Lyn Gala
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Flying Swords 26
🕑 Added 2025-09-12 18:47:26 +0000 UTCI have wanted to share this chapter forever. So many times, I start a story with some scene at the end that I want to share, and this has been the driving scene of this whole book. Leander might call everyone else an idiot, but this chapter is proof that he can sometimes pull some very stupid moves.
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Leander eased into the room. He had expected Heng to be in the hospital. He’d been shot, so that was a logical conclusion, but magical China defied logic. Heng sat in a hotel chair in loose fitting jeans and a t-shirt. “Are you okay?” Leander asked. The question was stupid, but he couldn’t convince his brain to come up with a better one. The hotel door closed behind him, but Leander didn’t move farther into the small sitting room with its one couch and oversized television.
“I’m fine. I am, however, thankful that I have developed my magic. I would have faced a much more painful and prolonged recovery otherwise.” He raised his shirt to show a square of white gauze taped across the entry wound. Guilt stabbed him through the liver.
“I’m sorry I brought this violence into your life.” Leander had never meant words more seriously.
Heng offered a small smile. “You brought nothing into my life other than yourself and a wonderful boy who is keeping my parents very happy.”
Leander grimaced. “I feel like that’s something else I should apologize for. Auntie Daiyu referred to Shanlin as their heir. Please tell me that isn’t true.”
“Why?” Heng tilted his head, his long hair falling forward. “He’ll inherit a small fortune. Eventually. My parents have both cultivated their magic, even if they have chosen to forgo the path of ascension. That means they will live for far longer than a non-magical person would. If Shanlin hopes to inherit, he’ll have to cultivate his own magic.”
“I’m not sure he has any.”
Heng huffed. “You have magic. His mother has magic. Blood will run true.”
“I’m not his biological father,” Leander admitted. When he’d first come to China, that hadn’t seemed to matter. However, everything was different now. Not only was Leander disrupting the Nie family by coming in as an adopted son, but his son was not even biologically his son. Hell, Leander hadn’t officially adopted him, so legally there was no relationship at all. And now Leander had put an unrelated child in the way of inheritance. That didn’t feel safe.
“I know. My parents know, too.” Maybe Leander looked as shocked as he felt because Heng continued. “Chinese magic may not have the concentrated power of yours, but it is far more flexible. He does not share your magic, but we feel a thread of family between you. You are the father he still has on this Earth, and magic recognizes that. It makes Shanlin your son and it makes him my mother’s first grandson. Do not take that joy from her.”
“Her first grandson should come from you or your brother,” Leander protested.
Heng laughed, a full belly laugh that made him wince and touch his injury. “I will not have children. My father might have reached immortal ascension, but my mother got pregnant. Love for his children kept him from divorcing himself from concerns of this world. I will not follow his example.”
“But your brother.”
“Boon Lian, you are too American. Not everyone places their motives on a shelf for all to see. Do not think my parents are being altruistic, and do not believe that Zhiyuan has no part in this drama. Had you not appeared, my parents might have proclaimed the second son of my elder sister as heir.”
That made it sound like Shanlin had more than one person with a motive to hate him. “Perhaps they should. I am an adopted son, not one related by blood.” Leander came close enough to lean against the small desk. He didn’t want to sit next to Heng, not with him still injured because of Leander’s idiotic choices.
Heng laughed. “Your Chinese has such strange errors. You are a son through law, not an adopted son.”
This again. Leander truly regretted the error he had made a decade ago that made this mistranslation so persistent. “A son-in-law is someone who marries a person’s daughter.” He paused. “Or son.” Leander wasn’t sure Chinese would recognize a homosexual marriage, but the marriage would be legal in the United States.
“Yes,” Heng said. He brushed his hair back, and Leander frowned at him.
“Yes, what?”
“You are very confusing today,” Heng said with a laugh. “Yes, you are their son through law because you married me.”
Leander’s knees grew weak, and he stumbled toward the near end of the couch, sitting on the arm rather than getting too close to Heng. “What?” His voice was high and strangled.
“What is unclear, husband of my past?”
“What?” Leander’s voice grew even higher.
Heng shifted on the couch, turning to fully face Leander. “You are my qidi.”
“Exactly! I’m your younger brother!” Leander cried.
“We are married,” Heng said slowly. “I am your qixiong, the older husband who is the head of the household. You are the qidi, the younger husband who has joined my household. That makes my parents, your parents through law.”
Leander slid down the arm of the couch to land on the seat, his head spinning and his mouth dry. “What?” he whispered.
“You performed the tea ceremony taking my parents as your own. You had a wedding feast.” Heng’s lips twisted into an imitation of a smile. “There is something ironic and symbolic about me missing the wedding feast my parents hosted for my wedding.”
“But… that’s….” Leander buried his face in his hands. “Oh my god. They call Xi my qidi.” He had no idea how badly he had dishonored everyone in this situation. He could never go back to the village. Should he take Shanlin with him when he fled? Here the boy had a home and family. Leander would never be able to give him anything but fear and a series of hiding places. But his heart ached at the idea of leaving Shanlin behind.
“Lian. Breathe,” Heng said, his hand resting on Leander’s forearm. It wasn’t an intimate gesture, but Lian still jerked his hand away, shamed by what others must think of him. He was married. Married. And he brought home a son from a woman and then brought another man into his bedroom. He had never been more humiliated.
“I do not know how to apologize for such a dishonor,” he whispered.
“What dishonor lies in marriage?” Heng asked.
Leander sat up and glared at him. “Are you a moron? If we’re married, I cheated on you! Cheating is dishonorable!”
Heng blinked, and the guilt in Leander’s guts bred and birthed shame, horror and humiliation.
“Two men in marriage cannot have children. Those men who choose a rabbit marriage will often take a wife to ensure the family line continues. By claiming Shanlin’s mother as your wife and having a magical connection to Shanlin, you have taken the most Chinese of all paths. You have put continuing the family line ahead of your personal preferences. There is no shame in that.” Heng sounded so calm and encouraging.
“But Xi,” Leander whispered. He was a fool. He knew that his understanding of Chinese culture was lacking, but he had plowed ahead anyway. He had proved every stereotype of an American by acting like a dishonorable fool. He would never again insult
“Everyone knows I have now dedicated myself to the school in a way I had not a decade ago,” He reached out as though he would put a hand on Leander’s arm again, but then he pulled back. “I can’t dedicate myself to a partner, so it is not surprising you have found another. The fact that you completed the marriage ceremony and served tea to my parents shows that you plan to honor the commitment we made to each other. So if anything, I am the one old wives will gossip about. It is clear, first with you and then with Min, that I have let people believe I can commit to them when my path lies elsewhere.”
“That is not your fault,” Leander said sharply. Of all the people to blame for this mess, the man with the hole in his stomach was not on the list.
“I bear my blame,” Heng said, “but I am pleased that my mother has a grandson to dote on.”
“But your sister’s sons….”
“Belong to their father’s family. Unless Nie family magic chooses them, they are not heirs. Mother loves them. She does. But she is not allowed to spoil them as she can a child held close by Nie magic.”
“Nie magic? What?” Leander was so confused. He’d never before heard anyone talk about magic as belonging to a family.
“Family magic attached to Shanlin from the moment I met him,” Heng said. “It’s why I knew the village would accept you. Nie magic recognizes our marriage–it did even before the celebration. And it recognizes Shanlin as our son. Chinese magic knows that a qidi must bring a child to a rabbit marriage because he cannot carry one.”
Leander scrubbed his face with his hand, not sure how to handle any of this. It sounded like he might be able to stay in the village, but it also sounded like the situation with family, with inheritance, with everything, was far more complicated than he had understood. And he had already believed it incredibly tangled. How much worse could this get?
“All is fine, Lian,” Heng promised. “Shanlin is the heir, not because my parents favor him over my sister’s sons but because he is the heir.”
“But Zhiyuan….”
“My brother has made his choices, and like me, those do not include bringing grandchildren home.”
“Gay marriage isn’t even legal in China,” Leander said weakly.
“Non-magical China, no. But in case you have not noticed, magical China holds tightly to the past. Ancient emperors had gay lovers. One even tried to leave his kingdom to one. It did not end well, but any emperor trying to bypass family in order to give power to a favored courtesan would have faced insurmountable obstacles. The fact they were gay was not even a consideration. The two founders of the Flying Swords school were gay. In magical China, we never stopped recognizing gay partners.”
Leander pressed his hands to his face and tried to even his breathing. “I didn’t know,” he whispered.
“I had gathered as much,” Heng said, amusement in his voice.
Leander looked up to glare at him.
Heng laughed. “There is the expression I have missed. You are so unwavering in your condemnation of others that I find your very presence proof that the universe is constant.”
“Fuck you,” Leander said softly.
“I fear I am trying to eschew fucking in favor of overcoming appetites of the flesh. I do believe that may be the source of the entire conflict with Min.”
“Enough.” Leander stood. He didn’t want to hear Heng blame himself, not for Huang Min being a murderous idiot, not for Leander’s ignorance, not for anything. In truth, he didn’t want to hear anyone at all. He wanted to find a deep, dark forest and lose himself in the steady power of trees and forget that he was human with all the flaws that came with that condition.
“Yes. Enough,” Heng agreed. He stood slowly, one hand braced on his hip near where he had been shot. “We should find Hu Xi and Auntie Daiyu. I am sure you have much to explain to Hu Xi, and I need to convince Auntie Daiyu to wait until my father arrives. I do not want to fly with her when my body is held together with magic, hope, and surgical thread. She sometimes forgets that the rest of us have not cultivated to as high of a level as she has.”
“Everyone thinks Xi and I are married.” Leander had no idea what to do with that.
“You owe him wedding gifts. After all, you are a successful craftsman of the Nie family. You have a certain obligation to your qidi, qixiong of mine.” Heng sighed and offered a wry smile. “Qixiong of the past of mine. I am glad you have found a new husband or I would find you a grave temptation. I have missed your abominable attitude, Boon Lian.”
Leander wasn’t sure what to say. He had married Heng. He had been a married man. A small part of his soul had always clung to the memory of their lazy mornings in bed when his life had turned dark. He had seen other couples and compared them unfavorably to the relationship he’d had with his… husband. If he had known, would he have thrown away all caution and stayed in China? Would Shanlin be dead without Leander there to steal him away or would Xi have saved him.
Would he have stopped Heng from pursuing his dreams? Whole other realities spun out in his mind, a million different lives that he might have lived.
Heng rested a hand on Leander’s shoulder. “We cannot change the decision we made in the past, but I do hope you will still count me a friend even if I have chosen cultivation over the relationship we could have had,” he said softly.
Leander nodded. “We will always be friends.”
“Then let us join together in friendship and stop Auntie Daiyu from torturing our father.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan,” Leander said, and he shivered at the thought he had a father. Growing up, it’s all he had ever wanted, and here he had a husband and parents in-law and a brother-in-law who hated him, and he hadn’t even known it. Hell, he had a sister-in-law and nephews he didn’t know existed until ten minutes earlier. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but at least now the Nies made a little more sense.
He was married.
Twice.
He had an ex-husband and a new husband.
Given how much Leander had misunderstood, he was clearly a moron.
Comments
Gabrielle Henson
Poor Leander! What a mix up! I really liked both Heng and Xi, and I don't like threesomes, so this was a great resolution. I would love to see more in this universe.
Mandy Lancaster
Well that clears up so very much! I'm so glad Heng isn't going to end up getting hurt. I suspected you had this situation well in hand. Congratulations! You made exposition fun!
