princes had chosen to forgo particular ritual.

  Chien dug his fingers into his palm and forced himself to calm. Minh looked between Tuan and Chien with a confused look. Likely he wondered why his poison seemed not to be working properly. Chien would have to ensure that Minh could not have a chance to get him alone and demand to know what he had done.

  Before long, court had ended and the room began to clear. Confused, Chien began to stand as well. His aunt's voice cut clearly through the quiet. "Not you my, dear nephew. We must speak." Fear raced through him as the ministers exited and in their place, soldiers filled the room, filing along the wall to block his escape.

  His perfect plan had gone astray.

  He would not show her fear. Chien turned, expression calm. "May I ask what this is for, Empress? I am truly sorry about my behavior at the banquet."

  His aunt tilted her head and for a moment, he was struck by the fact that she truly was beautiful. She also wore his mother's favorite ao dai. "Dear nephew, I find I cannot help but wonder if you have the bad fortune to find yourself as some courtier's pawn. You are, after all, hardly capable of such a plan yourself."

  "I'm afraid I do not understand." Somehow she'd found out. But how much did she know? Why was he still alive?

  "Of course you do not." The Empress sighed, "My poor, stupid nephew, used by those who would see me thrown from my throne."

  "You believe I have played part in some plan to betray you?"

  A small smile played upon her lips, "I know you have played part in such a plan. And even if you have been too simple to know the truth, I still intend to see you punished."

  "Killed."

  "Killed? No! You must think me a barbarian. I would not kill my brother's last surviving child." She sat back fully, her fingers playing along the golden dragon head along the arm of the throne. "No, I have already made plans. What would suit you best is to remove yourself from the palace. Away from where others might manipulate you."

  "You believe that I have been the victim of manipulation? To turn against you and see you destroyed?"

  "Not me. My enemies would not dare attack me directly. They attack my sons instead." Chien's mind raced, but he could only think of one person who would have given her such information. Bao had promised. Twice.

  But what were promises worth in the face of betrayal. A hate like he had never known welled up inside of him, threatening to burst. Underneath the hate he could feel the pain in his chest, spreading through the whole of his body in a slow, steady ache. Even the Empress's betrayal had not affected him so.

  "I have heard that you were commissioned to pour poison into the princes' drinks."

  "And where, my Empress, did you hear such a thing?"

  "That does not matter. I had the poison replaced with water either way. But it is true, is it not?"

  "Perhaps."

  The Empress seemed startled by his half answer. "Now is not the time to play coy, nephew. Answer my question so that we may decide your punishment. I wish to know why you would do such a thing when I have cared for you for so long. Seen you fed and clothed. Seen you guarded. Why would you betray me?"

  It was almost a relief when he snorted in laughter at her statement. Thirteen years of being someone else, and he was Prince Chien, at last, if he could only remember who Prince Chien was supposed to be in all this madness. "Cared for me? Clothed me? Surely you must take me for some kind of fool." His aunt seemed taken aback by his laughter. "You think I would ever be gr
ateful to the woman who killed my mother and sister? To the woman who even now sits upon a throne that was never hers?"

  "You speak of treason."

  "You are the one who committed treason. I speak of justice." He had nothing else. No family, no love. But this he could hold fast to. Justice would not betray him. Vengeance would keep him firm. It was his fault, his weakness, for believing he could trust the general. No one could be trusted.

  "You speak of things you cannot possibly understand."

  "Not understand?" Chien laughed once more. "I sat there hidden amongst my mother's things and listened as you taunted her. Listened as you told her exactly who had betrayed her. The only thing I could not bear to listen to was the end. I covered my ears to drown out the sound of my mother dying."

  There was a dawning realization on his aunt's face. She seemed to know now how she had been fooled. How she had underestimated him. "You hid like a coward while your mother lay dying."

  "I hid under my mother's orders." But her words stung. He had hidden, hadn't he? He could have joined her. He could have fought. He could have done anything, but he had hidden instead.

  "So you came to this complicated plot. You poisoned my sons hoping what? That I might feel the same thing you did? That I might be forced to watch them die?" She stood, "Did you set them against each other as well?"

  "Mother! I cannot be so easily manipulated!"