Chapter Thirty-One

The Fall of The Phoenix

Every eye was on him as he entered through the tall gates leading into the crowded courtyard. He was certain he was a sight to behold as he walked across the space to his palace's entrance. Is it even mine anymore? How many days was I gone that the entire rebel army could have taken over the whole royal city? He pondered as he passed the multitude of men watching him from behind their notched longbows, drawn swords, daggers, and other weapons of choice. He shrugged, settling his armor on his shoulders better. The weight of it was familiar yet bizarre from such a long period of going without it. The style of it was also likely what made the army surrounding him seem so on edge. It was likely a man back from the dead and making his way through the plaza in the middle of the night was not a common spectacle for them, especially one who looked as badly beaten as he did. One would think the war had hardened them to a sight like me. He mused as he climbed the broad stairway up to the palace doors. They made way for him easily enough. It was almost insulting how little they pretended to be threatened and allowed him to openly walk through the gates and doors. As he climbed, bells and gongs tolled off in the distance, rising through the air not unlike the faint smoke from the incense that burned at the altar near the entrance as the congested plaza watched him closely even after he passed through the threshold. Inside, everything around him was a sea of black and gray and blue. They were in mourning, but no one seemed to be in mourning.

"You there." He made eye direct contact with one of the hostage servants who had stopped to gawk at him. She flinched from his gaze and stared wide-eyed. "Tell me, what is the cause of all this?" He gestured to the black she, along with the others around her, wore.

"The city is in mourning for the death of the Lady Lang." He looked away from him, hesitant to answer. "And for your sister-"

"Which one?" He snorted rudely as the timid girl squeaked and shut her mouth instantly. "The one that is my wife or the other?" A rising feeling of despair was masked underneath his proud manner. I came too late. Bacchus grit his teeth as he paused where he stood.

"The Princess Zi Yu." An old woman who did not falter at his tone or sarcastic question had come forth now and placed a hand on the younger servant's shoulder. He looked up at her, his eyes widening and his breath caught in his throat. Fei Shi. Is she still…? "Her body was discovered in the mountains by the noble Qi Peng. He had her remains sent here to rest this morning."

Bacchus barked a laugh at that partly in disbelief of her praise toward the Lieutenant General and partly to recalibrate himself from the relief that his wife could still be alive.

"Remind me that I would thank him upon his return." He said with less immodesty.

"Your wait is short. He is awaiting you in the great hall with the empress as we speak." She had regained her stern tone and kept her eyes on him, watching as he gaped at her.

"Best not keep him waiting much longer then." He recovered and before she could fully nod her head he turned to walk toward the hall, ignoring the pain shooting through him as he did. Though he didn't outwardly appear so, there was a tightening dread in his chest as his thoughts went to Fei Shi. Don't let me be too late. Not again.

His mind raced as he nearly ran to the large room. As he took hold of the handles, fear gripped him tighter giving his whole body a violent shake. A flashback ran through his head as he pushed open the heavy doors half expecting the room to be alive with flames, crumbling with destruction and with battered bodies littering the floor. But therein he found no fires, no bloody or battered corpses or destruction. It was simply the two of them sitting on the thrones, calm and waiting.

To his relief and suspicion, Fei Shi sat in her rightful seat at the top of the steps dressed in a richly embroidered black and silver robe. The top half of her hair was tied and twisted into three large loops pinned in the back of her head with pale gray feathers and silver ornamented pins adorning around the sides and top of her head, while the rest of her long wavy locks fell down over her chest, reaching to her waist and disappeared within the color of her dress. Her white-feathered fan, which he had not seen her hold since their wedding, was raised to shield the lower half of her face. Above its downy edge, her emerald eyes were lined with charcoal, making them stand out even more as they glimmered like freshly polished gemstones. Bacchus could not fully read her stony expression from where he stood, but there was something dismal about her posture and the uneasy way her gaze did not linger on him made him wonder if she was being held against her will or if it was something more.

Beside his wife, in his seat, sat the rebel leader Qi Peng with his blue and black halberd in hand. The feathery-flame shaped blade shone brightly from a fresh honing and polishing, giving it a sinister beauty. He had armor on as well, a new set from the look of it. Made of a dark and smoky black, it was riveted with cobalt studs and inlaid with silver scrollwork along the edges. Silver clasps fashioned to look like a bird's claws fastened a black silk cape to his shoulders with ebony talons. There was a slight grin on his lips as he clapped his hands and stood, the cape reached down to the back of his calves, making for a highly regal sight.

"Jian," Qi Peng looked down and called to him casually, clearly omitting any due titles. "It is good too see you returned. When my men found the corpses of your guards I had feared Shan had killed you as well."

"Do not bother with your false courtesies, Peng." Bacchus scowled. "We both know your true intentions." He approached the stairs, but a guard appeared on either side of him and grabbed hold of his shoulders to prevent him from continuing any further.

"You wound me, Jian." The up jumped Lieutenant gave a wry smile as he met Bacchus' gaze. "I truly am glad to see you alive."

"I am certain you are." He settled himself somewhat as he glared up at the man. "So that you might have the pleasure of killing me yourself." The palm mage jerked his shoulders from the guards' hands, but he was not free for long as they caught him once again, forcing him down to his knees this time. The obedient men held fast to the back of his neck and shoulders, pressing him into a bow when Qi Peng commanded that they leave him be. They warily relented and slowly released him taking a notably small step back being certain to not be outside of arm's reach. He paid them no mind as he and Qi Peng stared one another down a moment before the man standing above him spoke to disturb it.

"I will not deny my intent to kill you," He sighed, sitting down and leaning back into the cushioned seat. "But there is no need to rush to your death just as yet my old friend."

"Typical. You never were one to rush. And when and by what means will I be delivered?" There was clear bitterness in his voice as he stood from the floor he had been forced to.

"At first light, by public beheading." Qi Peng's tone was hinted with a small satisfaction though he almost sounded bored.

"Why wait?" Bacchus laughed and looked at his wife who continued to remain still as stone behind her fan. The only part of her that moved was her eyes as they shifted from returning his look to elsewhere in the room. Guilt and something more mixed into the way she dodged his stare. He shifted his stare back to Qi Peng, giving him a cool gaze. "Have you not a big enough audience out there already?"

"You seem eager to die." The Lieutenant appeared intrigued by Bacchus' proposal.

"I would sooner live but given the circumstances, I see no point in prolonging the inevitable." His eyes flickered over to glance at Fei Shi once more who still had yet to reciprocate her gaze to him.

"Pity. And here I had hoped to give you an honorable death."

"I would have gladly accepted a death worthy of a warrior had Shan not gotten to me first." Bacchus gave a small wave with his wrapped arm.

"That was a miscalculation on my part. I had thought you to go to the docks first where I had my men waiting to capture you, but you never came."

Something echoed inside of him as he thought of the crumbled school. A red the color of blood clouded the vision of her mutilated face as it flashed in his mind's eye. Had I not gone there first, would she still be alive? His jaw clenched as he let the thought fall into the abyss within him and kept his resolve.

"Your men you say. Was it because you were busy searching for and killing the princess Zi Yu that you could not capture me yourself?"

"I make no claim to the death of the princess." He absently rapped his fingers on the armrest of the chair. "She was nothing more than half-rotted corpse by the time we discovered her abandoned camp. The medic claims she perished from an infection of a would likely sustained in a battle."

"Ho? And what of the Lady Lang? Do you take me to be so naïve that I would believe your lack of involvement with her death as well?"

"The previous empress was dead before my return." Qi Peng reached over to place his hand on top of Fei Shi's. She made no acknowledgment of his action and continued to look off in an unseen distance from behind her feathered veil.

Bacchus looked at her, silently asking if what the man beside her spoke was the truth and what his meaning was but as with Qi Peng, she hinted no reaction toward him. It was all he needed to realize what she had done. She couldn't have…

"Your own mother." He directly addressed her now, his expression incredulous. Qi Peng spoke before she could answer, if she had even intended to do so.

"She went peacefully I am told. In her sleep." Qi Peng spoke for her again, earning a scowl from him.

"I am sure she had intended to wake from that sleep." He spat. There was no love in him for his goodmother but he had vowed to protect her. Learning that he had failed her only boiled his anger further.

"Jian," The Lieutenant continued on. "As is typically customary for a man of status sentenced to death, you may ask any boon of me, save for sparing your life of course."

Without missing a beat, he scoffed and requested enough to drink so that he might drown in drunkenness and that wine would spill from his neck rather than blood. He gave Qi Peng a lasting look before the other man chuckled and nodded as he ordered one of the guards to retrieve the fermented drink from where it sat near one of the serving tables off to the side. As the man poured the alcohol, Qi Peng drew and slung a sharp dagger at him. It pierced through the back of unarmored man's throat and stuck out the front under his chin, glistening wet with warm red blood. The guard gagged and choked out blotches of crimson, spilling all of the liquor and falling to his knees to die. The second man was too afraid to move and sputtered out some sort of plea as he looked at Qi Peng, only to be answered with a dagger thrown directly into his forehead between his eyes.

"You must think I am a fool." There was still a grin on Qi Peng's face, but his eyes did not reflect it. "I am aware of the way alcohol affects you. Why else do you think there has been so little available to you here?"

"If not that, then at least humor me with another request." Bacchus paid no mind to his first failed plan and continued on.

"Ask away." The man in his seat waved his hand listlessly, his ink black eyes watching cautiously.

"You said before you wished you could give me a more honorable death, one worthy of a warrior. Grant me that." Their eyes locked into a gaze of muted wit. The rebel leader was suspicious but curious and Bacchus relinquished no hint of his intention.

"I am afraid there is no time to allot your wounds to heal. Ask for something-"

"I am not asking for time to heal. I am ready now." Bacchus interrupted him.

"You would expedite your death?" There was suspicion clear on the other man's face. His words finally gained Fei Shi's attention as well.

"If I am to go out, why not go out fighting?" He continued to give Qi Peng a long unrelenting look.

"A dull battle, fighting the injured." The other man quirked a brow down at him. There was no mistaking the pique of interest in his tone interlaced with the prudence.

"Only one way to find out." He snorted, egging him on. "Or would you rather the histories have it that you won your throne and bride from me in such an unexciting way as careful planning and well played strategy? They may even name you usurper rather than conqueror." The tone he took was insolent and haughty. For once in what seemed like a lifetime, he was beginning to feel like his old self again. Qi Peng laughed heartily at that, clearly enjoying the audacity Bacchus was displaying.

"Is this what you were like in Fiore?" The genuinely sly way Qi Peng grinned was devilish and amused. "I am almost sad to have to kill you now that I see how droll you truly are."

"We will see about that." Bacchus challenged, feeling bolder as he settled into a familiar defiance and straightened his posture. "Fight me. Here, now."

"If that is what you wish." The markings on Qi Peng's face began to glow as his magic pressure pulsed. His small smirk had become a full grin now when he stood from the throne and walked down the steps, halberd in hand. Warily, Bacchus watched his every step, waiting. A quick glance to Fei Shi told him of the worry that reflected in her eyes as she sat there looking between the two of them. She had yet to move form her seat, but her fan no longer covered her face, allowing him to fully see her expression. It was subtle, but there was a tinge of fear about her as she watched Qi Peng descend the broad flight of stairs from the thrones. He could still not be certain if she was being held against her will or if she had truly rejected him. Now's not the time for that. He scolded himself and refocused.

"Have you grown so weak that you cannot even muster up any magic power?" The glowing man asked as he neared. There was a radiance around him and his weapon that was similar in color to the blue on his face. Bacchus could smell the musky perfume in the air that Qi Peng used to drain an opponent's energy beginning to mingle with the incense around him. I can't let this go on for too long. He stood calmly as his opponent stopped only a few steps from the bottom.

"Come." The Lieutenant smugly gestured with his free hand at Bacchus, enticing him to begin, but before he could even shift from where he stood, Qi Peng dove forward toward him. Caught by surprise, Bacchus could not dodge in time and felt the hard shaft of the halberd as it struck him in his gut, sending him nearly halfway across the room.

Cradling his assaulted torso with his less injured arm, he looked up from where he knelt in time to see Qi Peng charging him once again. Deftly he rolled out of the way and managed to push himself to his feet.

"That all you got?" He spat, feeling the internal wounds he sustained from his battle against Shan reopening. The taste of iron and blood coated his mouth as he struggled to ignore his screaming broken ribs.

"Much and more." Qi Peng taunted before rushing him once more.

They clashed over and over, the scent in the air getting thicker until it was nearly unbearable. He could feel the effects taking their toll on him, but his magic remained intact. It wasn't until Qi Peng had him on the defensive that he raised his hand to cast his magic.

"Energy Absorption." He smirked as the matching blue magic circle formed beneath him and in front of his upright hand. Though the cocky expression didn't last long when he realized he was not gaining anything from the palm mage. Internally Bacchus rejoiced, but only showed it as a wicked sneer of his own.

"Keep trying, for all the good it will do you." He urged as he sprang into an attack, this time catching Qi Peng unawares and landing a solid strike to the middle of the man's chest. He marveled at the deep dent he left in the lieutenant's new armor.

Unconvinced and with a frustrated frown, Qi Peng tried his magic once more, leaving him completely open for another attack. Taking the opportunity, Bacchus erupted with hilarity and acted swiftly. His arms, his ribs, nothing hurt anymore as he could feel himself slipping back into his old habits and mindset and launched into the offensive against his opponent. This was nothing more than another quest for him, another task, hardly even a sparing match. Even without his magic, he felt a full-fledged wizard again and let himself be consumed with the feeling.

"So that is your trick is it?" Qi Peng's breathing was heavy as he wiped at the side of his mouth after a hard hit to the jaw from Bacchus. "Where did you get the charm?"

He merely grinned as he tilted his head from side to side to crack his neck. The pearl sized charm in his left ear pulsated hardly more than his own heartbeat. It had taken him a while to recognize it was there, only coming to the realization of it during the last few minutes of his trek back to the palace. He concluded it had to have been Cana who endowed the magic suppressing jewelry on his ear. Likely she had done it to keep them from being noticed as they traveled with him back to the royal city.

"You cannot steal what is suppressed." The way his lips curled was almost victorious, but when Qi Peng began to snigger and suddenly burst into a hearty laugh, it gave him cause to take a step back from his confident stance.

"No, I cannot." His eyes narrowed in their sinisterly gleeful way at him. "But you are not the only source within this room." Qi Peng looked over Bacchus' head at the thrones behind him.

"No." Bacchus whispered as he turned to look at Fei Shi who was now standing, her eyes wide with the same sudden awareness.

"Energy Absorption!" Qi Peng spoke as he aimed his hand at the young empress. As Bacchus turned to face him once more, he was hit with a great force straight to his chest. His back crashed into the stone steps behind him knocking the air from his lungs, his ribs crying out in anguish and his arms screaming with white-hot pain.

"F-Fei Shi." He tilted his head back to look up the flight of steps at his wife who had dropped to the floor the moment he laid his eyes on her. As he was distracted, Qi Peng came at him again, landing his hardened fist into Bacchus' sternum. It was enough to break the stone steps he had collided with under him and a few more of his ribs. But that was not his priority. My wife. I have to get to my wife. He struggled to move while Qi Peng jumped back to arrogantly let him rise. His eyes went immediately to Fei Shi as he tried to turn his body so that he might climb up the steps to where she lay.

"Do you think I would hurt her?" Qi Peng was on him again, this time pulling him by his hair and lifting him to his feet by it. He grabbed at the hand that held roughly to his head trying to free himself.

Taking the chance, Bacchus thrust his elbow backward into Qi Peng's armored torso, letting the pain resound in his already throbbing arm. It worked enough to release the hold from his hair and rally up a secondary attack. Yet even with all the effort pushed into it, he knew he had hardly made a dent with either move. His chances in his current state were quickly diminishing, as was his strength. Enough of it had rapidly drained from him, leaving him in a constant struggle to keep from falling to his knees. He had hoped the charm would work to his advantage rather than his demise, but it had been a fruitless plan. Though he seemed to be tiring him out, he knew that compared to Qi Peng, his attacks were no better than a buzzing fly smacking into his breastplate. He had only one option left.

"You look ill, Jian." Qi Peng had stood back up by then and twirled his bladed staff in his hand.

"Better than you." He mocked and spat the excess blood from his mouth at Qi Peng's feet.

The two of them stayed in their stand off for what felt like hours until one of Bacchus' knees finally buckled. There was an exploding laughter coming from the other man as he attempted to push himself back up. The sound of proud footsteps came after until he looked up to see the energy mage standing above him.

"Before you kill me, there is something I must ask."

"Ask then." Qi Peng nodded with a grin, staying his blade.

"What will be your first act?" Bacchus gave him a cool look. Qi Peng's brow furrowed slightly as he began to question his meaning. "Your first act as the new emperor of this country. Surely you intend to rule in my stead?" His expression did not falter.

"Rule in your stead? What would that matter to you?"

"I am asking you, what it is you plan to do once you have control of this nation. If not you, then who will rule this country? Set the laws, uphold the peace, protect the citizens?" His eyes narrowed into a meaner glare. "What will you do once you have finally killed me, married my wife and become emperor in my place?"

"You think I did this with the intent of taking over for you?"

"No." Bacchus watched the other man's confidence weaken slightly under his gaze. "You did it out of hatred. Out of anger and rebellion and with a vengeful wrath." His voice was calm, but there was no denying the tension building from him. "You have lost sight of the needs of the people and only assumed that they were your own. You have no resolve to truly follow through with your ambitions."

"You speak so confidently. What makes you think that I would stop now when I am already so close to victory?"

"Because if you had wanted to kill me, you would have by now. The only hindrance being that you had come to realize the glaring flaw in the seeds of this sown plot of yours. You know that without me to hunt, without this palace to burn, you will no longer have purpose. Your lifelong vengeance will come to an end and there will be nothing left for you but a broken country bathed in blood and headed into turmoil. And you have no intention of taking responsibility for it."

"So what, I should let you live because I do not wish to rule?"

"Whether I live or not has no meaning at this point. It is because you are no more than a guilty villain with hands so blood-soaked you had forgotten what it was to be clean that you must assume the role." He let his eyes glance over to Fei Shi who had remained unmoving on the floor in front of her throne. "Was that not your initial intention? To bring peace to your homeland? Or were you only claiming such so as to give yourself solace for your murders?" There was only a disapproving frown on the Lieutenant's face for his answer.

"And here I had hoped I could die with at least the peace of knowing you would rule well." Bacchus reached a hand up to wipe the crusting blood from the corner of his mouth. "I suppose that means that I have no other choice but to live and continue my reign." He ripped the charm from his ear, feeling his lobe tear and the hot blood running down the side of his neck. His magic surged within him like a rush of adrenaline he had never felt. It built up until it seemed as if it would come pouring out of him in uncontrollable waves. With the last bit of strength he could sustain, he tensed his muscles and leapt.

"Under Moonlight!" He named his attack, springing up and landing it successfully on the stunned lieutenant laying him out onto the floor. A noise of surprise came from his lips, likely by the air that had been forced from him by the pressure of the attack as he landed. When he didn't get up, Bacchus glanced over to where the discarded weapon had fallen from his grasp and picked it up. He knew what he had to do next.

Panting, he gripped tightly to the halberd and hobbled over to him, holding the tip of the blade under the other man's chin and resting it close to the soft flesh of his throat to keep him from rising. In truth, he could hardly stand the pain in his broken arm to hold up the weapon, but lowering it was not an option. He held him down with his foot firmly planted on the man's chest to assure that he would not rise.

"Do it then." Qi Peng snarled as Bacchus lifted the halberd with both hands, lifting his foot from his chest so that he might drive the blade through his now unarmored torso. Fei Shi's eyes could be felt burning into his back, her pleas silent yet he could almost hear her begging for his life as if she spoke them directly into his ear. He hesitated, knowing there was no turning back from where this path had lead him. This is where it will all end. He looked down at the defeated usurper under him. There was almost something accepting in his eyes underneath the bitter scorn. Bacchus resisted the compelling urge to throw the halberd away and beat him more until he was unconscious rather than giving into quick satisfaction of killing him.

"A wizard?"

He could see the puzzling look on Qi Peng's face from their boyhood instead of the present bloody grimace.

"So that I can help people."

The voice from his past echoed out from deep inside the void. The tears came unbidden to well in his eyes as he looked down at the man who was once his friend, his guardian, his brother who suffered along with him and tried to see him as he was presently. My enemy, my would-be murderer, usurper, killer. He swallowed thickly as he raised the halberd above his head. You made me do this, Peng. His lip quivered as he inhaled deeply. She will hate me for the rest of our lives. With his jaw clenched, eyes shut tight and a shake in his arms he thrust the head of the blade downward. And I will hate myself along with her. I'm sorry, Fei Shi.

"No!" Qi Peng's anguished cry rang louder than the bell that tolled at the same moment, sending a chill up his back.

He felt the blade penetrate through flesh, muscle, tissue, and bone as easily as if he were cutting a soft fruit. It made little sense to him how quickly he was able to push the weapon through armor and man both with so little effort. When he opened his eyes to see why, he understood.

Bacchus could only stand with his jaw slackened and his eyes wide at the sight below. She was beneath him in place of Qi Peng with the silver wing blade buried in her stomach just below her ribcage. It had pierced completely through her and into the floor beneath, pinning her helplessly to it. The bright red blood wept around the blade, soaking into her ornate robes and spread across the floor quickly. How…? He felt Qi Peng grab his shoulder and pull him out of the way so that he could take his place beside the dying woman.

"Fei Shi." He knelt and tentatively held the back of her head in his hand while the other touched the blood seeping from her fatal wound. When he drew back his hand it was sticky and slick with blood and he started to openly weep.

"Peng." Weakly she groped for his face and rest her palm gently on his cheek. He hushed her softly and began to glow. Bacchus watched as the blue light emanating from him leaked onto Fei Shi, but it did not gather into her.

"That is enough Peng." She said again, her lips cracking a smile like he had never seen. "It is useless for me now."

"Fei Shi." He kissed her hand and placed it back on his cheek, holding to it dearly. "You cannot-"

"Hush." The dying woman's voice was hardly above a whisper itself as she hushed him now. "This is how, it was always meant to end." She blinked, the tears beading at the corners of her green eyes and raced down the side of her face.

"When I saved you from that fire, I cheated death. And now it has come after all these years to settle the score."

"I know." He whispered back to her. "I knew it was you…"

"I have always loved you Qi Peng. I never stopped loving you, even after you took up arms against my family."

"I only joined so that I might free you."

"And you have." Her smile was sad, yet peaceful. It was something Bacchus knew he would never forget. He could not help but watch in complete silence as Qi Peng began to tremble.

"Jian." She called softly to him now pulling him from his stupor. The inside of her mouth glistened with blood, making for a gruesome sight that he could not take his eyes off of. Cautious, he stepped closer and looked down at her wordlessly.

"I hated you until the moment I saw you in the garden that morning." Even with her fading life, she managed to uphold her regality. "I expected you to be this monster I had heard so much of. Even here you were this fabled mage from a far away kingdom with massive strength, a womanizer and a drunk. When mother sent word to me that you had come back to Yi Kai, I could not believe that she would allow me to be betrothed so such a fiend. It would have been easier to hate you if you were everything I had heard you were when I went to you that morning." She shuddered and a line of blood spilled from her mouth. "But when I saw you there by that tree, I only saw a man with heavy shoulders. To make it worse, you were kind. I thought it to be a trick. I waited for you to be cruel or anything like the rumors suggested, but you never were. I was a little disappointed." Fei Shi's eyes blinked slower now as a faint smile came and went from her lips. "Jian, the truth is, you were never meant to be emperor. You are not, a real phoenix." The halting statement confused him briefly until she continued. "Though the blood that runs through your veins is the same as mine, you lack the conviction to carry out your life as a ruler. You do not belong here." Her body had gotten weaker and began to tremble more visibly now. "As my final command as Empress, for your act of regicide, sororicide, and ultimately uxoricide, I hereby sentence you to exile from Yi Kai, name you an enemy of the royal family and denounce your legitimacy to it."

Her words resonated in the void as she barely raised her hand at him. He felt something burning onto his face just beneath his eyes. He had only felt it once before, when he had first been branded. He did not need a mirror to know that she had replaced the black dots to mark him as a criminal, yet still he lightly touched where his skin burned. Her breaths were shallow now as she fought to keep her eyes open. "And in your stead, I name Qi Peng as the rightful Emperor."

Bacchus understood her gift to him, though it was a bittersweet one. By name it was exile, but in truth it was freedom that she had granted him. He wanted to thank her, but choked on the lump in his throat.

"The age of the Phoenix is over." She looked back to Qi Peng, her heavy eyes smiling as they closed. "Thank you, for freeing me." Her hand fell to the floor and with a final sigh she drew her last breath, a faded smile upon her delicate lips.

"Fei Shi." Qi Peng reached to her hand, calling out her name over and over again. His voice, though hoarse whispers, was thick with grief.

A few tears slid down Bacchus' cheeks as he watched the other man try in vain to awaken her and pass energy into her body. Strange as it was his own tears were few by comparison, as he could not truly weep for her death. Despite his resolve and briefly newfound desire to protect her, he found he felt nothing less than relief for her and himself. The void within him grew even more; likely consuming the grief he should have felt, yet it somehow felt smaller than before.

After seeming to come to realize that she was truly gone, Qi Peng reached for the halberd and plucked it from where it stood impaling Fei Shi's middle. A rush of adrenaline started up in Bacchus' blood until the other man tossed the weapon aside out of his reach and gently slid the freshly dead empress onto his lap to hold her close to him. Bacchus watched as he pressed a kiss to her forehead and began to slightly rock back and forth with her held to him.

"She never wanted to be empress." He said. His words quiet as if he were still addressing Fei Shi. "We were going to run away together before the war. Then the Empress Lang confessed your true identity and her intentions to bring you back."

"I had not known." Bacchus said hesitantly.

"You were only her husband for a few weeks. There was much and more you did not know about her." Qi Peng's tone became venomous as he spat the reply but there was hardly any fight in it. They remained in place for a long moment before the silence broke again.

"Go on then." Qi Peng did not move from where he knelt nor did he lift his head. "Do it." He squeezed Fei Shi closer to him, huddling over her. "Kill me." In stunned shock, he stared at the broken man uncertain if he had heard him correctly.

"You bastard." Bacchus said as the shock turned into rage inside of him and rocketed out of his chest. "How dare you." He spoke through his clenched teeth. It got the kneeling man's attention enough to make him glance up. Bacchus grabbed him by the edge of the armor under his neck and lifted up to hit him hard and square in the jaw. The strike sent him across the floor into a wall, leaving a deep indent.

"She has not even been dead an hour and you renounce her gift!" He could feel himself shaking mightily as he seethed. "What good can you be to anyone if you are dead? You would throw away the life Fei Shi gave you not once but twice?" Bacchus fumed at him. His teeth were still clenched as he grabbed up Qi Peng to his feet by the edge of his armor once more. "How could you rectify all the wrongs you have done, repent for all of the lives you have taken, repay the suffering you have caused if you are not here to do it?" Despite the anger boiling out of him, his body was tired and he could hardly find the strength to continue on with their match. "Do you think you are free to join her before you can atone for your actions?" He yelled as he landed a coiled fist into the wall beside Qi Peng's head. It shocked his eyes wide open until Bacchus withdrew his fist from the fissure he left.

For a moment Qi Peng said nothing, his temples flexing from the way his jaw tightened and slackened. When he let his shoulders sag and his eyes close, a hint of a gloomy smile graced his lips. It was then that Bacchus knew the day was done; their fight was over and their war had finally come to its bloody end.

"Fei Shi was right." Qi Peng said after he pushed Bacchus off him with minimal force and stood on his own. "You were never meant to be a phoenix." He glanced over to the young late empress' still fresh corpse. "You were never meant to be a majestic bird for the world to marvel at or rule as one in this country. You were nothing like any of them nor will you ever be."

"No more than you." Bacchus shot back, his eyes narrowed. A rasping laugh tumbled from Qi Peng's lips.

"In Fiore, they call you the Drunken Falcon do they not?" His breaths had become less ragged, though there was something heavier than his lack of physical strength underlying his tone. "That's more fitting of you. A foreign bird. A traveler. The falcon suits you more."

"Save your poetic words for when you are old and tired and on your deathbed, Emperor." Bacchus half-heartedly frowned. His would-be killer smiled at him then, the stain of red on his teeth making for a grisly memory.

"Emperor." Qi Peng scoffed the word bitterly, though his expression remained. "It is not so sweet as it was before." The new ruler shut his eyes and placed a hand on Bacchus' shoulder. He could feel the secondary rush of magic winding through his whole body. Pieces in him mended and the pain faded to an ache. Wordlessly he stared at Qi Peng when he pushed aside from him. The other man did not so much as look at him before limping to his Fei Shi's corpse and gently picked her up. He told him of a postern gate he knew to be unguarded and instructed him to leave through that way and quickly. "Go." He bid. "Before I decide that exile is too light a sentence." Qi Peng did not turn to look back at him.

"Take care, Peng." Bacchus said over his should at the newly crowned ruler as he shuffled toward the door of the half-destroyed hall.

"And you, Jian."

She was right. He thought to himself. Though by blood he had been born a phoenix, he had grown to become a falcon. A bird that does not seek attention or adorn itself with bright flames. That is what I am. He looked up at the looming images of phoenixes throughout the room as he exited it and for the first time since he had come back to Yi Kai, he was certain what his next step was and where he ought to go.