Archive of Our Own ^beta

The fiefdom in the North was cold and lonely. The population, already small during the peak of the summer, decreased during the rest of the year when people left for the slightest chance at warmth. Sometimes it felt like the harshest joke in the world being played on Li Tai. He could have swallowed the pride of losing the throne - eventually - and he could have swallowed losing Yuanzhao -a longer eventually- but being sent to a fiefdom so isolated and away from the world was the salt in the wound. His fiefdom was not a place where people went without good reason and it was not a place where people visited. And those that did visit; had to have very good reasons and when they arrived to greet him, even the best of reasons seemed pointless by the cold haggard looks on their faces.

That is, unless the person was Xi Xin.

Xi Xin who arrived and asked to meet with him in private looked like she had taken a leisurely stroll and then went into a brisk walk when she realized that she was running late for something. Li Tai should have been surprised but he wasn’t. If anyone could make light work of the journey to his northern fiefdom, it was Xi Xin.

Xi Xin who gave him the details of what was happening to Yuanzhao in Ganye Palace. It was what Li Tai feared and hoped. Yuanzaho was struggling but she would survive and she would survive better than anyone else in the temple. It made him relieved to the point of happiness that at the very least, Yuanzhao kept her ambition. If the both of them were going to survive their lot, they needed it.

Xi Xin who was supposed to be waiting for a letter that Yuanzho had written but decided not to risk it. Something clenched at Li Tai’s heart at the thought of all the letters that Yuanzhao must have written, each one growing in desperation until she realized the truth. When Xi Xin asked if he would help, there was no other answer and there would have never been any other answer other than yes.

****

Seeing Li Tai made Yuanzaho forget momentarily that there was now blood on her hands and Liu Xi’s body nearby. For a brief moment, she felt like she was back in the palace, a cairen with all the luxuries afforded by palace living, and Ganye Temple was all a misunderstanding, a horror performance that went on for too long.

“Li Tai? How are you here?” Yuanzhao attempted to stand up but her knees were weaker than she would have thought and they buckled as if the weight of everything since the Emperor’s death hit her all at once.

Li Tai reached out to her and held her steady, their bodies pressed close as he shuffled them away from the scene of the crime. The minimal space between them decreased when Yuanzhao wrapped her arms around him. He startled at the hug feeling a boyish sense of shyness overcome him. He hugged her back, his arms wrapped around the small of her back. Yuanzaho had always been thin but her time at Ganye Temple had made her smaller and Li Tai could wrap his arms doubly around her. “I figured something was wrong when you hadn’t managed to break free yet. Xi Xin also came to visit me at the fief and let me know what was happening.”

Yuanzaho looked up at him and smiled. A smile that brought Li Tai back to the halcyon days of the palace. He didn’t have the throne and it was seemingly impossible for him to get it, but he had Yuanzaho and the feeling of her arms around him was something that made not having the throne feel like it was worth it in the end.

“Thank you Li Tai.” Yuanzhao said. She refused to let go of his embrace and looked up at him, her eyes meeting his, with a smile. Yuanzaho hadn’t smiled as truly or as often as she did in her time at Ganye Temple until Xi Xin arrived and even then it was brief smiles when Xi Xin was there. This time with Li Tai, she felt as if she could smile until her cheeks hurt. She lifted up her head and stood on the tips of her toes as she pressed her lips against his in a chaste kiss.

Li Tai let the snark remark that he wanted to make about Yuanzaho needing to get better at knowing what was an acceptable way to thank someone, die on his tongue. Instead he did what he wanted to do since the day he called her onto the boat to help with the issue of his brother. He kissed her back. Gentle and simple as her kiss to him was. He cared so much about her, it hurt him to think of how hurt she was, all this time.

There was work to be done, work on what to do with Liu Xi, on how to get Yuanzhao out of Ganye Temple, of the matters that would no doubt pop up at his fief while he was away, and more importantly on how to get the both of them back to the palace. But for now, the only plot running through his head was to keep kissing Yuanzhao for as long as he could.