The Burn

Tan Bowen looked utterly miserable. "What a wonderful performance, all of the joy of that masterpiece ruined for her by our lack of good manners…"

When Tan Bowen was being genuine, Bai Li reflected, he did have a certain charm… He nodded in stiff agreement with the poet.

Bai Li was now replaying all of his conversations with her in his head. He'd finally cottoned on to what should have been obvious to him right from the start. For a smart man, he felt very stupid.

She had been trying to help him by showing him her face and giving him a chance to avoid marrying her. She wanted to avoid trapping him and surprising him, for all the wrong reasons, on their wedding day.

What a blockhead he'd been! He had allowed her beauty to distract him, convinced she must know she was beautiful because it was so glaringly obvious. When in fact, her family had cocooned and misled her.

He understood why, but he didn't like it. The lie had been hurtful to her, and a girl with such an obvious energy and joie de vivre, should not be trapped inside all her life.

The prince sat sullenly and didn't say a word.

The princess watched him as he rose and stalked off into the garden where he scaled a plum tree, climbing until he reached the errant veil. He jumped lightly to the ground, tucking the veil into his pocket.

She was saddened by the unhappy ending of what had been a perfect afternoon.

She watched her brother walk out of the garden without talking to anyone. She didn't try to stop him; she would catch up with him later. Right now, she could tell that he wanted to be alone with his thoughts to brood. He would talk to her when he was ready.

The Prince walked rapidly and aimlessly through the palace corridors, frightened by the intensity of his feelings for Mei Meili.

Having lost his mother when he was young, and growing up surrounded by vicious palace politics, Yicai had built a thick self-protective wall around his feelings. He rarely allowed himself the luxury of truly caring for anyone, or anything. That defensive wall had served him well time and again.

He didn't care what others thought about him, and he didn't truly care about almost anyone. It gave him a great freedom to move through life following his own ambitions and forging his own path.

Almost devoid of empathy, he could live with the terrible things he had witnessed in the palace since he was a small boy. He could play offensive and defensive politics, and his detachment made him a formidable player.

But this girl… this girl, had somehow worked her way under his skin.

He didn't know why, and he didn't accept that it was just because she was beautiful. He had beauties throwing themselves at him every day, and none had ever made him feel anything, other than passing lust.

This felt like a magnetic pull … instinctual. Call it fate, call it desire; it didn't matter what label you put on it, he was gone … hook, line and sinker.

When he looked at her, he wanted to own her. He was wracked with a kind of violent drive to possess her. He deeply understood and applauded her father's decision to keep her safe in the bosom of the Mei family.

Jealousy raged in his heart when he thought of Bai Li and Tan Bowen watching her dance. He was even jealous of her brothers. Knowing how close she was to Third Brother ate at him.

He didn't want her to be close to any man but him. If he took her north, she would almost never see her family…

When she looked at him, he knew they would be a perfect fit for one another, as husband and wife, as friends, as lovers.

It was like the gods had understood his own heart better than he ever could. They had read his heart, mind and soul and built the perfect woman for him, then placed her on earth in his path.

It was everything about her, he reflected. Her face, her figure, her hair, her smile, her bright clear eyes, her innocence, her strength, her lack of airs and graces, her physicality, the way she spoke with her dance, the joyful freedom in her laugh…

He was struggling with a burning desire to force the Mei's to give her to him. 'May the best man win' and his friends be damned! Her own thoughts on the matter, an irrelevance. He would treat her like the goddess she was, and she would learn to love him.

Ahhhh! What was happening to him? He really needed to get a grip on himself and work out how to reduce the burn.

He stopped outside the armoury, breathing heavily. He punched the door so that it rattled on its hinges, the pain to his knuckles cooling his hot head.

He finally understood the stories of Emperor Xuanzong, who was said to have become obsessed by one of his concubines and neglected his duties. This man whom he had only ever considered with disdain for his weaknesses.

He now saw how a man might give up on everything that previously meant something to him, to secure the heart and soul of his love.

His weakness made him disgusted in himself, and his vulnerability turned, inevitably, to anger.

He realised he was heading towards the training grounds. He would burn off some of this simmering rage in a sword fight.

May God help the man stupid enough to volunteer to spar with him!