Chapter Text
There were many dark corners in the Golden Court. When one filled their ranks with both noblemen and those trying to better their lot in life through opportunity the way Emperor Jin did, resentment was destined to grow, as it must between men who believed the world was owed to them for being born and those that wanted the world as a reward for their hard work. There was, of course, a point where the lines blurred and crossed, when noblemen tried to mimic the bureaucrats, who had already convinced themselves they were noblemen, if not by birth then by honor and deed, and that led to an odd cohesion that on the surface appeared perfectly civil, but was perfectly vicious underneath.
Humans were ceaselessly vain. In place that rewarded fine dress, manners, and birthright, it was far too easy for the refinements of court life to become a frivolous battle of clothing, philosophies, and envy, jealousy, and dramatics. A place where knives were hidden up sleeves and back stabbings were commonplace. Ridiculous and petty and politely violent, as only a group of courtiers could be.
There were many dark corners in the Golden Court and Jin Guangyao knew every single one of them. Knew them intimately as was his job to know. Perhaps that was why, when forced into the light like this, he always felt just out of step, enough to irritate and raise his awareness of his surroundings to a new high, even for something as benign as introducing himself to the new Captain of the Imperial Guard.
The man’s office was one he knew. He’d been here when the old Captain had served and died of illness on that very floor. Not much had changed, either, save for scrubbed surfaces and the smell of still remaining incense that he’d had burned in the room for days after the body had been found. It was filled with sunshine and the air was warm, even with the chilling breeze just past the wall. Rich rugs of gold and black lay about the stone floor, where the faded brown ones had once been.
Altogether it should have been welcoming. Functional, a tad plain, but personal too.
It felt rather like a tomb. Or perhaps a courthouse. Or the dungeon below their feet. In some amusement, Jin Guangyao found the feeling shifted with each expression the new Captain tried very hard to control, but failed to. Curiosity, resignation. Anger, distaste. Back and forth, back and forth. Jin Guangyao wondered if all the emotions would clash eventually and forever pinch his otherwise handsome face. A pity that would be, but a funny one.
“So… what exactly do you do?” the man managed, dark eyes nearly black as they watched Jin Guangyao warily. So, he’d settled on distaste. How fun.
“Whatever my father wishes me to do,” was his response, easy and smiling. He felt dwarfed by the chair he’d been gestured into, dwarfed even further by the man’s heavy presence, but still sat up as tall as he could, unafraid and amused. There was no shame in his work. He’d be worthless otherwise, back on the street, and how would he survive to uphold his mother’s legacy then? “Whatever you wish me to do, as well. Our lines of work will inevitably cross, even if you wish it not. I’m willing to offer my services.”
“And the price?” Dubious now, smart man, if a bit stiff with a moral code as golden and neatly framed as the rug under the desk.
Jin Guangyao just watched him, serene. “No price. We work for my father equally, so we must help each other to meet his needs.”
It was a shame that such a handsome, striking man was so stringent when it came to rules and frowned far too much. He didn’t even have to tell Jin Guangyao as much for him to know it. He was beautiful, even with that furrowed brow, strong faced and sharp eyed. The braids in his hair framed his impressive jawline and each bob of his throat was a particular delight, a flash of vulnerability over his armor.
Jin Guangyao smiled passively and waved a hand. “Whatever those needs are.”
“You are an assassin.” So, definitely smart. Jin Guangyao felt his opinion of the man tick upwards, even if he was being glared at.
“Sometimes.”
A huff of not-quite laughter, disbelieving and angry. “You lie as well to achieve his ends.”
“I do what I must, as you do,” Jin Guangyao pointed out, still smiling, and knew he’d trapped the man with that one.
He was clearly not happy about it. “I’d rather our paths did not cross then, Master Thief. You are everything I’ve been taught to eliminate.”
“And you are the kind of man I’ve been taught to keep my eye on,” Jin Guangyao said. It wasn’t true, if only because such an honorable man was boring enough not to be a threat. The Emperor’s praises of the new Captain had been detailed enough to prove that, but he did not know such things and Jin Guangyao would rather it stay that way.
Resignation now, the shake of a head. Even exasperated, he was a warrior’s kind of lovely. The court would love him for it and he knew, immediately, the Captain would hate the attention. Also terribly fun, that.
Jin Guangyao got up to bow, perfectly low and respectful. “This one is known by the title Lianfang-zun.”
He was a bit surprised when the bow was returned, though obviously duty bound and not respectful in the slightest. Again, his opinion of the man ticked up. “Chifeng-zun,” he said reluctantly and curtly ignored any flowery sentiment. Straight the point sort of personality, clearly. “Or Captain.”
“Captain,” Jin Guangyao chose the less familiar name and bowed again, half because the man didn’t seem to like his fancy title, and half just to see how the Captain would react. “I look forward to working with you… or not working with you, if we can avoid such things.”
A spark of surprise. It was immediately gone under a suspicious glare. Jin Guangyao bit down a laugh to see it.
“Yes,” was all he said and gestured, rather rudely, for Jin Guangyao to leave. He wasn’t expecting anything less from such a man of morals and felt a near relief being able to turn away.
Still he paused on the threshold, curious now that he did not have to maintain a perfect first impression, and offered one of his better, truer smiles. “You are Huaisang’s brother, are you not?”
Startled, the Captain looked back up, blinking rapidly. “Who are you to speak of my brother so familiarly?” he demanded and, yes, Jin Guangyao could see it now. Nie Huaisang had often despaired of his big brother’s grouchy, protective edge. He lost to a chuckle that time just remembering the pouts that went along every time Nie Mingjue’s name was uttered.
“He is a dear friend,” Jin Guangyao told him in his most sincere register, not that the man believed him, clearly. At least there was an answer for that too. “Ask him, he will tell you.”
“You can be assured that I will.” Those dark eyes narrowed. Jin Guangyao just smiled patiently back and excused himself, unconcerned. It was not his job to make himself liked, at least not to the Captain. And though it would make both their jobs harder to refuse Jin Guangyao’s help, he was not obligated to work with him either.
In a place such as this, however, it would only be so long before their orbits would intersect. Again and again. He could ignore the man’s existence, but still he would be there, always on the peripheral, unavoidable. He was Nie Huaisang’s brother and Nie Huaisang was a friend. He had not been lying about that. And that… that could make things complicated.
He stepped out into the cold courtyard, still covered in frost from the morning, and took a moment to breathe in the chill, let it fill him, numb him, until his mask was once more perfectly frozen on his lips.
“I suppose I shall have to watch him anyway,” he murmured to himself, smiling up at a pair of fluffed up sparrows on a branch above. “For Huaisang.”
The birds chirped, laughing with him, and he moved off into the shadowed walkways that were his life, letting the darkness ease away the edge of light still clinging to him from the Captain's office. They took him around gardens, skirted temples and heavenly gates, past fountains and libraries, to the back, out of the way pavillion wings that housed the court entertainers, servants, and musicians.
He could hear the plucking of guqin being practiced in the courtyard between all the housing, where everyone came to dance or sit and play their instruments, or sing to the trees and birds with their voices echoing off the rooftops. Today, it was a lone dancer, for once free of the makeup of the court, without the elaborate hairstyles of performance. Barefoot and in a simple robe, only the movements showcased this was Lady Yu, the current jewel of the Emperor’s eye and a star within the court.
Jin Guangyao wondered how many would know his brother without his carefully crafted masks, hidden under paint and powder. Give him a woman’s hanfu and he could shift his body into a feminine curve in an instant, as though he’d switched bodies entirely. Watching him now, in a man’s cut, simply dancing to dance in the joy of sunlight after weeks of frigid rain, he was perfectly male, handsomely so, just as comfortable in a man’s body as he was in Lady Yu’s and twice as deadly for it.
None would know their kinship looking at them, except for the shape of their eyes and the slight curve in their noses. Otherwise, they looked like their mothers, which was all the better. If Jin Guangyao had to use any sort of beauty given to him by his father to charm people, he’d have never left his gutter-home. Mo Xuanyu, too, would not have been able to perform this liquid back and forth between man and woman had he had their father’s face.
Because Mo Xuanyu was soft in almost everything, such a contrast to his sharp eyes. He had been meek and timid when they’d met five years ago, and in many ways he still was, unable to do much other than stand and take his beating until something gave. But it wasn’t because he himself was weak or stupid. Far from it. When an animal was beat too often, too brutally, for years , it always flinched, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t still kill when pushed too far.
Mo Xuanyu had a killer’s eyes, if Jin Guangyao chose to cultivate that path for him. For now, he was content to watch his brother win the hearts of all the court with every sway of his hips and flutter of his lashes so as to uncover secrets otherwise hidden in the hearts of greedy, lustful men. Blades were not the only deadly weapons they had to use, after all.
“A-Xuan,” he greeted when his brother finally stopped dancing to give him a proper bow. He always bowed, was always respectful and earnest, and that made him one of the only people Jin Guangyao could trust. After all, Mo Xuanyu owed him his life and freedom from pain. There was no better leverage to have in terms of loyalty.
That, and revenge.
“A-Yao,” Mo Xuangyu greeted, demure, and smoothly crossed to him, bare feet silent on the still damp stone. Jin Guangyao’s influence, but an easy skill to learn when one was already naturally light on his feet. “How did it go?”
“Walk with me?” He hardly had to ask, he knew, and didn’t bother to wait for his brother as he stepped off onto another hidden path. Mo Xuanyu easily matched him, lithe and quiet, like a shadow.
“Is he what you expected?” Mo Xuanyu asked once they’d walked a time in the darkness. His voice was canted even softer than usual, hushed and sweet. To outside eyes, they’d be just two men going on a stroll, gossiping as old friends did.
Jin Guangyao considered that question with a hum of thought. Was there any way to possibly expect someone like Nie Mingjue? “Yes and no,” he decided on. When he got a questioning noise, nearly imperceptible over the sway of their sleeves, he continued, letting his smiling mask fall away once he was certain they were alone. “Firm on the rules, i expected. But his intelligence was a surprise.”
“Ah, so you like him, then.”
He gave his smiling brother a look, but didn’t refute it. It was bad form to deny obvious things. “Little matter. He is quite disgusted by me. I’ll have to make sure our paths don’t intersect more than they ought.”
Mo Xuanyu returned the look with one of his own, which summed up his feelings on that perfectly. He sighed. “I know, but we don’t need an enemy with Father’s approval.”
A raised eyebrow now, also very telling. “You say that as though you did not get rid of the last Captain when he got in Father’s way.”
“That was on orders,” Jin Guangyao pointed out, but didn’t deny that either. It was true enough, though the order had not been his own. “It is not our fault that he wouldn’t cooperate.”
“And if this one doesn’t, he’ll end up the same.” Mo Xuanyu was far more clever than people gave him credit for, Jin Guangyao included. His insight was often random and quelling, startlingly on point, but not something easily tracked. He sighed to be on the end of it now, the proverbial nail being hit perfectly on the head, and so easily.
“You see it too, then.”
“I doubt you’d let him be killed simply because Young Master Nie would never forgive you,” Mo Xuanyu agreed, proving him right. “You hold your friends very close, A-Yao, and I know you would rather die than disappoint him. So despite the mutual distrust you have with the Captain, you have to keep an eye on him. And that will bring you two into the same orbit, no matter how hard you try not to.”
“I could just put a shadow on him,” Jin Guangyao said, though it was more for form’s sake than a real idea. Mo Xuanyu was not fooled by it, in either case, and he was rewarded with a sweet laugh.
Those who’d been pulled from the sort of hell Mo Xuanyu had should not be able to still laugh like that.
“As though you’d trust anyone to do it,” his brother said, a knowing grin on his face. “You, who has to be in control of everything. You know it’s the safest bet to do it yourself, so that’s how it’s going to happen.”
Jin Guangyao sighed, knowing he was right and almost irritated for it, and gave him a sidelong glance. “I trained you far too well.”
“You did, though, considering who our father is, I’m sure I was bound to inherit something wicked sooner or later,” Mo Xuanyu chuckled, and there was something truly wicked in the curl of his mouth, twisted and unhappy in the corners. “Is that plan moving forward, at least?”
Jin Guangyao didn’t have to ask what plan he meant. “It is. Keep up the ruse, he’s starting to fall.”
A nod, curt and sharp, before Mo Xuanyu paused to look out into the sunlight, to where birds were twittering about on a mulberry tree. He softened to hear their songs, just a little, but the rest of him was stone. “I know he is.”
Jin Guangyao moved to stand with him and watch what was left of the leaves rustle and drop to the earth, upset as they were by flapping wings. “If you’d rather I find someone else…”
“I can do it,” Mo Xuanyu tilted his chin up into the air, determined. “I will do it. Trust me, A-Yao. He will fall as planned.”
That got a smile out of him. Oh, to trust so blindly. He hadn’t been able to do that since he was fifteen, and even then it had only been for one person.
“I do trust you,” he murmured and wondered if it was a good thing or not that he actually meant it.
A soft chuckle, then his brother turned back to him, smiling again. “And because you trust in me, I will not let you down. Or if I do… I will take him with me before I go.”
Jin Guangyao bit down a grin, hearing that. So many looked at Mo Xuanyu and only saw a delicate flower, a cowering rabbit. Even he was surprised, at times, the depth of darkness the man was capable of. Another way they were truly brothers.
He set a hand on Mo Xuanyu’s arm and squeezed, brief and sure, before letting go. He was still hesitant in affection between them, knowing how easily a scarred mind fixated on any brand of kindness, and it would not do for Mo Xuanyu to get attached. Not to him. “I have every faith that you will, A-Xuan. He will not see you coming.”
“See us coming,” Mo Xuanyu corrected and drew a laugh from him, immediately matched in tone and melody by his brother like a dark duet.
“Quite right,” Jin Guangyao said and watched another leaf flutter to the ground. In its sad fall he saw his own rising, lifted high by stepping on their father’s back. The Emperor just didn’t know it, would never know. Not until the bitter end.
Revenge was a double-edged blade, after all, so best bury it deep enough it could no longer cut. And that was exactly what he was going to do.