Blood on the Altar (HuaLian TGCF)

Chapter 3

Xie Lian's dreams are dark and confused and he wakes disoriented, his mind a cloud of blood and pain and the shadows of a crumbling temple. Where is he?? The ground beneath him doesn't feel like ground, in fact it feels like the soft luxurious bed he remembers from his childhood. He hasn't slept on anything half as soft in centuries, not since his time as the Goushi of Yong'an...

Slowly Xie Lian opens his eyes and blinks blearily at the crimson fabric above him. Is that a canopy? Is he laying on a canopied bed? How? Why? And crimson... Why crimson? The color pulls on the threads of his memory, dragging him from the safety of the forgetful haze his mind has made to protect him.

A temple kept in darkness, draped in black and crimson...

His blood, pooling crimson onto an altar...

A demon in crimson robes..

A bed draped all in crimson...

'If Lord Crimson Rain answers us he might want to tear out his heart himself.'

Xie Lian jerks upright, his hands flying to his chest, his stomach, searching, searching. He's been on the altar, the altar, the altar,

'There is a way to prevent and cure human face disease.'

'Why don't you ask His Highness? he knows the method.'

'Who do we kill?'

'Don't let him scream.'

'Hold him down.'

Xie Lian tears at his robes until they part and he can feel the skin beneath, soft skin, smooth skin, unmarked by scar or blemish. It shouldn't be like that, it's wrong, all wrong, in a sudden frenzy, mind blurred by memories, Xie Lian claws at his skin. Why should it be smooth and unblemished? Why should it look as it did before, as though it was never... As though he was never... As though...

Sudden cool hands close around his wrists, restraining him. Xie Lian's head jerks up, eyes wide and wild to find the demon sitting beside him on the bed, his hands firmly clasped around the god's wrists. Xie Lian tries to wrench his hands free but the demon is strong, too strong for him to fight.

"Let go of me!" He snaps, and there's a slight roughness in his voice, a grate of scar tissue new from the day before.

"Your highness, please..."

The demon's tone is gentle but his grip is firm and all at once Xie Lian slumps forward, a hysterical laughter bubbling up from between his lips.

"What's the point in me asking? What's the point of any of it? Don't I know better by now? Don't I know that you can do anything you want to me and there's nothing I can do? Well go on then. You know I can't fight you so no need to pretend, just take what you want!"

The demon is quiet for a long moment then slowly he lowers Xie Lian's hands to the blankets. His thumbs brush briefly over Xie Lian's wrists and then he lets go, his own hands clenching into fists in his lap.

"I told you last night, I won't hurt you."

Xie Lian's hands clench around the blankets, his eyes beginning to fill and shoulders beginning to shake with silent sobs.

What's happening?

What is he doing?

What is the demon doing?

What /is/ this??

His mind is a confused blur of pain and memory and he can't make sense of any of it.

He's not sure how long he stays like that, gripping the sheets as his body trembles with silent tears, but in all that time the demon neither speaks nor makes a move toward him, only sits silently at Xie Lian's side as though waiting for the tears to pass.

At last they do and Xie Lian forces one of his hands to unclench from around the blankets. He raises it slowly, as much to test whether the demon will restrain him again as for any other reason. When nothing happens Xie Lian places his hand on his stomach, tracing slowly upward over his skin, feeling nothing on his stomach and chest except the scratch marks he himself has left there but when his fingers reach his throat something new meets his questing fingers. There, just beneath his cursed shackle, is an uneven line of scar tissue. The feel of it is rough beneath his fingers, strange compared to the unmarked smoothness of the rest of him. Slowly, exploring, Xie Lian slides his hand sideways under the fabric of his robe to his right shoulder, running across it until, at the place where chest meets arm, he finds an uneven lump of scarring. When he runs his fingers back over to his left shoulder he finds the same thing.

The scars are so strange to him on a body that has always been markless, and yet they comfort him somehow, the same way the new rasp of his voice comforts him.

They're proof that his pain is real.

After another few moments of exploration Xie Lian's hand falls limply to his side. Rouye tightens a little around his arm, its end brushing his skin in an attempt to give comfort, and it gives him the strength he needs to look up at the demon.

Lord Crimson Rain still sits beside Xie Lian silently, not making any move to touch or restrain him, only watching him, his single dark eye filled with some deep emotion Xie Lian can't seem to understand.

"What do you want from me?" Xie Lian's words come out tired and plaintive, his voice more hoarse than ever.

"Nothing." The demon's voice falls heavily into the room, gentle as ever yet filled with a weight Xie Lian can't begin to understand. "There is nothing. I only want to do what I can."

Do what he can to do what?

Xie Lian doesn't understand. The words sound kind but...

He takes a shuddering breath. "You don't have to pretend. I could feel your power last night, and you know who I am. You shouldn't know that, unless he told you."

"He?"

"White No Face." Xie Lian squares his shoulders as best he can and meets the demon's eye. "I know you are an accomplice of White No Face."