Archive of Our Own

Two dragons stared down at Wei Wuxian with crystalline eyes in shades of gold and amber.

The dragons were huge, each the size of a small palace, and their scales shone as blindingly pale in the sunlight as the finest white jade. They were easily two of the most beautiful things he had ever seen in his life. (The other two most beautiful things were the Twin Jades of Lan themselves. As themselves. He wasn't quite brazen enough to say this... yet.) Their cloud-embroidered ribbons lay delicately coiled at their feet.

He drew a shaky breath and then looked across at the Jades' uncle, who never liked him and never would, but who was looking resigned and mildly, unwillingly amused at Wei Wuxian's expression.

"Yes, it's one of the Lan's greatest secrets, but we have always had dragon blood. With war coming, it's a secret we may well have to relinquish if we are to win.

"But till then, you must swear to tell no one, not even your own Sect Leader and clan."

"But -"

Lan Qiren huffed. "You met our ancestress in the Cold Cave, and Wangji informs us that she gave her blessing, though why... However, it is clear we will need to trust you with our greatest secret but no one else, not as yet." His frown was even more complicated than usual as he stared at the ribbon delicately coiled before the golden-eyed dragon's massive leg: a ribbon which he had seen been wrapped around one of Wei Wuxian's wrists. (Wei Wuxian now had an inkling of why the acting Sect Leader and the Grandmaster had looked at each other and both sighed, even before the problem of the Yin iron had been disclosed). "Wangji believes we can trust you in this."

Oh. For a moment, Wei Wuxian was totally distracted from the "Lans turn into dragons, dragons!" thing by a flood of warmth at the thought. Lan Zhan trusted him? Lan Zhan didn't hate him? Lan Zhan... liked him?

"And our Sect Leader," glaring up at the bigger of the creatures who bent that huge, elegant head in agreement, "trusts him."

"No one else knows?"

"Only the inner disciples of Cloud Recesses and one other, who also discovered due to," and he was still glaring at his eldest nephew, "circumstances. And no, you may not ask who it is."

Lan Xichen looked away, serenely unabashed. Wei Wuxian may have been curious, may even tried to guess, but for a single, stray, incorrigible idea -

He stared at the Grandmaster of the Sect in disbelief.

"You too?"

"Of course."

Wei Wuxian tried to imagine it but he couldn't, he really couldn't.

Lan Qiren sighed, removed his own forehead ribbon, closed his eyes and... shimmered.

And then there were three dragons looking at him, the third even bigger, just as beautiful if more mature, with obsidian eyes and... and a small, beard like fringe of black scales on its jaw.

Wei Wuxian sank to the ground, his mind whirling with shock, delight and... he wasn't sure what. The nearer of the dragons reached out and touched him with one enormous jewel-bright claw, what seemed - but couldn't, surely? - to be concern in its burnished gaze.

He couldn't help it, he petted the claw - Lan Zhan's claw - reassuringly. Lan Zhan lowered his massive head and carefully, so very very gently, butted his arm. Lan Xichen looked down at him kindly, and Lan Qiren sternly.

Three. Fighting. Dragons. Maybe more. In a battle with humans.

If it came to war, it was going to be... interesting.

The carcass glittered like a huge, shattered gemstone in the morning sun, a twisted wreckage of broken limbs and shattered, oozing body. Its amaranthine eyes were dulled and glazed in death, and small predators were already sniffing at the edges, looking for a meal.

Du Liang, middle-class businessman and occasional, not very brave rogue cultivator, shooed them away. He didn't know what this thing had come from, but he had no doubt it was a yaogui in some way or form, an evil demon: even touching it or letting something else touch it could be bad. He'd heard of the tiniest and most harmless creatures that went into this forlorn corner of Yunmeng and came out as changed, warped, monstrous. Evil.

Like this spider. This human-sized, purple spider.

Du Liang shivered and turned away. The torn corpses of two women - two of those he'd heard rumours about, who'd been in the nearby village looking for a night hunt, who'd last been seen many days past - lay nearby. Handmaidens from what he could see; he tried to imagine the battle between humans and spider demon, and was not surprised that it had ended with them all very, very dead.

Now Du Liang was neither rich nor famous. The rare demon or ghosts he challenged - when not dealing with more important matters of commerce, trading and coinage - was all small-scale, annoying rather than threatening the locals, and he knew he could quite easily claim the credit for killing this thing and any reward that went with it. It was tempting...

Then he glimpsed what, among the grotesque tangle of stiff spidery limbs, what seemed to be a human arm... not one of the handmaidens', but part of the spider itself. An arm clothed in violet silk... a hand, with its sparkle of a single, silver ring.

Temptation died, as surely as the spider demon itself, and Du Liang ran as if for his life.

Later, much later, in an inn near Yiling, he heard the rumours about the Lady of Lotus Pier, how she and her maids had vanished on a night hunt, never seen again, still being searched for: he remembered the monstrous purple spider and the women, all dead in a deadly forest glade a long way from home; he shivered, thinking how the Lady was so widely known as the Violet Spider.

And he said nothing.

The Sect Leader stared down at Jin Guangyao (who knew, ignored but knew he was still only the despised but useful bastard son, who had to earn respect no matter what it took), and snarled the command out, harsh and blunt and impossible to misconstrue.

"I want Nie Mingjue dead, and soon. See it done, or see yourself thrown out of this sect like the trash I called you from the start."

"Father -"

"I acknowledged you after the war," however grudgingly and with layers of insult buried within, "and this is when you pay me back, boy. Do it, and do it so that no one ever knows, not even that useless brother of his."

Jin Guangyao paused then pinned on his carefully crafted smile and bowed with the precise, requisite respect. "As you wish, Father."

He wouldn't want Nie Huaisang to suspect in any case; he was fond of the boy, and while it wouldn't stop his plan, it could be unpleasant to have to dispose of a friend. But there were surely ways and means...

A flash of something darting through the open window caught his eye, a flurry of... wings?

Jin Guangshan spat a curse and ducked as a small grey bird flew straight at his face, dodging his heavy fist and scoring one tiny claw across his nose. "What the - kill it, you -!"

He was yelling, swatting at now-empty air; the bird had already shot back to the window, where it stopped, perched for a moment and turning as if to look back. Jin Guangyao had but a moment to stare at it, at the steel-hued plumage shaded with - green? - surely a trick of the light; at the almost frivolous little crest of gold feathers on its tiny head, at the eyes... olive-green, sharp and as cold as mountain air as they met his. In that moment, less than a moment, he thought he knew those eyes...

He blinked, and the bird was gone. And he had a very angry Sect Leader, his too quick temper and heavy fists to deal with. What was a blink of olive eyes compared with that?

The bird flew high, speeding back towards its home as fast as it could just in case the Jins sent hawks after him. Unlikely - neither that degenerate beast of a Sect Leader not his son the backstabbing traitor could have caught more than a glimpse of fluttering wings and grey feathers, just a small, frightened bird that had lost its way.

He always knew how to play that role perfectly when he had to, in bird form or...

Landing lightly near the inn he had booked, the bird shook out his feathers, hopped onto a patch of soft grass and closed his olive-green eyes. When he opened them, Nie Huaisang was human again.

It wasn't hard. Keeping his shapeshifting and the way he could command birds from anyone but a handful of his Sect, now that was far harder.

And keeping this secret even from Nie Mingjue - at least until he'd dealt properly and permanently with the Jins, which was going to happen before they touched his brother - was going to be harder still.

"D-d-d-dog........" Wei Wuxian stuttered out, face paper-white and eyes darting around for escape.

The fact that the said dog was more like a small, floppy-eared and sweet-faced bundle of red-toned fluff, and was staring at him with huge, apologetic, almost human eyes did not change the fact that it - was - a -

"D-d-d-ddd-dog!"

Wen Qing, watching them both, shook her head. "Wen-dog, actually. Why, did you really think that was just an insult due to the war?"

"Y-y-yes?"

"No." Her voice was flat and hard. "It's a simple, timeworn truth. A-Ning, stop now."

The little creature yipped and gave a ridiculously cute (to anyone but a man terrified from childhood of any dog, even the smallest and sweetest) full-body shake... and in less than the blink of an eye the dog was gone.

The dog was gone. He could breathe again.

"My apologies, young Master Wei." Wen Ning, tall and straight and blessedly human, bowed as low as he could, looking anxiously at him. "It is not usual for people to be upset by us."

Wei Wuxian took a long, shuddering breath, sat down on the nearest dead tree-stump and tried to calm his thudding heart.

We are none of us any larger," Wen Qing said drily. "And most much smaller."

"The Chief Cultivator himself -"

"Yes, the would be ruler of the whole world becomes a dog no bigger than your average house mouse. His bite couldn't break the skin of your little finger, and his claws cannot even be seen, let alone felt. He's... cute but all too harmless, and defenceless." She smiled thinly. "Why do you think cats are banned from Nightless City?"

Meng Yao sat in a corner of the teahouse, quietly listening to the babble of excited voices around him. After all, even for the common folk, this was big news...

"Dead? Jin Guangshan is dead? But how?"

"He was perfectly healthy just three days ago, at his son's birthday celebration."

"A cultivator, too! How could he be dead?"

"Foul play was suspected, but a friend of the mother of my niece - who serves Madam Jin - she heard that a bite mark was found."

"Bite? A spider?"

"Or scorpion?"

"Or snake!"

"The palace should be searched!"

"Cleansed!"

"Fumigated!"

"All such dangerous creatures killed!"

Meng Yao bent his head to hide a smile. No matter how the Jins searched, they would not find the little gold-mottled viper that had done for his unworthy, unspeakable father: the little gold-mottled viper that disappeared whenever Meng Yao himself had to be seen.

After all, the Sect Leader had not cared enough to discover what other talents Meng Yao's mother had besides pleasing men. But Meng Shi, with ancient serpent blood in her veins, had given her son a priceless weapon against anyone who would block his ambitions, he just had to learn to use it. Judiciously. Secretly.

Lethally.