Unintended Cultivator

Tiu Li-Mei stared up at the wall of the Lu Manor and tried to still the trembling in her hands that had started the moment the king had ordered her to come here. Years. It had been years, and the thing she feared most in the world was still Lu Sen. And to make matters worse, he hadn’t done anything to her. At least, he hadn’t done anything malicious. In her head, she knew that what he’d done had been meant as a kindness. Yet, barely a week passed without a nightmare where she saw his terrible, beautiful face in her dreams. He looked at her with an almost surprised expression, like he’d just noticed her. He reached out to touch her arm. It always happened so slowly in the dream. Like the approach of some disaster that you know will destroy you, that you desperately want to flee but can’t. Then, he said the word. It was such an innocuous word.

“Peace.”

And it had come. That was the worst part. He had said the word and peace had descended on her like the heavens themselves had commanded it. She had been frightened, panicked, before that. The king, well, the prince then, had been in a fury. She’d known it wasn’t her fault. He hadn’t even blamed her. But she had seen that killing wrath in his eyes. It was a sight she had witnessed only a handful of times and wished never to witness again. His word was law for anyone who wasn’t a cultivator, and she was no cultivator. If he ever did turn that wrath on her, she wouldn’t survive the hour. It had been that thought in her head on that day that had fueled the fire of her terror. She’d left that room more frightened than she had been in many years, only for a boy to wash it all away with a word and a touch.

Part of her felt like she should have been grateful for it. It had been a kindness. It was clear from the expression on his face that he’d all but forgotten about her as soon as he turned away. The truth was something else entirely. As terrible as that panic had been, it had been hers. It might have been foolish but she’d come by it honestly, and he had replaced it with something else. Yes, he’d replaced it with calm and a sense of well-being, but she somehow knew that he could have replaced it with something else. He could have replaced it with anything. He could have made her love him, or desire him, or hate her prince. Tiu Li-Mei had never felt so utterly powerless before another being in her entire life. She wondered if an act of kindness had ever inspired so much fear before. She once again tried to still her hands even as shame welled up inside of her at the conversation she’d had with the king.

“Tiu, I need you to do something for me. I need a question answered. I would like for you to fetch me the answer.”

“Of course, your majesty,” she had said.

“Please visit Lu Manor. Ask to see the lord. Pose this question to him on my behalf. Are you almost finished? He’ll understand my meaning.”

Those words had frozen her. The very thought of standing in front of that man, a man who had, by all accounts, grown powerful almost beyond measure, had almost been enough to make her renounce her position. She had done everything in her power to avoid even being in the same room with him since she learned of his return to the capital.

“I would beg that you do not require this of me,” she had said.