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This was Wei Wuxian’s favorite part. Quiet and still, a moment suspended in time. An endless midnight stretching out before him. This was the part when, for just a little while, he could pretend that he could really have this.
He lay propped up on one elbow, his gaze fixed on the dozing man beside him. Lan Zhan hummed in sleepy contentment when Wei Wuxian reached out to gently trace the lines of his face with a fingertip.
For this one moment, the world outside didn’t exist. No imperial intrigue, no scheming noble sects, no war looming on the horizon. Most important, no Yiling Patriarch and Second Prince Lan Wangji. Just Wei Ying and Lan Zhan.
It was laughable, maybe, to let himself imagine that Lan Zhan was his, that Wei Wuxian was anything more than the great Hanguang-Jun’s dirty little secret, that this thing between them could ever be a simple romance.
That sort of life wasn’t for him. They could never be just Wei Ying and Lan Zhan, not really. The evidence of that was all around him. In this lush bed, in this extravagant chamber, in this opulent palace he’d built on a mountain of bones. The death and resentment that suffused Wei Wuxian’s world waited just outside the door. The responsibilities and expectations hanging over Lan Zhan’s head couldn’t be kept at bay for long. It was only a matter of time until those responsibilities outweighed any pleasure Lan Zhan took in his visits here, and then Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have even these stolen moments anymore.
He sighed and rolled onto his back.
“Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan murmured.
“Go to sleep, sweetheart.”
“Don’t want to sleep.” He turned to face Wei Wuxian, his eyes blinking open and his face pinched into the shadow of a pout.
Wei Wuxian smiled and pressed his thumb to the furrow in Lan Zhan’s brow. He understood Lan Zhan’s reluctance well enough. As much as Wei Wuxian would like to fall asleep beside Lan Zhan, wake up curled against the warmth of his chest, he knew that sleep wasn’t what Lan Zhan came here for. Anyway, this was better, he told himself. They had so little time—it seemed a shame to waste it in sleeping. He leaned in to kiss Lan Zhan gently, and then sat up, reaching for the inner robe that lay discarded on the floor beside the bed. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? I have that awful bitter tea you like.”
“Mn.” Lan Zhan was slower to push himself up from the bed and locate one of his robes.
Across the room, the silent black flames in the fireplace cast flickering shadows over a low table set with an assortment of fruits, a pot of tea, a jar of wine. Lan Zhan always arrived long past dinner, but Wei Wuxian made sure to have something ready for him, in case he hadn’t stopped to eat on his journey. He realized now that he hadn’t asked whether Lan Zhan had eaten when he first arrived. They’d gotten…distracted.
Wei Wuxian poured a cup of tea, still hot from the warming talisman fixed to the pot, as Lan Zhan drifted over to kneel at the other side of the table. He was so beautiful like this, hair down, forehead bare, just a single silk under-robe tied loosely in place. But then, he was always beautiful.
As Wei Wuxian reached for the wine, Lan Zhan caught his hand and ran his thumb over the Lan forehead ribbon tied securely around Wei Wuxian’s wrist. “Let me,” he said, pulling the jar from Wei Wuxian’s reach.
“Lan Zhan, how did I get so lucky? How did I lure the honorable Hanguang-Jun into this salacious affair?”
“Ridiculous.” But one corner of his lips twitched up as he released Wei Wuxian’s hand to pour him a cup of wine.
“Did you have a good night hunt? It was a night hunt, right?” There were only a few excuses Lan Zhan could use to get away from the imperial palace, and night hunts were the most readily available.
“Mn. A water ghoul in a small fishing village.”
“And did Hanguang-Jun save the day? No, you don’t have to answer that. Of course the fearsome and powerful Second Prince defeated the monster and saved the helpless villagers. What else could I possibly expect from the empire’s most renowned hero?”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan intoned, all amused exasperation.
“Tell me how you bested the water ghoul.”
“It was a simple night hunt, nothing particularly interesting.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Ever indulgent, Lan Zhan told his story as they drank their tea and wine and picked at the fruit. As he had warned, it wasn’t a particularly interesting tale—he’d followed the basic steps to banish the water ghoul without much difficulty—but Wei Wuxian didn’t mind. He could get lost in the sound of Lan Zhan’s voice no matter what he was saying. Even a recitation of the imperial family’s three thousand precepts would do.
“Have things been well here?” Lan Zhan asked, and Wei Wuxian blinked back to attention.
“Of course! Better than! We cleared more land for planting. We’ll actually have a real harvest this year, not just radishes. Do you want to see?”
“Mn.”
Wei Wuxian bounded up and seized Lan Zhan by the wrist. Lan Zhan barely made it to his feet before Wei Wuxian was tugging him across the room and out into the night. Shadows lurked in the corners of the balcony, deeper and thicker than was natural, clinging to the walls of the Demon Subdue Palace. But overhead the stars were bright and the moon was full, illuminating the fields below.
Wei Wuxian gestured expansively. “Behold, my corpse kingdom!”
Lan Zhan stepped up to the balcony railing, looking out over the moonlit crops with a grave nod. “Wei Ying has done impressive work.”
Wei Wuxian squirmed. “Ah, the Wens are very industrious and talented.”
“As is Wei Ying.”
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian wrapped his arms around Lan Zhan’s waist and pressed his face into his shoulder blade. He couldn’t take these sincere compliments.
Lan Zhan hummed, entirely unrepentant. “Tell me about the crops,” he said.
The crops Wei Wuxian was happy to brag about, as long as Lan Zhan didn’t start calling him things like talented and impressive again. He emerged from his hiding place and propped his chin on Lan Zhan’s shoulder.
“Over at that end is millet.” He released his hold on Lan Zhan’s waist so he could point out over the fields as he spoke. “Soybeans there. And we still have radishes—Wen Qing insisted. Right down at this end we’re growing melons. They’re growing so well, Lan Zhan! Nobody believed me, but I told them if I could get my lotuses to grow in this land, melons would be easy. Oh! And down by the lotus pond! You can’t see them from here, but we planted some saplings. One day we’ll have a whole stand of fruit trees over there—oranges and lychees and loquats. You like loquats, don’t you, Lan Zhan?”
“Mn.”
“Just wait. When the fruit trees grow, I can feed you loquats every day.”
“…Mn.”
Wei Wuxian winced. He was being too presumptuous. As always. And now his foolish imaginings hung heavy between them. Sometimes it was nice to let himself pretend that this was real, to indulge in wistful fantasies of days spent side by side, nights in each other’s arms. But sometimes it just hurt.
Tonight it hurt.
Because he knew this couldn’t really be forever. He’d always known. And every one of Lan Zhan’s visits felt a little bit closer to the end.
He dropped a kiss on the back of Lan Zhan’s neck, determined to move past this moment as quickly as possible. He needed to steer them back to safer ground, to their usual playful banter, far away from his clingy, pathetic dreams. Fortunately, all it ever took was one simple question to call to mind their younger years, the way Wei Wuxian used to get under Lan Zhan’s skin.
He released his hold on Lan Zhan’s waist and stepped away. When Lan Zhan turned to look at him, a question in his eyes, Wei Wuxian smirked and held out a hand. “Dance with me?”
He would say no. He always said no. Maybe this time he would raise one sardonic eyebrow and point out that There is no music, Wei Ying. Or maybe he would fall back on the standard I do not dance, Wei Ying, just like when they were fifteen years old and Wei Wuxian had first had the audacity to ask the Second Prince to dance. Wei Wuxian was ready for the rejection, the reminder that Lan Zhan wasn’t his to keep. There was comfort in the familiar pattern of Wei Wuxian’s over-the-top flirting followed by Lan Zhan shutting him down, calling him ridiculous.
But Lan Zhan smiled, soft as the summer night, and placed his warm hand in Wei Wuxian’s. Wei Wuxian went hot, and then cold, and then hot again, all in the space of a breath. He hadn’t expected… He hardly knew what to do now, after so many years of refusals. But he had been raised in a noble sect; if he couldn’t get his brain to work, at least he had a lifetime of muscle memory to fall back on.
He pulled Lan Zhan in close with a hand at the small of his back. Lan Zhan rested his hand on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and blinked with catlike pleasure as he waited for Wei Wuxian to lead him through the steps. And there in the circle of each other’s arms, the world beyond once again fell away.
Wei Wuxian considered summoning a ghostly musician, but that would surely end the spell. It would be too present a reminder of everything he was trying to forget, all the reasons he wasn’t good enough for Lan Zhan, the vast canyon between them that Wei Wuxian had dug with his own two hands.
So instead, he began to hum the nameless song that Lan Zhan had composed when they were young, and they spun along the length of the balcony. Lan Zhan danced wonderfully—of course he did, graceful as he was. I do not dance, he always said, but clearly he’d been too modest.
Or maybe… Maybe all those times before, I do not dance had really meant I do not want to dance with you. And now, something had changed. But what? Why accept after all this time?
Maybe because this was his last chance.
Wei Wuxian’s stomach dropped, and he smiled all the brighter for it. What if Lan Zhan meant this as a goodbye? What if he’d finally realized just how imprudent their little love affair was? What if he planned never to make another clandestine visit to the Burial Mounds?
Wei Wuxian hummed Lan Zhan’s song twice through. If this was to be their only dance, he was loath to let it come to an end too soon. When he finished his second rendition, he fell silent, but neither of them moved to drop their frame.
“Wei Ying sings beautifully,” Lan Zhan murmured, so low his voice was nearly swallowed by the soft sounds of the night around them.
Wei Wuxian smiled and smiled and didn’t let his heart break. “The song is beautiful. Anyone could make it sound nice.”
“Hm. You have not heard my uncle’s steward try to sing.”
That startled a laugh from Wei Wuxian. A real one. There was nothing he liked more than listening to Lan Zhan be catty. He leaned forward to kiss him, because how could he not? And then he led him through another turn. Lan Zhan huffed in quiet amusement as they continued their dance, this time accompanied only by the wind whistling around the corners of the palace, the chirping of crickets, a distant howl—maybe just a wolf, or maybe something else; Wei Wuxian doubted he would ever clear the Burial Mounds of monsters entirely.
Even without music to time their steps, Lan Zhan followed Wei Wuxian’s every movement perfectly, like they were sharing their very thoughts. The slightest pressure on Lan Zhan’s back was all he needed to signal a turn. When he tried to surprise him with a spin or a dip, Lan Zhan was always prepared.
And as they moved together in perfect accord, Wei Wuxian thought fleetingly that maybe this wasn’t a goodbye at all. Because they fit so well. Lan Zhan saw him and understood him, and he was here anyway. So maybe this wasn’t just a passing dalliance for the esteemed Second Prince, an illicit thrill or a token rebellion. Maybe it was something as real to him as it was to Wei Wuxian. Maybe, in another life, they could have really built something together.
Something warm and bright kindled in Lan Zhan’s eyes. The title of Hanguang-Jun really was a fitting one; even in this place of darkness, he shone. And Wei Wuxian, who was little more than a creature made of shadow these days, felt like Lan Zhan’s very presence had him glowing from within.
They laughed and teased and talked and kissed through their dance, until the sky had brightened to a dull gray above them. Until the specter of dawn loomed too large to ignore.
Wei Wuxian released Lan Zhan and turned to the east, his heart sinking in time with the rising of the sun. He watched, hands wrapped around the balcony railing in a white-knuckled grip, as the first rays broke over the trees. In the fields below, his fierce corpses shuffled out to begin their day’s work tending the crops.
The night belonged to Wei Ying and Lan Zhan, but in the light of day, they were the Yiling Patriarch and the Second Prince once more.
“Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian’s voice cut through the still dawn air. “Is your uncle going to send the imperial army against me?” He bit down on his tongue, but it was too late—the words hung suspended in the shadows curling in around them.
They didn’t talk about this. They never talked about this. The emperor, the noble sects, the impending conflict. The instant their hopeless reality was allowed to invade the small pocket of time that they had carved for themselves, everything was sure to fall apart. Lan Zhan would choose loyalty to family and empire over his misguided affair with the Yiling Patriarch. He would choose family and empire over love, even, if that’s really what this was. He was too good, too righteous to do anything else.
At Wei Wuxian’s side, Lan Zhan stood tense and silent. He, too, was staring out at the rising sun, and for a long, quiet moment, it seemed as if he wouldn’t acknowledge that Wei Wuxian had spoken at all. But then he drew in a breath and turned to face Wei Wuxian, something almost like sorrow lurking behind his eyes. “I do not know.”
Wei Wuxian sighed. He shouldn’t have said anything. He didn’t want to end such a beautiful night this way. But he’d already spoken all their problems into being. He may as well put the final nail in the coffin. “I’ll defend my land and my people if I have to. No matter the cost.”
“Of course.”
He said that so simply, like it didn’t trouble him at all. Like Wei Wuxian hadn’t just declared that he would wipe out the imperial army, tear down the entire empire if it came to it. And now he was looking at Wei Wuxian, soft and open and accepting. This was not the face of a man who planned to toss his lover aside as soon as he became too inconvenient.
“Lan Zhan, how can you just…” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “If I could—” But what use were his wishes? He couldn’t change anything now. And if he had it to do over again, he wouldn’t do anything differently.
Lan Zhan smiled—at least, one corner of his mouth twitched slightly in what Wei Wuxian had come to think of as his wistful smile—and brushed Wei Wuxian’s hair back from his face. Then he turned back to the balcony railing. They lapsed into silence once more as they watched the sun crawl past the treetops. Eventually, Lan Zhan released a soft breath, not quite a sigh.
Wei Wuxian didn’t need to ask what that sound meant. “You have to go.”
“Mn.”
“Tonight was…” There weren’t words powerful enough to describe the incandescent joy of any moment spent with Lan Zhan—even moments fraught with impossible dreams, as so much of tonight had been.
“It was,” Lan Zhan agreed. He turned away from the rising sun at last, his stoic mask back in place, hiding even the barely there expressions that Wei Wuxian was learning to read so well. He missed the small, soft smile Lan Zhan had worn as they’d danced through the night. He reached out to trace his thumb over Lan Zhan’s lower lip, then took his hand and led him back into the bedroom.
They dressed in heavy silence. Wei Wuxian finished first, so he helped Lan Zhan into his last few layers, then put his hair up and fixed his elaborate hair ornaments into place for him. When he was done, Lan Zhan caught his hand and brought it to his lips to kiss his knuckles. Wei Wuxian smiled and laced their fingers together, tugged Lan Zhan closer for a kiss.
He wondered if Lan Zhan could hear the call that was echoing out from his heart. Stay. Stay. Please stay. “I’ll walk you down,” he said instead.
Their footsteps echoed through the empty corridors of the Demon Subdue Palace. Normally the palace was filled with activity—ghosts and fierce corpses and Wens and villagers bustling about. But when Lan Zhan visited, Wei Wuxian warded this wing to keep everyone out—it wouldn’t do for them to see Hanguang-Jun here, after all. He trusted his people, of course, but there was no telling how quickly a little harmless gossip in Yiling might reach the ears of the emperor’s spymaster in Gusu.
They slipped out of the palace through the blood pool cave, and Wei Wuxian pretended not to notice Lan Zhan’s shudder as they passed through the cloud of thick, chilly resentment hanging over the dank cavern. Outside, the air wasn’t free of resentment exactly, but it was less tangible, and Lan Zhan relaxed again. Wei Wuxian squeezed his hand and started along the tree-lined path down the mountain.
It was a quiet walk, the air between them filled with everything he hadn’t said on the balcony—regrets, wishes, fears for the future. If things were different, if Wei Wuxian hadn’t chosen this path, if Lan Zhan could just stay… But Wei Wuxian had, and Lan Zhan couldn’t, and they would just have to content themselves with a never-ending series of goodbyes.
When they were nearly within view of the main road, they paused. Wei Wuxian untied the Lan ribbon from his wrist. Lan Zhan tilted his head down so Wei Wuxian could tie the ribbon back into place. He smoothed it out with his fingers, and then, in a sudden rush of daring, pushed up onto his toes to kiss the cloud emblem. Lan Zhan drew in a quavering breath.
“I’ll miss you,” Wei Wuxian breathed.
“I will miss you too,” Lan Zhan said, his voice low and heavy.
Wei Wuxian swallowed hard, and briefly considered pulling Lan Zhan into his arms and refusing to let go. Calling on that ghostly musician and begging for just one more dance. The way Lan Zhan had looked at him up on the balcony, the way he’d smiled when they danced… Wei Wuxian didn’t want to lose that. Didn’t want to give up the feeling he’d had for just a little while that Lan Zhan saw him as he was, and accepted it.
He still wasn’t sure whether that dance had been a goodbye or a promise of feelings returned or both. But either way, he had to say it, had to finally voice the truth he’d been holding in his heart for so long. “I love you.”
Lan Zhan’s tranquil poise cracked just a bit, his lips parting and his eyes going soft. “Love you.”
Wei Wuxian hadn’t expected it to hurt so much, hearing Lan Zhan say those words, but he felt them like a knife between his ribs, like a searing brand on his skin. He surged forward and threw his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck, pulling him into a fevered, desperate kiss.
Gods, how could he be expected to watch Lan Zhan walk away now?
The goodbye was always Wei Wuxian’s least favorite part. He was never sure, at their parting, when they would be able to see each other again. Or if they would be on opposite sides of a battle when they did. And this goodbye was so much harder than every one that had come before.
Wei Wuxian was the one to finally break the kiss, his breathing ragged and his eyes wet. Lan Zhan leaned down to press their foreheads together, and Wei Wuxian’s focus narrowed to the gentle bite of the cloud emblem pressing into his skin. He wondered if it would leave an imprint there, a physical sign of Lan Zhan’s claim on him. Or a painful reminder of all the things that Wei Wuxian was not.
“I’ll return soon,” Lan Zhan murmured.
You don’t know that, Wei Wuxian couldn’t let himself say.
“With news of my uncle’s plans,” Lan Zhan added.
Wei Wuxian pulled away from him, swallowing hard. To think of Lan Zhan—his righteous, loyal, good Lan Zhan—turning traitor against the emperor. For him. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You did not ask.”
“Lan Zhan…”
“Wei Ying. You are good. Your people are innocent. I will help how I can.”
Wei Wuxian shook his head. This hardly felt real. He wanted to cry. He wanted to sing. He wanted to run into the shadows and disappear forever. Was Lan Zhan really choosing him? After everything he’d done. After all the ways he’d failed. Was Lan Zhan choosing him?
Wei Wuxian didn’t deserve him. He could never in a thousand lifetimes do enough good to deserve him.
Lan Zhan’s eyes had gone steely. “This need not come to war. If I can prevail upon my uncle to listen—”
Wei Wuxian silenced him with another kiss. He couldn’t listen to Lan Zhan make any more declarations. It was too much. It was all too much. It would be the end of him.
It was difficult to pull away again, so difficult to uncurl his fingers from the front of Lan Zhan’s robes. But at last he took a small step back. “Safe journey, my Lan Zhan.”
“Mn.” Lan Zhan brushed his thumb against Wei Wuxian’s cheek, and then turned away.
Wei Wuxian watched as Lan Zhan walked the rest of the way down the path alone, and did his best to ignore the gaping hollow left in his wake. He felt like Lan Zhan had filled him to the brim with love, with hope, and then torn his heart out of his chest and carried it away with him.
But Wei Wuxian was no stranger to emptiness, to the feeling of carving out his own organs to give them to the people he loved. He’d survived it before, he could do it again—and easier this time, because Lan Zhan would return his heart to him. He was only walking away now so that he could come back again later. They would find a way. Lan Zhan believed it, so Wei Wuxian had to believe it too.
After all, when had Lan Zhan ever been wrong about anything? He was so brilliant, and so good. He said he would make his family see that this war wasn’t necessary, that the Yiling Patriarch wasn’t the treacherous villain everyone feared. It was hard to imagine the emperor believing that, but if anyone could convince him, it was Lan Zhan. And if he couldn’t, well, they’d just have to think of something else. Between them, they could come up with a way to stop the war. Or to win it. And then they could really be together. They could have more than just these furtive nights, this love hidden in darkness.
They would find a way. They had to.