It had been half a candle-hour since Yuer and Ivak came back to their temporary residence from the ceremony. Each one of them was guided by imperial servants to different rooms in order to ‘prepare’ them for the bonding night.

Yuer, who was seated on a blackwood ottoman, stared impassively at the steaming bowl of ‘medicine’ atop the low table before him.

This bowl had been graciously presented to him by Ashiad, the imperial eunuch the Rezas and his woman had sent to temporarily ‘serve’ him.

The eunuch in question stood silently to Yuer’s left, back bent and eyes lowered to the floor. Behind him, a team of five imperial maidservants stood in a neat row. If it wasn’t for the occasional rise and fall of their chests, one could easily mistake them for lifelike sculptures. Yuer’s blue gaze stoically swept over them before settling back on the bowing eunuch. The youth couldn’t see Ashiad’s eyes but he didn’t need to, the youth could already guess what was going on inside the senior servant’s head.

Sakina, who was standing behind his chair, shifted.‌ She lowered her face and whispered to his ear, “Young master, it is time to take the Cleansing Elixir.”

Yuer nodded lightly before glancing at Cian. The Kumatani had accompanied him back to the residence as per custom.‌ After all, he had a job to do.‌ He had to supervise the ‘cleansing’ ritual and offer some pointers on the birds and the bees on Yuer’s bonding night.

The holy man, who must have sensed Yuer’s gaze on him, softly spoke up without raising his head from his kneeling position, “Exalted One, it is time.”

Expressionless, Yuer leaned forward, cupping the white porcelain bowl in his hands. In one smooth, decisive motion he threw the content into the back of his throat.‌ He didn’t grimace at the bitterness and extended a hand towards Sakina. The maidservant placed a dried sweet fruit into his hand. Yuer placed the fruit in his mouth and began to chew on it.‌

“You may leave.”

Ashiad, who was sneaking glances at Yuer from under his eyelashes, suddenly stiffened. In a subdued voice that ensured he sounded subservient enough, he argued, “Exalted One’s body needs to be properly washed and prepared. Please, allow this lowly servant to help your honorable self.”

As Ashiad was talking, Yuer took the tea cup Sakina handed him, rinsed his mouth and spit into small copper basin. He wiped his lips with a handkerchief and glanced at the eunuch. “There is no need for eunuch Ashiad to trouble himself. I do not like to be seen or touched by others than my personal maidservant. She has been serving since I was eight summers old. She knows what to do.”

Ashiad wanted to argue some more but one chilly gaze from Yuer made him unexpectedly falter. For one moment there, it was almost as if he was standing before her Imperial Majesty, the Rezna. His own unconscious reaction startled him.

The senior eunuch was by no means a fledgling servant. He had been serving within the Inner Palace since he was twelve summers old. He had already seen all that needed to be seen in those winding, grand halls and courtyards. Horrid schemes, ‘unintentional’ miscarriages, jealousy, injustice, murder, madness and wandering ghosts. What was it that he didn’t know?

No one else was clearer than him on the type of people the Inner Palace housed. Of all the men and women tacked within its gilded walls, there was one that no one could ever afford to offend. Her Imperial Majesty, the Rezna: a Tarand clanswoman with the heart of a Nak’e, a female demon with the skin of a human.

She herself had chosen him out of the many senior eunuchs to perform a ‘special’ task. With the tacit approval of His Majesty, Ashiad was stationed at this residence in order to shadow the twice-blessed youth and the Second Reznal. His job was to report any meetings they had with the Temple’s people back to the Rezas and the Rezna word by word.

Ashiad had previously inquired about the youngest child of the Ayaseen clan and the information he gathered using his special means hinted at the same thing. Yuer Ayaseen was quiet, timid and introverted. In other words, a pushover. The Ayaseen Dasiri and elders did little to correct his personality and instead encouraged his flaws and antisocial habits. Dealing with such a little Dasrari sapling should have easier than breathing for someone of Ashiad’s rank and experience. That was what the senior eunuch had thought until he met him.

All of his efforts to ingratiate himself to the youth were akin to pushing against a mountain. Ashiad was a senior servant of the Inner Palace trusted by both the Rezas and the Rezna, even imperial concubines gave him face. He was used to being respected. And yet, every time this Dasrari kid’s icy gaze met his, Ashiad would suddenly be brought back to his days as a little rankless eunuch back at the training bureau’s cramped dorms.

He couldn’t explain it but something about the youth and his aura chilled him to the bones. Whenever he found himself under those frigid, blue eyes he would be suddenly reminded that no matter how senior and how respected he was, he still but a clanless, nameless slave with little to no worth. No one except the Rezas and the Rezna made him feel like this. Ashiad resented how belittled he felt before this kid but he had a task to accomplish and thus he must bear it.

He relaxed his body, nodded at Yuer’s dismissal and quietly shuffled out of the room. The rest of the imperial servants followed in his trail just as soundlessly as they came.

An awkward silence stretched uncomfortably in the inner chamber after Ashiad’s departure. Deciding to spare Cian the thankless task of instructing him on how to be fucked by another man, Yuer looked at him with a faint smile, his tone considerably warmer than it previously was.‌ “Blessed brother, it is already past midnight. Winter is almost upon us and the nights had become considerably colder. You are no longer as young as you once were. Please return to the Temple before you catch a cold. There is no need for you to stay here.”

Cian hesitated, “But…”

Yuer’s smile deepened. “You need not instruct me. My beloved consort mother has already taught me all that needs to be taught in regards to the bonding night. Keeping you here is unnecessary. Please, let Sakina escort you to the gates.‌ Send His Holiness my heartfelt regards.”

Not daring to oppose the youth’s words. Cian kowtowed to him, bidding him farewell.‌ Sakina guided the white-robed man to the door and both figures disappeared into the hall.

Yuer glanced at the now empty white bowl.‌ Cleansing Elixir?

Yuer coldly snorted.‌ Who among the Dasrari didn’t know what this so-called Cleansing Elixir was?

A Dasrari clan could only have one decided male heir who had to be either born or adopted by the main consort. The remaining descendants, whether male or female became fodder. As the son of a concubine, from the moment he was born, Yuer’s fate was decided. He was doomed to be bonded into another man’s clan whether he liked it or not.‌ If it wasn’t for his sensitive identity as an Alikana-marked, he wouldn’t have even had the right to choice his bonded.

This method of favoring heirs and discarding the rest might seem oppressive. However throughout the centuries, it had proved itself quite effective in eradicating Dasrari succession disputes.‌ By bonding off the children of concubines to other clans, they would no longer have any rights to their birth clan’s assets or resources.‌ They would naturally take on their bonded’s name and would no longer be part of their birth clan.‌ In this sense, they would no longer be a threat to legitimate heirs.‌

When male children of concubines were bonded off to other men, unlike their sisters, they would be offered the Cleansing Elixir before their bonding night. What this lofty-sounding concoction did is that it rendered them sterile. Even if they committed the ultimate taboo and slept with women of their bonded’s harem, they could never sire children. In this manner, their seed would never spread and they wouldn’t be able to create secondary branches of their birth clan. The main line would forever remain secure.

Yuer had no desire to sire children of his own nor did he care about ‘branching out’ the Ayaseen clan.‌ Drinking the bowl left him with neither guilt nor sorrow.‌ As the ancients used to say, one could never mourn what one never had.‌ In his previous lifetime, he never entertained the thought of children and neither did he in this second one. Taking care of the few who mattered to him and exacting his revenge was more than enough to occupy his time.

Seeing no merit in thinking any further into this matter, Yuer stood up and walked to the dressing screen in his chamber. He took off his ceremonial robes, his tassel crown and all other accessories and walked to redwood bathtub tacked within his side room.‌ He soaked his body into the warm, rose scented water. He leaned his head against the tub’s edge and rested his eyes for a moment. Memories of his past life’s bonding night crowded his mind.‌

Jarak had been gentle that night. So gentle in fact that Yuer didn’t even register the pain of being breached for the first time.‌ That night, Yuer’s heart nearly burst from happiness. Having such a thoughtful and gentle bonded, he thought his days would be sunny and his nights sweet.‌ He thought his life would finally turn for the better.

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It only took him two summers to realize how wrong and naive he had been.

After that, gentleness turned into viciousness, sweetness into bitterness and wine into poison.‌ Seven long endless summers, with every summer that passed, he would die a little bit more inside. Death by inches. In the end, he turned into an empty mentally deranged husk of himself.‌ Freedom was ultimately found at the gnawing jaws of his bonded’s hounds.‌

Sakina, Ran’e, Kanja and even the gentle elderly woman who worked at the imperial kitchen and smuggled him food during his last days; every single one of them were wiped out one after the other. In the end, he was left with nothing, not even an intact corpse.‌ Although Yuer had no idea what happened after his death, if he had to guess, Jarak must have declared his death as an unfortunate ‘accident’. The Rezna got lost in the hunting grounds and lost his life to wild beasts.‌ With the Temple gone and everything else well within his iron grip, who would dare to question Jarak’s words?

A new Rezna must have been established and life would’ve gone on as if nothing ever happened. As if the person named Yuer Ayaseen had never existed.

Yuer’s hands clenched around the rims of the bathtub. His eyelids parted and a chilling frostiness shone through his blue eyes, the air around him trembled, his aura turning almost demonic.

With his newfound powerful Echo, Yuer knew that killing Jarak instantly was possible. However such a clean-cut death was above the likes of the Malhada. The beast needed to suffer first. He had to wallow up in despair and misery as much as Yuer did back then. He needed to have the one thing that mattered the most to him to be mercilessly taken away and Yuer just happened to know exactly what Jarak held dearest to his heart: power.

Because he was an empty man, Jarak lived and breathed for power. To have the ultimate revenge on him, Yuer needed to reduce the Malhada into nothing and make him watch as everything he strove for be taken by the one person he bullied and ridiculed his whole life.

Yuer had taken Tamine from him. He had also secretly foiled Jarak’s plan to use the Shakoura. The Malhada still had no idea what he had already lost. Now, with two wings clipped, there were still two more. The Ayaseen clan and the Tarand clan.

Yuer knew how to deal with his birth clan. As long as he used the Shakoura as the dagger against his precious brother’s throat, his sire and his woman wouldn’t dare to move against him. After all, even the favor of the Malhada wasn’t worth the life of the sole legitimate heir to the Ayaseen elders.

Now, the harder hurdle was the Tarand clan, especially Jarak’s maternal uncle who had yet to reach his thirtieth summer. Manivar Tarand was Jarak’s loyal strategist and the mastermind behind most of his political ploys. He was also the one Jarak’s mother, the Rezna, trusted the most. It was no wonder that after getting the throne, the first person Jarak had turned his fangs on outside of the Reznali clan was his own maternal uncle. After all, the hunt was over by then and the hunting dog that had already caught the hare needed to be put down or else it would become a wolf.

However, Manivar Tarand was a sly fox and difficult to deal with in ways that Jarak wasn’t. The Tarand clan was also one of the four great clans of the capital, their influence and power was deeply seeped within the different veins of the imperial court. Yuer needed to device a thorough plan to deal with them. Yuer’s years of experience in the Imperial Palace had taught him that if one couldn’t outright kill the beast, one could still make it rot from the inside. Eventually, the beast would collapse on its own. Driving a wedge between Jarak, Manivar and the Rezna could sufficiently crumble the Tarand clan’s foundation.

But Yuer didn’t want to shake that boat yet. In order to seat Ivak on throne, the Tarand clan had to be used for all their worth. All after, only a tiger can fight off another tiger and only the Tarand clan can deal with the Third Reznal’s equally strong maternal clan. Turning them against each other earlier than his past life’s timeline could benefit him greatly. Once one of them annihilated the other, the remaining yet weakened victor would be ripe for the taking.

As for the Fourth Reznal, Yuer might have to seriously consider his approach. Ivak’s youngest brother was the most dangerous one out of all his imperial brothers. It wasn’t about him being the nephew of the Rihuri king but more about the Fourth Reznal’s own character. Intelligent people would always be dangerous but when you add wit to sharp instincts and good foresight, the combination would become lethal. He might be Yuer’s hardest opponent in the time to come.

It didn’t matter though; Yuer wouldn’t back down from any challenge. In order to humiliate Jarak and bring the Reznali clan to their knees, he was willing to use any means he could get his hands on. He had yet to collect his debts and he wouldn’t die until he achieved his desire. A wide smile stretched across the youth’s wet lips. For everything you took from me, I will take one from you.

Reminding himself of his purpose, Yuer rose to his feet and left the bathtub.‌ Sakina, who had just came back from escorting Cian, dashed to the side room with a set of white inner robes.‌ She dressed him swiftly and followed behind his footsteps as he seated himself on the redwood dresser’s chair.‌

With her nimble experienced hands, Sakina proceeded to dry his shoulder-length brown hair with great care. She used a soft cotton towel to gently squeeze the water out of each strand of his hair.

Yuer glanced at himself in the bronze mirror.‌ His eyes drawn to the silver earring with the black filling on his right ear. The sight of that piece of jewelry reminded him that he wasn’t the same person he once was.‌ It cemented in his mind the reality that he was on a different timeline, that he had already made different choices.‌ He wouldn’t make the same mistakes, he wouldn’t lose his people and he wouldn’t end up eaten alive.‌

Lost in his thoughts, he was abruptly brought to the present by Sakina’s sweet and soft-spoken voice, “Young master, are you nervous?”

Sakina had already finished drying his hair.‌ After soaking a silver comb into jasmine-scented oil, she begun to neatly brush his brown strands.

Warmed by her concern, Yuer smiled at her reflection in the mirror, “No.”

Yuer wasn’t lying.‌ After the horrors he had suffered in his past life, every other grievance felt so insignificant in comparison. So what if he had to sleep with Ivak? As long as it was necessarily he would do it. Also his current body was still young and untried. It didn’t bear any physical memories of his past abuse. Yuer had gritted his teeth as the unimaginable was done to him before, so how sleeping with a likeable and honorable man like Ivak was a challenge in any way?

Sakina spoke, “It is alright to be nervous. It is young master’s first night with His Highness after all.”

Yuer’s smile deepened. Sakina thought he was pretending to be brave and wanted to reassure him that it was alright not to be. Warmth spread across his chest at her thoughtfulness. So, he decided to lie to repay her genuine concern for him, “Maybe, a little bit then.”

Sakina patted his shoulders, a soft smile broke across her round and tender face. “It will be alright. His Highness, although he looks fierce, is honorable and kind so young master needn’t worry.”

Surprised by the sudden change in Sakina’s attitude towards Ivak, Yuer raised a brow, “Hmm? And how did you know that? I remember you telling me before that it wouldn’t wise to bond the Second Reznal.”

Sakina cleared her throat, appearing slightly embarrassed. “Yes, I used to think so but when young master was resting, His Highness came over to the servants’ quarters and checked on the Valquari boy. He was gentle with him, took his time to reassure him. He even greeted me and Hasha by name and asked after our wellbeing. Most Reznali masters don’t even care to remember the names of the shefrin. My father used to say that to know the metal of someone, one needs to see how they treat those who are lesser than them.”

Yuer nodded, his smile remained gentle. “Such wise words from such a wise man.”

“He was only a shepherd but he thought that working with cattle made him wiser to the nature of people. If the flood that year didn’t happen, my father wouldn’t have died and we wouldn’t have lost the cattle and had to sell ourselves. But then, if none of that happened, I wouldn’t have met young master either. I guess this is what people call fate.”

Yuer squeezed Sakina’s hands which were still resting on his shoulders. “Indeed, it is my divine blessing that the fates chose to gift you to me.”

Unaccustomed to such direct praise, Sakina dipped her head to hide the slight flush on her cheeks. Yuer didn’t tease her any further and continued to watch her as she meticulously combed and styled his hair into a loose, conformable half-updo.

“Thank you.” Yuer sincerely thanked his truest and oldest companion for more than just combing his hair.

“Young master need not thank me. It is Sakina’s blessing to serve you.” said Sakina as she bowed to him.

She then hurried to a redwood chest and pulled out a silk wine-colored cloak with a crane embroidered in gold threads across the expanse of its back. She draped it over Yuer’s slender shoulders and took a small glass bottle from a drawer. She poured some of the amber-colored liquid inside it on her palm and then patted it against Yuer’s cheeks, neck and hands. “Young master is now ready.”

Sakina guided Yuer out of his temporary room to the main hall where the main sleeping quarters of the residence’s masters were located. Yuer suggested using his Light Echo to illuminate their path but Sakina insisted that he musn’t exhaust himself during his bonding night. So instead, she lit the path ahead herself with a lantern.

They reached the doors and Sakina knocked three times against the wood. The doors parted and instead of being greeted by another maidservant, Sakina was surprised to see the Second Reznal himself. She greeted him with a deep bow, “Blessed greetings upon Your Highness.”

Ivak smiled at her, nodding. “Greetings, Sakina.” His gray eyes tracked to the cloaked figure behind her. The look in them evidently softened. “Please, come in.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Yuer dipped his chin and stepped in. The massive doors creaked shut after his figure disappeared behind them. Sakina let out a heavy breath she didn’t know she was holding and paced in front of the doors for some time. She reassured her young master that the Second Reznal was a kind man who wouldn’t be cruel to him during their first night but she still couldn’t press down the worry in her heart.

She had looked after her young master her whole life and seeing him walk his first step into bond-hood made her uneasy. Although Sakina was well aware of her shefrin identity, in her heart she considered Yuer her own. She supposed this was what mothers felt when they sent off their children at their bonding night. As she continued to pace, she prayed with unprecedented fervor to the Mahatir that everything would turn out alright for young master tonight.