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Chu Yun turned the First Princess\' words around in his mind. Her mother was the late Queen Consort, whose death Gu Wei supposedly had a hand in -- according to rumours. Chu Yun wasn\'t about to ask if there was any truth to those rumours to her face.

So instead, he asked, "Were Gu Wei and the late Queen Consort ever close?"

Xiao Ziyi\'s lips tightened into a flat line. "For a time."

"And what happened after that time?" he asked, holding himself at a distance.

Could it be that like their children, Gu Wei and the late Consort were at one point friends? Chu Yun didn\'t put much past Gu Wei. Despite his lofty, immaculate appearance, there was a ravenous look in his eyes, hiding the kind of hunger that reminded Chu Yun why his mother had once warned him that the lone wolf was much more dangerous than the pack.

Even so, perhaps the late Queen Consort wasn\'t an entirely unbiased source.

He was beginning to think that there was no such thing when it came to Gu Wei. Either he was unconditionally loved, or reviled beyond all sense.

"What about his first royal highness\' other parent?" Chu Yun asked, wondering once again why he never saw hide nor hair of them. Not even a mention.

Xiao Ziyi turned to him with an odd look. "I thought his Grace knew? Xiao Yuan\'s mother has been confined to the cold palace since he was a child."

Chu Yun didn\'t know. Although if she had been banned so long ago, he could see how it would slip everyone\'s minds to remark upon it.

"What happened to her?" 

Xiao Ziyi sighed. "A bout of madness, as far as I recall," she frowned, "one day she was normal, and the next she started raving in public, trying to rip all of her clothes off and attacking everyone who came close to her."

"No one found a cure for her madness?" Chu Yun knew illnesses of the mind were much harder to treat than those of the body, but even so. 

Xiao Ziyi shook her head. "They tried for a time, but she didn\'t improve. Then my father stuck her in the cold palace. Out of sight out of mind."

One had to wonder what kind of cunning schemes Gu Wei must have pulled to avoid the same fate.

Before Chu Yun could ask any more inappropriate questions that Xiao Ziyi was clearly only answering because she didn\'t want to upset him any further, Hua Nanyi arrived with his cloak.

This time, she was the one whose face looked pale.

"What happened?" Chu Yun asked, throwing the cloak over his shoulders.

She gave him a confused look. "I--the Crown Prince of Su is here." The way she spoke made it sound as if she was having trouble accepting this fact. "I just saw him talking with his Majesty. Why would he have been invited to the wedding?"

Xiao Ziyi adjusted the fall of her military robes. "There have been some recent cooperation efforts between Zui and Su, I suppose my father could have extended the Crown Prince an invitation to the wedding in that spirit." She chanced a look towards the pavilion, with its bright lights shining through the paper windowpanes, and the red paper lanterns hanging from the eaves of the scooped roof, dangling gently in the breeze.

"Excuse me, I should go back inside," she said, making her mind about something and leaving in the direction of the pavilion.

Chu Yun watched her go with apprehension. "What the fuck is the King of Zui trying to do?"

Besides ruining Chu Yun\'s relationship with his brother, as well as with Xiao Zai...depending on how things panned out.

Hua Nanyi sighed deeply. "I really don\'t know."

---

Inside the hall, Xiao Zai had hissed to Chu Hean, "I think you\'d better go sit with Tan Ruo and Minister Song," as soon as Chu Yun left.

Chu Hean did as he was told, his expression revealing nothing.

Xiao Zai wanted nothing more than to leave. After a quarter of an incense stick sitting on his own at the table he thought to himself that he should do just that.

Chu Yun hadn\'t been feeling well the last couple of days, they could use that as an excuse and leave the wedding banquet earlier. It was not as if Xiao Yuan actually cared, or as if Xiao Zai liked him.

He was making his way out of the hall when the groom himself stopped him.

"Why the long face, didi?" Xiao Yuan asked, smiling gleefully. "You don\'t look very happy. Smile, it\'s a joyous occasion." 

"Congratulations, a thousand years of happiness" Xiao Zai said drily, and tried to walk past him.

Xiao Yuan stopped him with a hand on the shoulder. He leaned in close next to Xiao Zai\'s ear and whispered, "You didn\'t think he\'d let you get away with it, did you?"

"Away with what?" Xiao Zai grimaced and put some distance between himself and his older brother.

An enigmatic smile stretched across his lips. "Did you think he was just going to watch and let you be happy?" He chuckled darkly. "He\'s making me take an unbearable woman as my Consort, after having already made me take a shrew as a concubine."

Xiao Zai scowled at him. "Considering who you\'d like to marry instead, I can\'t say I\'m too broken up about your predicament."

Something shifted in Xiao Yuan\'s face, he lowered his eyes, looking down at his red robes. "I love Gu Wei, you might not believe it, but I do."

What did he expect Xiao Zai to say to that? Even under the best circumstances no one wanted to hear that their brother was in love with their dam. Even if Xiao Yuan and Gu Wei weren\'t blood related, it still turned Xiao Zai\'s stomach sour to think about it. 

To say nothing of everything his dam refused to tell him about.

His head held high, Xiao Zai spit, "We have nothing to say to each other," and bumped into Xiao Yuan\'s shoulder on the way out of the hall.

---

Most guests were milling about the hall, talking among themselves, some had even spilled out into the courtyard.

Xiao Zai looked for Chu Yun\'s familiar figure among them, trying to catch a glimpse of his white fur cloak, always so stark against the black spill of his sleek hair.

After scanning the grounds for a time, he finally caught sight of a lone figure sitting one the sill of a moon window, his face turned towards the bamboo thicket beyond it.

The grass, covered in a light blanket of snow, crunched softly underfoot, but still Chu Yun didn\'t look towards him. Only when Xiao Zai took a sit on the sill and reached to touch the arm Chu Yun had loosely wrapped around his knee did he turn his face towards him.

"Oh, it\'s you," he said, oddly subdued, before turning to look out into the bamboo again.

Xiao Zai hated seeing him so dispirited. He hated his father even more for putting that haunted look on Chu Yun\'s face.

"No matter what, he can\'t make me take your brother as a concubine," Xiao Zai said, his fingers closing over the jut of Chu Yun\'s wrist.

Chu Yun let out a bitter chuckle. "Why not? It\'s perfect, it\'s not an offence to Xin, and the marriage alliance between our two nations."

"But your parents..." Xiao Zai trailed off, unsure of how to phrase the thought that no one in their right mind wanted two of their children married to the same man. Even though it wasn\'t as uncommon as one would think, especially when it came to poorer families who ended up having unexpected omega children, which were always a high commodity.

But the Prince of Jing was the brother of the King of Xin, it would have been humiliating to say the least.

"My parents won\'t be able to do anything about it, just as they weren\'t when it came to my marriage." Chu Yun shrugged despondently, still not meeting Xiao Zai\'s eyes. "If my uncle signs off on it, and sends out a royal edict all they\'ll be able to do is prostrate themselves on the floor when it comes, thanking his Majesty for the favour."

  Xiao Zai tugged on Chu Yun\'s wrist, trying to get him to turn around and face him. Something sour climbed up his throat, making the back of his nose and his eyes itch unpleasantly. He hated that Chu Yun was acting so distant.

"Even so, I\'ll never allow it, I...I..."

"You\'ll what?" Chu Yun hissed, finally turning around. His eyes were rimmed with red. "This would actually be good for you. My brot-- an omega can give you the heirs those ministers wouldn\'t shut up about." He shrugged, affecting an indifference he wasn\'t feeling. "Even if they aren\'t the children of your First Spouse...everything else still makes you a better choice for the throne than Xiao Yaun."

His humid eyes brimming with hurt and recrimination, he added, "Congratulations, you\'re about to get everything you\'ve always wanted."