The sickness did not last as long as she thought it would.
She began feeling better the day after the Emperor’s visit, though she still felt weak and devoid of energy. It was something she had not felt since she fell sick after … after she scoured that island top to bottom thrice in a week with very little sleep and food to go on after he disappeared.
She quickly shoved those memories away and focused on her own recovery. Within the next day, she could walk around, though doing more than two laps around her courtyard left her exhausted. Thankfully, that too faded within the next few days.
In the meantime, Ah-Liu was bringing her updates about Hualin’s progress. It was slow going. That was natural. After all, Hualin had to seduce and lure the man without making it obvious that she was trying to. While she had not seen Hualin in action, Ah-Liu had sung praises of her allure. And Samaya trusted him.
The day she was able to get up and walk around without needing to sit down, she found herself in the very training grounds her son used at the crack of dawn. It was one of the few training grounds in the Inner Palace, reserved for the training of Imperial Princes who couldn’t venture out of the Inner Palace regularly yet. Her entire body felt restless, and she knew normal exercises would do nothing for her right now. She needed a rage room, she needed to break something and feel it being broken under her strength. She needed release from her frustrations and this was not the kind that could be relieved by her own hand in the bath.
So, she grabbed one of the heavier wooden swords and walked to one of the dummies - made with wood and straw - strewn strategically across the field. Samaya stood in the training grounds, clutching the wooden sword tightly. The weight of the weapon felt strangely grounding in her hands. It did not compare to the weapons she usually wielded, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t here for finesse or training. She was here for release.
The dummy before her was an innocent thing, but in her mind, it became the embodiment of everything that plagued her. Her own helplessness, her stupid mistake of pushing forward so foolhardily which caused Rin to take her own life, the guilt of asking others to risk themselves for her plans, Kang Yanxin's smug laughter, and the haunting memories of Rin’s screams and burnt flesh she could never entirely push away.
She lunged at the dummy, her movements raw and unrefined. The wooden sword struck the straw figure with a resounding thwack, sending pieces of straw flying. She hit it again. And again. And again. Each swing of the sword carried a fragment of her frustration, her anger, her pain… her guilt.
The world around her blurred as she continued her onslaught. The dummy wobbled under her relentless assault, but Samaya didn't care. Her strikes grew more erratic, more desperate as if punishing the dummy would somehow ease the storm raging inside her or fill up the hole in her heart that the guilt of her actions continued to drill.
Finally, the wooden sword cracked, splintering under the force of her blows. She hurled it to the ground and continued with her bare hands and legs, pummeling the dummy, wishing the pain she felt in her knuckles and joints was somehow greater, deeper. She grunted as a final kick broke it apart, wood and all, leaving behind only a broken post.
Breathing heavily, her hands scraped and raw, Samaya stepped back. The destruction didn’t soothe her completely, but it left her with a hollow kind of exhaustion that felt easier to bear.
When she returned to her chambers, Ah-Liu was already waiting for her.
“Jiejie,” he greeted cautiously, his eyes flicking to her bruised knuckles and the bits of straw stuck to her sleeves.
“Have the dummy and the sword in the training field replaced,” she said without preamble, her voice devoid of emotion.
Ah-Liu hesitated. “Are you … alright?”
“I will be,” Samaya replied, brushing past him. She did not see the worry that lingered on the boy’s face.
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The days passed, and Samaya fell into a routine. Each morning, before the sun had fully risen, she would find herself back in the training grounds. The first light of dawn would stretch across the sky as she picked up another heavy wooden sword and started anew.
Her strikes were more measured now but no less intense. She would train until her muscles ached and the sun was high enough to signal that the rest of the Palace was waking. It became a ritual of sorts, a way to channel her turbulent emotions into something tangible. It was a good thing that the Empress’s progressing pregnancy meant there were fewer morning greetings. It would have been a bitch to attend.
Ah-Liu had the dummies replaced without question, though Samaya noticed the occasional worried glance he shot her way. The maids whispered among themselves about her activities, but no one dared to confront her directly. Su and Min, however, would always wait for her to come back quietly, getting her bath ready and helping her bathe and get ready for the day. They tended to keep themselves busy but they seemed to take special care of her. Their kindness - when she had failed them already - made her want to break down.
She did not. She had promised them vengeance. They would get it. And she had to stay strong if she wanted them to believe in her.
It was during one such morning, just as Samaya had splintered another sword against the battered dummy, that she heard footsteps behind her.
“You have been busy.”
She froze mid-strike, the wooden sword poised to deliver another blow. Slowly, she turned to find the Emperor standing at the edge of the training grounds, his hands clasped behind his back. His expression was unreadable, though she thought she saw a flicker of bemusement in his eyes. She did not know what her expression was, but it could not be anything good.
“Your Majesty,” she said, lowering the sword, her voice stiff. “What brings you here?”
“I was informed of your … activities,” he replied, stepping closer. His gaze flicked to the broken dummy and the pile of shattered wooden swords near the corner of the grounds. “It seems you have been taking your wrath out on these poor dummies.”
Samaya didn’t bother denying it. “Well, I cannot very well take it out on the people I wish to.”
The Emperor raised an eyebrow, slowly striding towards her. “And who might they be? Minister Kang? His son? Lady Kang?” He stopped a few inches short of her. “Ourself?”
There was a beat of silence between them before Samaya tilted her head. “Perhaps.”
The Emperor blinked, clearly taken aback. “You wish to fight Us?”
“Perhaps,” she repeated simply, meeting his gaze.
For a moment, he seemed to consider her request. Then, to her surprise, he nodded. “Very well.”
“Truly?” She asked. “What will happen if I end up hurting you? Wouldn’t I - you know - be executed for harming the Emperor?”
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He chuckled softly. “You need not worry about that.”
She did not like that tone.
“What? You do not think I am capable of hurting you?”
The man tilted his head. “I know you are capable of hurting a great many people. We are merely confident in Our ability to defend Ourself.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Alright. But do I have your word that I will be unharmed should the worst come to pass?”
The man smiled, as if placating a child. “You have my word.”
She gave a sardonic bow. She would wipe that smile right off his face.
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They stood facing each other in the training grounds, the rising sun casting long shadows across the field. The Emperor removed his outer robe, revealing the lean, muscular frame of a warrior. He was clearly in his simpler garbs, not the layers needed for morning court. Did he come here directly after waking up?
His movements were calm and measured, his expression serene as he adjusted his stance.
Samaya gripped her weapons - two long daggers - tight in her hands. She had asked if they could forego the wooden weapons meant for children and fight with live steel. To her surprise, the man agreed to that too.
Eunuch Li - that man really was a damn shadow of the Emperor - brought the man a sword, while she pulled out the foldable long daggers she always carried strapped to her wrist. The man seemed surprised at that and Samaya felt a strange satisfaction at seeing him blink as he processed the new information. Her body ached from days of training, but her mind was sharp, and the fire in her chest refused to be extinguished.
The fight began without ceremony.
Samaya pressed onto the balls of her feet and sprung herself forward, a blur of motion as she closed the distance between them. It wasn’t her full speed, but enough that she did not look like a damn snail to the man. She swung the right dagger in a wide arc, aiming for his side, but the Emperor moved with startling speed and precision, sidestepping her strike effortlessly.
“You’re quick,” he remarked, his voice calm.
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” she retorted, pivoting and launching another flurry of attacks.
The Emperor met her strikes head-on, his movements fluid and controlled. He parried her blows with ease, his qi-infused strikes sending vibrations up her arms.
Despite her enhanced speed, Samaya found herself on the defensive. The Emperor’s mastery of qi control was unparalleled, allowing him to anticipate her movements and counter them with uncanny accuracy. She augmented her speed, allowing more strength to be put behind her blows as she tried to find a blind spot. It seemed impossible, with the man parrying and countering most of her strikes. The ones that got past his defense, he avoided.
“You fight with anger,” he said, dodging another strike. “It makes you predictable.”
Samaya grit her teeth, frustration bubbling to the surface. She shifted tactics, feinting to the left before pivoting and striking from the right with both daggers. The Emperor blocked her effortlessly, his expression calm and unbothered. However, that didn’t last long as she used her momentum to push the sword aside, leaving the man’s gut open for her to land a lightning-quick kick on. The man was pushed back exactly two steps before he looked up at her.
“That, my beloved concubine, is cheating.”
She shrugged and took her stance again. “You never said it wasn’t allowed.”
The fight after that turned even more messy. Samaya used her smaller body to her advantage, weaving in and out of the man’s range, sometimes coming dangerously close to the steel sword, as she tried to strike decisively. This time she did not hesitate to use her fists, her legs, the hilt of her daggers - you name it. She came out of it with more bruises than she gave, because the Emperor was not above getting his hands dirty.
At one point, one of her hands was disarmed. Thankfully, that was her non dominant hand. She did not bother trying to get it back. Instead, she lunged at the man, getting dangerously close to the pointy end of the steel sword before sidestepping, smirking when the Emperor also twisted his wrist slightly to avoid piercing her. Just like she knew he would. She ignored the cut on her cheek as her speed allowed her to grab the man’s wrist before he could recover from his surprise. She twisted the man’s hand further and struck the man’s wrist with the hilt of her dagger, a nerve she knew would send pinpricks up his arms and down to the tip of the man’s fingers. The Emperor barely even gasped but she could see his grip on the sword loosening.
One more twist and the sword clattered onto the ground. But that twist caused her own hand - the one holding the remaining dagger - to be trapped by the man’s much larger hand.
“Now it is a matter of strength.” The Emperor’s voice was a whisper above her ear, his breath ghosting over her earlobe. “I will indubitably win. Yield.”
She panted softly. After a moment, she dropped the dagger.
“Good-” Before he could finish that sentence, Samaya grabbed the opposite arms of the man and brought them closer to her body. For a moment, it would seem like a romantic gesture, a need for comfort. Until she jumped, kicking her legs high up in the air to build momentum, before using all her strength to jump forward, crouch, pull the man over her shoulder and slam him on his back onto the ground.
She quickly jumped back, needing to catch her breath.
“You wish, Your Majesty.”
She exhaled softly as the man recovered monstrously quickly, getting up with only a soft heaving of his chest and the dirt and slight cuts on his clothes being the evidence of what happened.
“That was a surprise. Rarely has anyone ever caught me off guard in this manner.”
“It is your own fault for underestimating me, Your Majesty.”
She hated being looked down on. She was weaker than the Emperor, that was for sure, but she could give him a good fight even in her half-exhausted state. And neither of them had utilized their full potential yet.
“Do you have any more tricks up your sleeve?”
She could appreciate the double meaning.
“Plenty.”
With that, Samaya moved. She leapt into the air, wrapping her legs around his neck in a vice-like grip, twisting her body with a feral grace. The move sent him stumbling, but he twisted, slamming her against the ground and forcing her to let go.
She landed with a soft thud, immediately transitioning into a swift, low sweep kick that aimed to take out his legs. The man fell to one knee. Seizing the moment, she vaulted onto his shoulders, locking her thighs around his neck once more. This time, she used the leverage to spin, twisting his body off-balance and sending him crashing to the ground.
That did not last long, as the man aimed a kick at her head while using his palm on the ground to spring back onto his feet before throwing a punch at her. She could tell from the strain on those muscles that he was holding back. She sidestepped, grabbing his arm and flipping over his back with a fluid motion. Using her entire body weight, she wrenched his arm into a painful lock. He grunted loudly.
Samaya thought she had him, but she did not anticipate he would twist his own arm and wrench it away with brute strength at the risk of dislocating it entirely. She gasped softly as she was forced to let go and stumbled back, getting dizzy for a moment. That was when she realized that she needed to end this quickly.
As the man turned around to face her, she poured all her strength into another burst of speed, somersaulting off the ground at the last moment as she leaped at him, wrapping her legs around the man’s waist, using her momentum to push him, making the man lose his balance and crash into the ground, with Samaya straddling his waist. A needle appeared in her hand, from the same strap the dagger was from, and was placed lightly against the man’s throat, applying no pressure at all, but implying that she could if this was a real fight. The other hand held down the man’s dominant hand.
“Yield,” She told him, panting loudly. She could feel the man heaving beneath him, both of them sweating buckets.
The Emperor did not, in fact, yield. He did not even move his free hand. The damn monster used his body strength to push himself off the ground and push her back onto the ground, his hands wrapped around her wrists and pinning them to the ground, reversing their positions - though in an extremely questionable way. If one did not know better, they would think that they were copulating outside first thing in the morning. The way the Emperor leaned close enough for their heavy breaths to mingle did not help.
“Yield,” the man parroted.
Samaya stared up at the man for a long moment before she slumped, all strength leaving her.
“I yield.”