Chapter 309 - Why can’t I?

Chapter 309: Chapter 309 - Why can’t I?

Xing Yu had been standing there for several minutes now, and he had never in his life felt less like a general.

The hall was vast. It stretched up into shadow, pale crystal pillars rising on either side like the ribs of some enormous sleeping beast, and the floor beneath his boots was so polished he could see his own reflection in it. Rows of officials lined the walls, robes sweeping the ground, their faces carefully neutral. Warriors stood at every pillar. Every single one of them was watching him.

He had led armies into worse.

He had stood at the front of a doomed line and held it.

And yet standing here, in this quiet room, waiting to speak, he felt like a boy again.

This is ridiculous, he told himself.

It didn’t help.

At the far end of the hall, on a raised dais of pale gold, sat the Emperor of Gia.

He was an older man now, silver threading through his dark hair, but there was nothing soft about him. He sat with the kind of stillness that only came from decades of holding power, one hand resting lightly on the arm of his throne. His eyes, the same shade of green as Jian’s, hadn’t left Xing Yu since he’d entered.

Xing Yu lowered his head and bowed.

He bowed deep—deep and proper and long, lower than he had ever bowed to any commander, holding it until his back began to ache. It was the bow of a man who had come to ask for something, and who knew exactly how much it cost.

"Rise, General," the Emperor said.

Xing Yu straightened.

"Your Majesty."

The Emperor studied him for a moment. Then, slowly, a smile broke across his face—a real one, warm and wide, the kind that made the officials around him exchange glances.

"You brought my son home," the Emperor said.

His voice carried through the whole hall.

"You went into the dark, through every danger Gia could throw at you, and you brought him back to me alive."

Xing Yu’s throat tightened.

"The Third Prince is stronger than anyone gives him credit for," he said. "He survived largely on his own."

The Emperor’s smile deepened. "Modest. Good. A general should be."

A quiet ripple of approval moved through the court.

But Xing Yu barely heard it. His palms were sweating. He curled his fingers against his thighs to steady them and hoped no one noticed.

Because he hadn’t come here to be praised.

He had come here to ask.

And the Emperor, as if he could read the thought right off his face, leaned back in his throne and folded his hands.

"So," he said. "Tell me, General. You have done Gia a great service. What would you have as your reward?"

The hall went quiet.

Every official, every guard, every courtier turned their eyes to him.

Xing Yu’s mouth went dry.

This was it.

He had rehearsed it in his head a hundred times. He had told himself the words while walking to the hall, while climbing out of that warm bed at dawn and forcing himself to leave before Jian woke. He had known the answer before he ever stepped through these doors.

He still had to fight to get it out.

"Your Majesty," Xing Yu said.

Then he paused.

His hands tightened at his sides.

"I ask for only one thing."

The Emperor waited.

Xing Yu lifted his head, and for the first time since he’d entered, he let the Emperor see all of it—the want, the fear, the terrible, stubborn hope.

"I want to marry the young prince."

Silence.

Absolute silence.

And then, all at once, the court erupted.

It started as a single sharp intake of breath somewhere to Xing Yu’s left. Then a whisper. Then another. Within seconds the hall was buzzing, robes rustling as officials turned to each other, hands rising to cover murmured words that weren’t nearly quiet enough.

"Did you hear—"

"—the young prince?"

"He said marry—"

"That’s the Third Prince—"

Xing Yu kept his eyes fixed on the Emperor, but his jaw was tight enough to hurt.

The whispers swelled.

Then someone near the front—an old minister with a long white beard—turned to the man beside him and said, not quite softly, "Well, of course. They were promised as children. Did anyone truly expect otherwise?"

Another voice joined in. "Xing Yu was the boy’s mate. The betrothal was drawn up the night the Third Prince was born."

"It was always going to be him."

"The general simply came to collect what was already his."

The murmurs spread like water, and Xing Yu’s ears burned. He had known, of course. He had known the betrothal existed—the Emperor himself had spoken of it once, when Xing Yu was still barely more than a boy with a wooden sword. But hearing it repeated now, out loud, by the entire court, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world—as if everyone had known, all this time, and had simply been waiting—

It made it real in a way it had never quite been before.

He is mine, Xing Yu thought, and the thought was so loud it almost drowned out the hall. He has always been meant to be mine.

But then he looked up at the throne.

And the Emperor had gone quiet.

Not angry. Not surprised. Just quiet.

He was watching Xing Yu the way a man watches the horizon before a storm, reading something in him that no one else could see. His face had lost its smile. He sat very still, one finger tapping slowly against the arm of his throne.

The whispers in the court began to die as people noticed.

One by one, every eye turned back to the Emperor.

Xing Yu’s heartbeat climbed into his throat.

"Your Majesty?" he said, when the silence had stretched too long.

The Emperor didn’t answer at first. He just looked at him—really looked, long and searching, like he was weighing something Xing Yu couldn’t name.

Then he sighed.

It was a small sound. Barely more than an exhale.

But it carried through the entire hall.

And then, in a voice so low the court had to lean forward to hear it, the Emperor whispered one word.

"No."

Xing Yu stopped breathing.

"No?" he repeated. His voice cracked on it, just slightly, and he hated that it did. "Your Majesty—"

The Emperor said nothing. He only watched.

Xing Yu felt the ground tilt under him. Every rehearsal, every steady word he had prepared—gone. His hands unclenched and clenched again. The most feared general in Gia stood in the middle of the imperial hall with his heart in his throat and asked, in something close to a whisper:

"May I ask why?"

The Emperor opened his mouth to answer.

But he never got the chance.

Because at that exact moment, the enormous doors behind Xing Yu slammed open.

Jian had been listening through the crack in the doors.

He had pressed his ear to the pale crystal and caught the murmur of the court, the swell of whispers, and then—clear as anything—the Emperor’s quiet, terrible word.

No.

Jian had frozen.

No?

Xing Yu had asked to marry him, and his father had said no?

For a full three seconds Jian stood there, hand still braced against the door, his heart somewhere in his stomach. He heard the shock in Xing Yu’s voice. Heard him ask why. Heard the court go silent again.

And something in Jian’s chest snapped.

No?

Why not?

He shoved the doors open.

They swung inward with a heavy groan, and every single head in the hall turned at once.

Jian didn’t care.

He walked straight down the center of the aisle, past the stunned officials, past the rows of silent warriors, his pale robes brushing the floor and his hair still a mess from sleep because he hadn’t bothered to fix it and he didn’t care about that either. His eyes were bright and his jaw was set and he was angry in a way that made people step back without meaning to.

He stopped right beside Xing Yu.

For a heartbeat, the two of them stood side by side in the middle of the imperial hall—one rigid with nerves, one practically vibrating with fury.

Xing Yu turned to look at him. His eyes widened.

"Jian—"

Jian ignored him.

He looked up. Up past the aisle, up past the dais, up to the throne where his father sat watching him with that same unreadable, quiet expression.

And then Jian—Third Prince of Gia, freshly awake, hair a disaster, still annoyed about being left alone in bed—planted his feet, lifted his chin, and shouted at the Emperor of Gia.

"Why not?"

His voice rang through the hall.

"He’s a good man! He’s loyal and he’s brave and he’s—he’s kind, even when he pretends he isn’t—and I love him!"

The court gasped.

Jian didn’t stop.

So what if the entire empire was watching? So what if half of them had known about some betrothal he hadn’t even heard of until ten seconds ago?

"Why can’t I marry him?"

He stood there, chest heaving, glaring up at his father with everything he had.

Then, as if just remembering, he turned and looked at Xing Yu standing there beside him, pale and stunned and staring at Jian like he’d never seen him before.

Jian’s expression softened, just for a moment. Just for him.

Then he looked back up at the throne.

And he waited for his father to answer.