The men inside the car with him had the same grim look of blazing, almost uncontrollable rage. Their fury was tightly held in check, like taught wires waiting to be sprang free, their objective to crush and pummel, to debone and tear apart. They had been stewing in their own bile for more than an hour now and they were getting dangerously impatient.

The siege of Laniang conducted in the cowardice of night have upset their rational balance. It had pushed them towards the edge of reason, of madness. They see nothing between them now but the primal urge to draw blood, to ma.s.sacre and kill. Only then will their baser instincts be tamed and satisfied. Blood will flow, but this time it will be in the direction of Yuqui. The dead of Laniang demand it. And they look to this man to make that happen. They sat on the back of the vehicle tense and restless, awaiting his signal.

Behind the feral gleam in his eyes the man, however, seemed lost in his own thoughts. The man's name was Ju Xing, the pride of the family of Ju, the paternal family of her eternal highness, the majestic empress of Yuqui, the mother of his highness the emperor Gu Fang. Ju Xing's mouth curled in derision as the kilometer long honorifics played in his mind.

Ju Xing was twelve when the subject of his parents' ident.i.ty came up during the annual gathering of the elders. It snowed that week, the whiteness of winter covering every inch of Laniang so that he was forced to stay home instead of outside in the ocean learning how to swim underwater. The voice of one of the elders was loud, reaching him in the next room where he was hiding, waiting for the right moment when n.o.body was looking for him so he could skip and could go outside to play.

At first, the words didn't mean anything to him. The words were jumbled, like a secret code or a secret language until he heard his name and the question of his ident.i.ty came up. He thought all along that his mother was the woman who raised him, Ju Heng, but it turned out he was wrong. Ju Heng was related to him but as his grandmother and not his mother. He listened, stunned. He felt unmoored somehow, unbalanced and yes, scared.

He waited he didn't know how long in hopes that the ident.i.ty of his mother or even his father would slip accidentally out of the elder's mouth but the voices suddenly spoke in hushed tones, as if the speakers were afraid to be heard. Maybe they guessed he was in the next room listening and restrained themselves, he wasn't sure.

He never told Ju Heng what he overheard. Although burning with curiosity, he didn't asked either. Perhaps deep inside, he dreaded the answer. And so, the farce of him calling her his mother continued.

That same year when the weather turned warmer, the entire town nearly overturned with excitement when a letter from the palace far away in Yuqui arrived. His grandmother almost tore down the house cleaning and sc.r.a.ping and tearing until the old house sparkled like new. He was looking out the window, waiting like everyone else when the parade of carriages arrived. Six magnificent horses the color of chestnut carried the main carriage in front like a tender, breakable fruit. The watchers tried to steal a glimpse of the people inside but the curtains didn't even move as if even a stray wind was too shy or too scared to insist to be let inside.

The parade of carriages pa.s.sed thru the front gates, drove to the house, then stopped by the great doors of the old house. Eunuchs with noses nearly pressed to the ground let the steps down. A white, delicate hand was held out and gently grasped; a jeweled foot encased in gold shoes stepped down, followed by an elegant body dressed in fire yellow robes, then the charming head which lifted up to reveal the softest white skin, the arched eyebrows, the bright eyes, the small nose, and the smiling mouth which all proclaimed the presence of her eternal highness, the mother of heaven and earth, the empress of Yuqui.

Yu Xing's eyes burned as he looked at her. The beating of his heart was loud in his ears. He was sure she could hear it because her eyes unerringly found him, hiding behind his grandmother, peeking at her with curious eyes. She smiled and moved as if she couldn't help it but then someone called out her name from the carriage behind.

The empress turned and her brilliant smile flashed and then she saw only him, the little boy who next stepped out of the carriage, calling to her imperiously with a little whine. To everyone's surprise, she bent down to take his hand, pinching his cheeks until he laughed, the young voice a little doting and shy.

She stopped in front of his grandmother, a small yet dignified old lady, who grasped her hand and pulled her inside. Ju Xing was pushed to the side. The empress pa.s.sed by him as he stood by the entrance, the tails of her dress, the dragon pin in her hair, her smell, all of these left impressions on him like marks on his skin. Even the little boy whose hand she still held didn't pay him any heed.

The empress shed her formality and behaved like a normal woman inside the house. She even cooked noodles for them one morning; she even started talking to him, a little stiffly at first but naturally as the days wore on.

He loved the ocean, the smell of the sea and when summer finally arrived, he ran eagerly to the water and nearly drowned. The empress swam against the tide and saved him. It was the first time he saw her cry. He woke up cold and sick and she was there, her tears warm on her face, her arms tight around his s.h.i.+vering body.

The boy, her son, came to live with them for eight years. And every year, she would stay in Laniang for a month. He would sometimes look at Gu Fang and feel unbearable envy. The jealousy in his heart would sometimes almost overwhelm him and he would feel suffocated. He hated Gu Fang and in his heart of hearts, he wanted very much to kill him. He didn't know why. He only wanted to do it because then his heart would ease and he would be able to breath again without that unfamiliar constriction in his throat.

He finally had a glimmer of the truth when he turned thirteen. That year, as if he had eaten some magical beans, his growth spurt accelerated and never stopped until he reached an inch below six feet. His face thinned and his complexion, which was tanned by too much exposure to the sun, dramatically improved.

A girl in his grandmother's house started eyeing him differently, covetously. He realized what it was when she would accidentally touch him, the touch lingering and warm. Then one night she entered his room and woke him up, her little mouth on his, her tongue entangling with his. Her naked warm body was pressed against his, her bountiful b.r.e.a.s.t.s emitting the smell of earth and musk. Aroused, he pressed her on the bed and clumsily yet hungrily kissed and explored her body until she took hold of his hard manhood and guided him to that warm place between her legs. He tangled and pushed and emptied himself into her again and again until the morning broke and she left the bed and he went back to sleep totally satiated.

It was not the first time. It happened again and again in his room, in the kitchen after everyone was asleep, behind the house, on the beach and the shed where he had her standing up, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist as he lewdly thrust himself in and out of her, grunting and grinding as he climaxed. The door opened and Ju Heng screamed. He turned around, the girls' legs falling to his side, his still glistening p.e.n.i.s bobbing between the unfastened front of his robe.

Seeing the proof of his crime, the crazed Ju Heng suddenly attacked him. She attacked and screamed at him, the hysterics culminating in an accusation which stunned him: "You're just like your father!"

He pieced together Ju Heng's disjointed words and the mystery of his birth unraveled in all its sordid detail. His father attacked his mother when she was thirteen. There was a child and his mother was sent secretly away for the birth. The family wanted the child killed but his mother vigorously opposed it. By consensus, the child was raised by Ju Heng and grew up believing her to be his mother. His father was his grandfather's son by his favorite concubine. His mother was the Di daughter of Ju Heng, now the empress of Yuqui.

Ju Xing remembered feeling numbed when the bare-faced truth finally came out. His father was thrown out of the house by his grandmother, who, in a fit of jealousy and rage, also killed the concubine in front of his grandfather and his rapist son. Shamed by his son's actions, his grandfather followed his b.a.s.t.a.r.d son out of the house and disappeared in ignominy forever.

The empress of Yuqui arrived not soon after. When son and mother finally sat down to talk, Yu Xing was dry-eyed yet quietly furious. She cried and pleaded but he was deaf to her pleas. He demanded that she acknowledged him as her son. He demanded a place on the table in the palace as her acknowledged first born. She owed him, he tells her, because she refused to kill him and instead gave birth to him, which meant she was accepting responsibility for him and he was due in arrears.

Ju Xing was relentless. He poured all the hate and resentment he felt for her and Gu Fang by treating her like he would a wh.o.r.e. By this time, the little maid he had been bedding for months had become pregnant. He became a father to a son, Ju Min Song, when he was fourteen. Ju Heng was angry but accepted the child, and the next two grandchildren, which came one after the other in the next two years.

Ju Xing gave her no choice and the empress seemed delighted by the children. Although she was adamant in refusing his other demands, she pointed out that the emperor would most likely depose her if she told him she had another child before giving birth to Gu Fang and where would they be if she lost power, she more or less acknowledged him in private.

Gu Fang, whom he hated, didn't know. He was a child immersed in training for the throne. He had no idea that across from him, his elder brother was also immersed in schemes and plans in trying to wrest that same throne away from him. The empress didn't indicate even by a flicker of an eyelid that she knew of her b.a.s.t.a.r.d son's plans. She kept her counsel and instead became a pa.s.sive witness to his schemes. Perhaps even she didn't know how to stop him. Ju Xing was her son and he was owed his own place in her life and her heart. She refused to make the choice between him and Gu Fang and so the unfolding of a tragedy even she didn't know was waiting to ambush all of them at the next bend of a corner.

And to scheme and plan and to cheat and prepare and everything else he did to win over his fool of a brother and the end result was the destruction of Laniang. The old witch must have changed her mind, Ju Xing thought furiously. After pa.s.sively waiting it out and watching on the sidelines, it seemed that the old hag finally made her choice. And her choice was not him but Gu Fang.

Ju Xing clutched at his chest. The pain was so intense that he wanted to weep and howl and kill her at the same time. He had existed in the shadows for far too long. He had wanted to walk under the sunlight with his ident.i.ty intact, his deeds marveled at and well-known. It seemed it was not to be. He was destined to remain in the shadows, the outsider looking in, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d son betrayed even by his own mother.

Ju Xing stared at the dark outline of the palace walls. Beyond that was his birthright. Beyond that was the respect and fame he craved. He would be d.a.m.ned if he would let all of them win. n.o.body, not even the devil himself, can stop him.

"What's your order, your grace?" the voice at the back of the vehicle was respectful yet impatient.

Ju Xing thought of the past. His childhood, the birth of his children, the empress' tear-stained face as she held him in her arms that day when he nearly drowned. All the memories of her and him, there were few and far between. Turns out, the wall that stood between him and her were as thick and perilous as this wall now standing between him and his goals. He will bring it down and any other wall that stands in his way now and in the future.

"Fire away," he commanded tersely.

From a distance, the rumble of engines idling and then starting shattered the silence. The sound of heavy objects moving and trudging on sand and stones was heard. Then the frightening hiss and kaboom of a fired cannonball, which flew past the heads of the battle-ready soldiers, and landed squarely on the ma.s.sive gates of the palace walls. The ball ignited at contact, blowing the closed gates to smithereens and killing everyone standing near and close to it.

The screaming and wailing started.

The fire was lit. Yuqui was officially at war and it was just the beginning.