ravaged hearts

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE,

  Her father shook his head. "You don't get it, do you? All these years playing spy in these games of politics and you don't get it. I was the brother to the emperor. I was a qinwang. My hand in marriage would be important. I already had a... reputation—" he grimaced "—and a xu nv would have made my hand in marriage seem even more unattractive. Your uncle already had a difujin, he could not take another wife, and any noblemen anywhere worth their salt would not allow their daughters to become a mere concubine. If we needed to make marriage alliances it would have been through me. I'd have adopted you as my own, you'd have been made duolun gege in the least. Not that it would have meant much, a princess of an ailing, fallen dynasty... but don't think I didn't care."

  Io's stomach twisted. "Stop guilt-tripping me. If you cared you'd have come to find me long ago."

  "I wasn't sure you'd survive for years, you know. I sent people that night to try and find you, you weren't anywhere."

  "My aunt had taken me away to Asayama."

  "Ah," the prince nodded, looking awfully thoughtful. "Makes sense. I never searched there. I checked Cheonuang, of course, since your mother has family there, and it seemed the obvious choice. Nothing. They didn't even know you existed—did you know you have two half-siblings from your mother? Just a few years older than you."

  "I'm quite close to them."

  The prince nodded again. "Good, good. At least you've had some family through all these years?"

  Io glared, not responding. She'd already used up enough words on him. She dearly hoped the others would realise something was wrong and come to seek her soon. Sitting here, listening to him lie through his teeth... it was an excruciating process.

  "You hate me."

  "Why wouldn't I?"

  "You think I'm a monster."

  "You are a monster," she shot back with vengeance. He was a monster, monster, monster. He killed her mother, destroyed her childhood, and might as well have killed her aunt too. He was a murderer. He was the reason she was born and the reason for her ruin.

  "No more than you, I'd think? I've heard about your exploits. You've taken plenty of lives, broken apart many families. Last I heard you were quite the little seductress as well, eh? Bringing men astray... much like your mother."

  "I'm proud to take after her."

  "Do you want to know her problem?" he asked, tilting his head as he sat down on the sofa opposite her chair. "I've had many years to think about this. I haven't had much to do in the past twenty years or so except have my own mind as company. Some days I'm impressed I haven't gone mad yet."

  When Io didn't say anything in response, he sighed. "Stubbornness, daughter, and blind loyalty. Woman of her blood, of your blood, you don't know when to give up. You'd rather lose your life fighting for a cause you don't even really believe in out of some innate, mistakenly-placed sense of responsibility, and you more often than not do give your life for it." He paused. "I don't want you to follow your mother's path."

  "She didn't have to walk the path until you forced her to. And you don't have a say in what I do." She raised her chin.

  "You really don't get it, do you, Iolanthe?" the prince asked, crossing his arms as he leaned back. "If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be alive right now. Voronin and Seo would have taken you into the nearest alley, slit your throat and let you bleed out painfully. You're sitting here now, talking to me because I asked them to keep you that way."

  "Is that a threat?"

  Her father shook his head. "I don't kill my own blood."

  "I'm touched, old man."

  "You, daughter," he announced, "is exactly what I expected. A splitting image of your mother. The attitude, your appearance, your personality. She'd be proud of who you are today, probably."

  "If not for you, she could be here right now, being proud of me. Thanks for that, by the way."

  "She would have died anyway, with or without me. My brother's agents had already been on her at that point. I gave her a much more merciful end than they'd originally planned."

  "Mercy?" Io asked, half incredulous, half horrified. "You couldn't have... helped her escape instead? Or simply casted her away as your mistress if you knew what she was? You killed her. You gave the orders, the agents were yours. You killed her. You killed the mother of your child."

  "If I helped her escape, if I did not produce a corpse, I'd have been casted under suspicion. I could not have had that happening. My brother would have been the most displeased."

  "You know your problem?" Io asked, sucking in an angry breath. "You want to know your problem, qinwang?"

  "Fuqin. I am your father. Do not call me by my title. Call me your father."

  "You're selfish. You're completely, utterly selfish. You don't give a bullcrap for anyone else. We're all tools to you, things to be used. You never cared. You still don't care. You say you care but everything you do you do for yourself."

  Her father was unfazed. He'd been expecting it, she realised, fully expecting the outburst and the words that came out of her mouth. He replied, drawling, "Is that not how the world works? There are the survivors, who choose to be selfish; and those who decide to be selfless. Would you rather live or die?"

  "You can survive without being as selfish as you," Io seethed. "If you're unable to see how, that's your problem. That is what's wrong with you."

  "You're young. Give it a few years, you'll learn." Her father sounded exasperated. "We all do. Twenty-five this year, eh? We haven't seen each other for twenty-three years. That's a lot of time. So many countries have fallen and risen in that time."

  "The one you're currently helping is one of them."

  "Melique? No, no, I'm not precisely helping them. They're more... hiring me, I suppose. I need money, you see, I ran out a while ago. They have money. If it means helping them hold two kids, I'll do it.'

  "Where are they?"

  He held up his hands and spread his fingers. "Ah, they're fine, yes? All Bailen needs to do is step out of the presidential race and his children go free." A snap of his fingers echoed through the otherwise quiet room. "Just like that. So simple. Will he give up his political ambition and power for the life of  his children? Or will he decide to be selfless? Such a moral dilemma."

  "They're children."

  "We were all children once." He tugged at his white shirt. "The state of being a child is not a shield against the cruelty, politics and dangers of the rest of the world. In fact it only makes you even more of a target."

  "You make me sick."

  "No. I've heard much about you, child, and I think we're far more alike than you think. Actually, you do know it, you just don't want to admit it." Their eyes met again. This time there was steel in both of their gazes. Like father, like daughter.

  He was right. She couldn't deny whose blood ran in her veins. It was part of her. Nothing could change that.

  She was the bastard daughter of a spy who played courtesan and a disgraced prince of a fallen dynasty. She was nothing and everything. She was insignificant and important. She was Iolanthe Mi, the Swan, and it was time she settled everything once and for all.

  It was then she heard the bullets.