A week had passed since the incident with Remus, and although I was still shaken by it, my family was a welcome distraction that I clung onto. None of my brothers and sisters had met Meilin yet, but Mother and Father had caught a glimpse of him.
Right now, Mother, Ai, Lanfen, and Dandan were sitting in my room. Ai was combing my hair while Lanfen and Dandan were looking around the room in wonder, still not used to the luxury the palace had to offer.
"Are you ready to be married in four days?" Ai asked me, continuing to brush my hair.
I shook my head. "Not really. I'm scared of . . . it, in all honesty." I was still scared around Meilin and I was nervous about sleeping with him, which we would obviously have to do on the wedding night.
"It will hurt in the beginning," Mother said as she leaned forward and patted my hand. "But you will be fine."
"I wonder if he'll have concubines," Dandan said as she picked up my silver hairpins that were on my dresser. She examined them and smiled before placing them back in their designated box. "Emperors have lots of wives and concubines, but you'll be the first wife, Daiyu, so you'll have more power than the others."
My stomach soured at that thought. Although I didn't love Meilin like that, I didn't want to share him with other women.
"Don't make that face," Dandan said seriously. "He has the right to have concubines, since he's a man."
"I know," I said softly.
"Don't worry too much about it," Mother said. "You will just have to provide children for him before the others, in order to receive a higher rank than the other concubines and wives. Right now you are beautiful, but as you grow older, he may grow tired of you and seek out younger women." She sighed and moved a few pillows around to get more comfortable. "I saw him and all the rumors of him being exceptionally beautiful are true. A beautiful man like him won't be satisfied with one woman, especially since he's the emperor."
I nodded.
"Is he treating you nicely?" Lanfen suddenly asked. "He's the Dragon, the usurper, the merciless and evil man whose reign is coated with blood and war. Isn't a man like that scary to be around? Is he even treating you properly?"
"He's been treating me quite fairly," I said. "I will admit that he is scary to be around at times, but I know he won't hurt me."
"Do you love him?"
I hesitated. "I . . . I don't know. I care for him and don't wish him any harm, but I'm not sure if I love him." Yet.
"Love and marriage are not always synonymous," Mother said. "I didn't love your father when we married. We barely knew each other, but as time grew on, we both fell in love."
Ai bobbed her head. She was two years younger than me and had gotten married a few years ago. Dandan, who was four years younger than me, was still engaged and hadn't gotten married yet. Lanfen was too young, only being fifteen, and she seemed reluctant about this whole marriage.
"I'm still not sure what I feel about you being the empress," Lanfen said carefully. "I want you to be the empress, but I'm scared if there's going to be some sort of political problems, you know? Like what if someone tries to kill you? Or what if a concubine has you poisoned? This royal life is scary and risky."
I was glad that I withdrew details about last week, my kidnapping, and the deaths I had seen throughout my months at the palace. I didn't want my family to have to worry about me.
"I'll be fine. His Majesty has many soldiers and there are people that are protecting me. Besides, there aren't any concubines right now so we can worry about that later."
"I don't know, I'm still worried."
"Have you guys seen that foreign boy?" Ai suddenly asked, looking between all of us. "The one with tan skin and blue eyes? Not just him, but the other foreigner with tan skin? The one with green eyes?"
"Atreus and Minos?" I questioned.
Ai shrugged. "I'm not sure, but have you guys seen them? They're beautiful. The green eyed boy has such a cool expression at all times while the blue-eyed one is so charming."
Lanfen and Dandan nodded, while Mother looked uninterested in the conversation about foreigners. Still, Mother clicked her tongue. "Foreigners are beautiful, yes, but they're not for you."
"They're so . . . dark. I've never seen skin look so tan naturally. Usually farmers have that color," Ai continued, not at all concerned with what Mother had said. "And did you see that red-haired boy? He had pale skin but his hair was so . . . red! How bizarre is that?"
"There are so many different types of people here," Dandan agreed. "That demon boy especially."
"His eyes were scary."
"But that black haired boy was gorgeous," Ai said with a sigh.
I shook my head at her. "Minos isn't interested in love, and besides, Ai, you're already married."
"I can still appreciate beauty," she said with a laugh. "And while we're on the topic of beauty, that green eyed boy is beautiful too."
As they continued to ramble on about the Peccata, my thoughts whirled around Meilin. We were marrying each other in four days and although there were so many things happening at the palace—the wedding preparations, tightening security, my family's arrival—I had thought that we would at least be able to spend a little time together, but we hadn't had much conversation throughout the entire time he was at the palace. In fact, it seemed as though he was ignoring me. When I would sometimes see him in the halls, he would look at me and maybe give a nod, but he wouldn't say anything to me.
It was stressing me out. How was I supposed to understand Meilin if we didn't even talk to each other?
"Daiyu?"
"Hmm?" I raised my head to meet Mother's gaze on me.
Her eyes were soft and she had a gentle expression on her face. Her long black hair was weaved with gray, her fingers brushing through it as she watched me. "Daiyu," she said carefully. "When I looked at that man's eyes—that boy's eyes, really—I saw something in there that I wish I didn't see."
"In Meilin's eyes?" My heart trembled as I stared at her worried expression.
"He's not someone that is easy to deal with."
Dandan, Ai, and Lanfen had stopped whatever they were doing and was watching Mother. It seemed as though the whole room stilled, each of us waiting for her to elaborate. My breath was caught in my throat and I couldn't stop envisioning Meilin in my mind, trying to think of what Mother could've possibly seen in his dark gaze. Did she the merciless wrath burning in his obsidian eyes? Did she see the cruelty that lay within him? Did she see the rage that consumed him? What exactly did she see?
"I've lived a long time," she said. "I've seen men rise and fall, I've seen people with pain in their eyes and hatred burning within them. I've seen what war and bloodshed can do to a person."
I held my breath.
"When I looked into his eyes, I saw darkness," she said. "I saw hell in his eyes."
"What do you mean?" I said in a barely audible voice.
"He's been hurt before, and that pain in his eyes is haunting. I don't think anyone will be able to heal those wounds of his." Her expression was grave, her shoulders squared. "People like him are scary—people that can get up a hundred times over when they've been pushed down. He's a survivor, and he's not scared of being hurt again, because he knows he'll live through it. That pain and determination will be hard for you to handle, because people that never give up are the ones that continue reaching for things that are out of their reach. I don't know what hell he went through, but he survived it."
For some reason, her words struck me right in the heart and I felt an ache in my chest. What had Meilin gone through to make him a survivor? He was the type of man to get up a hundred times over when he was pushed down, and there was a fire in his eyes, but what drove that determination? Was it his hatred? His will?
I shivered and felt the back of my eyes burn. The root of his darkness, his rage, his cruelty, stemmed from his pain.
What hell had he gone through?
Who exactly was Meilin?
It was then that I realized I knew next to nothing about his upbringing. He had taken the throne by force, and everyone knew that, but his life prior to that was a mystery. Had he been a poor villager like me? Was he one of those people that lived in the poorest of villages in the Huo Empire, so poor and ravaged with war? Had he seen death as a young child?
Who was Drakkon Meilin?