“Belong to their father’s family.Unless Nie family magic chooses them, they are not heirs.Mother loves them.She does.But she is not allowed to spoil them as she can a child held close by Nie magic.”
“‘Nie magic’?What?”Leander was so confused.He’d never before heard anyone talk about magic as belonging to a family.
“Family magic attached to Shanlin from the moment I met him,” Heng said.“It’s why I knew the village would accept you.Nie magic recognizes our marriage—it did even before the celebration.And it recognizes Shanlin as our son.Chinese magic knows that a qidi must bring a child to a rabbit marriage because he cannot carry one.”
Leander scrubbed his face with his hand, not sure how to handle any of this.It sounded like he might be able to stay in the village, but it also sounded like the situation with family, with inheritance, with everything, was far more complicated than he had understood.And he had already believed it incredibly tangled.How much worse could this get?
“All is fine, Lian,” Heng promised.“Shanlin is the heir, not because my parents favor him over my sister’s sons but because he is the heir.”
“But Zhiyuan....”
“My brother has made his choices, and like me, those do not include bringing grandchildren home.”
“Gay marriage isn’t even legal in China,” Leander said weakly.
“Non-magical China, no.But in case you have not noticed, magical China holds tightly to the past.Ancient emperors had gay lovers.One even tried to leave his kingdom to one.It did not end well, but any emperor trying to bypass family in order to give power to a favored courtesan would have faced insurmountable obstacles.The fact they were gay was not even a consideration.The two founders of the Flying Swords school were gay.In magical China, we never stopped recognizing gay partners.”
Leander pressed his hands to his face and tried to even his breathing.“I didn’t know,” he whispered.
“I had gathered as much,” Heng said, amusement in his voice.
Leander looked up to glare at him.
Heng laughed.“There is the expression I have missed.You are so unwavering in your condemnation of others that I find your very presence proof that the universe is constant.”
“Fuck you,” Leander said softly.
“I fear I am trying to eschew fucking in favor of overcoming appetites of the flesh.I do believe that may be the source of the entire conflict with Min.”
“Enough.”Leander stood.He didn’t want to hear Heng blame himself, not for Huang Min being a murderous idiot, not for Leander’s ignorance, not for anything.In truth, he didn’t want to hear anyone at all.He wanted to find a deep, dark forest and lose himself in the steady power of trees and forget he was human with all the flaws that came with that condition.
“Yes.Enough,” Heng agreed.He stood slowly, one hand braced on his hip near where he had been shot.“We should find Hu Xi and Auntie Daiyu.I am sure you have much to explain to Hu Xi, and I need to convince Auntie Daiyu to wait until my father arrives.I do not want to fly with her when my body is held together with magic, hope, and surgical thread.She sometimes forgets that the rest of us have not cultivated to as high of a level as she has.”
“Everyone thinks Xi and I are married.”Leander had no idea what to do with that.
“You owe him wedding gifts.After all, you are a successful craftsman of the Nie family.You have a certain obligation to your qidi, qidi of mine.”Heng sighed and offered a wry smile.“Qidi of the past of mine.I am glad you have found a new husband or I would find you a grave temptation.I have missed your abominable attitude, Boon Lian.”
Leander wasn’t sure what to say.He had married Heng.He had been a married man.A small part of his soul had always clung to the memory of their lazy mornings in bed when his life had turned dark.He had seen other couples and compared them unfavorably to the relationship he’d had with his...husband.If he had known, would he have thrown away all caution and stayed in China?Would Shanlin be dead without Leander there to steal him away or would Xi have saved him.
Would he have stopped Heng from pursuing his dreams?Whole other realities spun out in his mind, a million different lives that he might have lived.
Heng rested a hand on Leander’s shoulder.“We cannot change the decision we made in the past, but I do hope you will still count me a friend even if I have chosen cultivation over the relationship we could have had,” he said softly.
Leander nodded.“We will always be friends.”
“Then let us join together in friendship and stop Auntie Daiyu from torturing our father.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan,” Leander said, and he shivered at the thought he had a father.Growing up, it was all he had ever wanted, and here he had a husband and parents-in-law and a brother-in-law who hated him, and he hadn’t even known it.Hell, he had a sister-in-law and nephews he didn’t know existed until ten minutes earlier.He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but at least now the Nies made a little more sense.
He was married.
Twice.
He had an ex-husband and a new husband.
Given how much Leander had misunderstood, he was clearly a moron.
