(2) The Fire of Jealousy

Shenya's steps were heavy and halting as she made her way into Fenghua Court, her face already streaked with tears. Xiang'er walked behind her the whole way, head bowed, not daring to make a sound; the very air seemed to have frozen solid, so that even breathing had to be done with care.

　　"Go back and find my father. Have him look into that Asura woman's background — every last detail of it." Shenya turned suddenly, her voice cold, and spoke to Xiang'er.

　　Xiang'er was thrown into alarm at once.

　　"Your Highness, you mustn't! His Highness only just gave his word — you must not act rashly..."

　　"What do you mean, mustn't act rashly? Am I simply to sit here and wait to die, waiting to watch Ziyuan and that vixen bill and coo together, flying off wing to wing?"

　　"Your Highness, calm yourself! Mind your words!" Xiang'er dropped to her knees with a thud and pressed her forehead to the ground.

　　"This is treading straight into the great taboo of jealousy... It doesn't matter who His Highness holds dear in his heart — what matters is your standing as principal consort. And besides, His Highness only just promised that so long as you do nothing rash, he will not take that Asura woman as a secondary consort either. Why defy His Highness over this, when it can only bring you grief and no good at all?"

　　"What do you understand?" Shenya burst into wild, uncontrollable weeping.

　　"What I have always wanted was never the title of principal consort — it was Ziyuan's heart. If I cannot have it, then no one shall."

　　The fire of jealousy is enough to burn away all reason. Ziyuan's anger had not been for the sake of one woman alone, but for the greater cause binding their two clans together — that fragile, taut relationship between them, ready to shatter at the slightest touch. But none of that mattered to Shenya in this moment. From childhood she had been cradled in the palm of her family's hand, the only one ever showered with care and attention; how could she possibly know how to care for, to attend to, another? She had received all the proper upbringing of a well-bred young lady, but it had never gone deeper than the surface — at heart, she was nothing more than a petty, self-centered woman.

　　The war between the two clans meant nothing to her, one way or another — it was never her own suffering at stake. What mattered to her, above all else, was whether Ziyuan's heart held any place for her at all.

　　Though Xiang'er was trembling with fear, and felt keenly that this was wrong, she was but a servant — how could she possibly defy Shenya's will? All she could do was return to the Shen family and see to the task of gathering every scrap of information about Anu.

　　And yet, gathering together everything she learned, a strange and suggestive pattern began to emerge. Among the Asura, only the Queen and the young prince possessed violet eyes — so who, then, was this Asura girl seen together with Ziyuan? Surely it could not be the Queen herself? And yet what Mo Ying had witnessed could hardly have been false, and Ziyuan had never denied it either — so what, then, was the truth of the matter? If she had been merely some ordinary Asura girl from an ordinary family, it would hardly have caused such a stir for Ziyuan to take her as a secondary consort, or even a mere attendant consort. The very heart of what had ignited war between the two clans in the past had been the Celestial Sovereign's taking of an Asura princess as consort — a princess had a princess's standing, backed by the Asura King himself, and it was precisely that backing which had made the trouble so deadly serious. An ordinary woman, even the daughter of some noble minister, wronged within the Celestial Clan, would never have moved the Asura King to take up arms and defy the Celestial Clan on her behalf.

　　Turning all of this over together, Shenya found herself arriving at a bold and startling conjecture: could it be that the Asura clan's young prince was in fact this very Asura girl with the violet eyes? Had the Asura King, having already been burned once before, devised some new disguise to conceal his daughter's true identity as Asura princess? And was that precisely why Ziyuan had been treading so carefully, so cautiously, step by guarded step — not even daring to bring her into his own household?

　　Building on this bold hypothesis, Shenya began to calculate. If her guess proved true, then all it would take was the smallest spark on her part to set the whole plain ablaze.

　　Among Xiang'er's reports there was one further detail that seemed to bear out this suspicion: that the Asura clan's young prince had long made his home among mortals, in a mortal place called Yan City — where, not long ago, a severe plague had broken out, and had only been quelled thanks to Elder Mu's intervention, with Ziyuan himself joining in the relief effort, at whose side, at the time, there had also been an Asura girl. The Star Lord of Fate, whose office it was to govern the fortunes of all mortal lives, had explained that the plague in Yan City had its own proper cause and consequence, and that Elder Mu's sudden intervention had genuinely startled him — after all, even mortals had their own fated course to run, and Elder Mu did not intervene in every mortal plague that arose. That, together with the Crown Prince's presence and that of the Asura girl, had indeed drawn the Star Lord's particular attention.

　　The Asura clan's young prince living for years among mortals, and Ziyuan slipping away to the mortal realm on the sly — how could there be so very many coincidences under heaven? It seemed the Asura King's trick of passing off a phoenix for a dragon had deceived the whole world — but it had not deceived Ziyuan.

　　Shenya's heart burned with resentment she could not quell. Ziyuan had never once shown her this kind of tenderness, never once let her stay so close by his side. The fire of jealousy blazed higher and higher within her, and no matter what, she could not simply sit back and let this pass.

　　Just as her fury reached its peak, a servant's voice came from beyond the door, announcing a visitor.

　　"Lord Shenyu requests an audience."

　　Shenya was on the verge of turning him away when Shenyu came striding in already, his face dark with anger.

　　"I did not summon you. How dare you barge in?" This elder brother of Shenya's was not like other families' elder brothers — from childhood he had never once shown her any particular warmth. The rest of the family doted on her, spoiled her, and yet this one brother of hers had always been especially hard on her. There was no need even to guess why he had come now — he was here to give her grief, and she wanted nothing less than to see him.

　　"This is an emergency; there is no time for formality." Shenyu's face was black as thunderclouds massing thick and heavy, a great storm plainly about to break.

　　"What do you think you're doing? Sending Xiang'er back to the Shen family to stir up trouble — and having Father go pry into things with the Star Lord of Fate? Can you not simply be content to play the part of a proper Crown Princess? Don't you realize you're digging your own grave, courting disaster on yourself — and quite possibly bringing ruin down on the entire Shen family besides?" Shenyu tore into Shenya without mercy, scolding her without pause.

　　"Whatever you think you're doing, stop it at once. Father dotes on you far too much — plainly he senses something is wrong, and yet still goes running about on your behalf, prying into things. If you go on like this, don't say I never warned you — not only will His Highness never tolerate a Crown Princess of such conduct, but if you go so far as to commit some act that neither law nor reason can excuse, I will not shield you simply because you are my sister, nor will I show you any mercy."

　　"You..." Shenya, beside herself with fury, jabbed a finger at Shenyu and shouted back at him.

　　"Of everyone in the Shen family, you're the only one who can't stand to see me happy! Whatever I do, you have something to say about it. You're my elder brother — if you won't help me, must you go out of your way to work against me at every turn? I am the Crown Princess — I am the sovereign here, and you are my subject. What right have you to order me about like this?"

　　"This has nothing to do with sovereign and subject. Can you not, for once, listen to reason? I am doing this for your own good, and for the good of the Shen family. I fear you are about to leap headlong into a pit of fire, and drag the whole Shen family down into it with you — that is why I have come to warn you."

　　"Thank you for the warning! You've said your piece, and I've heard it. You may go now." Shenya jabbed a finger toward the door without the slightest courtesy, ordering him out.

　　"Consider well the power the Celestial Sovereign and His Highness command. A wise person knows their own limits — do not for one moment imagine that whatever you do can be hidden from them." With that, Shenyu swept his sleeve in anger and strode out.

　　Watching Shenyu's retreating figure, Shenya found herself laughing even as she wept. From the moment she had learned that Ziyuan's heart belonged to another, her world had come crashing down. From childhood she had wanted for nothing; her whole life had known only advance, never retreat. Accepting that Ziyuan loved no one — not her, not anyone — had been her bottom line, her greatest concession. But to stand by now and watch, with cold, helpless eyes, as Ziyuan's heart settled on another woman — that was harder to bear than death itself.

　　Since Ziyuan showed her no mercy, she would show him none in return.

　　If it came to dying, then let everyone die together. Why should she alone be made to swallow this bitterness?

　　If that Asura woman truly was the princess, then once the Asura King learned of it, he would certainly never let the matter rest — and no matter how deep the affection between the two of them, he would surely tear the lovers apart, leaving the whole affair to wither away unfinished. She no longer cared, in any case — the jar was already broken; she might as well smash it the rest of the way.

　　After all, Ziyuan had never once shown her any real warmth — what difference could a little more coldness make now?

　　With that thought, Shenya conjured an immortal's brush in her hand, and in the air traced out, in careful detail, the whole course of events surrounding the plague at Yan City, adding in, with particular emphasis, the words "an Asura woman with a pair of violet eyes." When she had finished, she drew a deep breath, murmured the incantation for transmission, and with a light tap of the brush in the air, the "letter" went winging its way to the Asura royal court.