My mind was muddied with thoughts as I walked around the palace aimlessly. I couldn't stop thinking about Meilin and the Peccata at a time like this. Meilin plagued my thoughts since he had told me he loved me so boldly, while the Peccata were on my mind because of the horrible things that had happened to them. I couldn't stop thinking of the two, my mind lost in thought. I was so lost in thought that when I entered one of the rooms, it took me a second to realize that Fang and Bohai were occupying it.

"Lady Daiyu?" Bohai raised his head when I entered the room. His dark brown hair was messy and he was casually lounged on one of the couches, a drink in his hand and a bored expression on his face. Fang was sitting directly opposite of him, his expression as serious and fierce as ever.

"Lady Daiyu," Fang acknowledged with a nod.

I blinked back, looking around the simple room. Somehow I had walked into the wing of the palace where the commanders typically stayed at. "Sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going," I said in a somewhat puzzled tone. I laughed and took a step back. "Sorry for disturbing you both. I'll take my leave—"

"No, no," Bohai said, waving me over with a hand. He jerked his thumb at one of the couches. "Why not sit down and talk? We can even tell you some embarrassing things about Meilin." He laughed and took a swig from the bottle in his hand.

Fang frowned and swiped the drink out of his hand. "You're showing your true nature."

"What, that I'm a gentleman?"

"No, that you're mischievous." Fang sighed and rose from his seat, walking over to the nearest table and placing the drink there. He sat down on the couch. "Lady Daiyu, Bohai might seem like he's a nice person, but he can be a trickster. Anyway, when he drinks, he shows off a bit too much."

My brows came together and I stared at Bohai, who was rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

"I'm not a trickster, you stone-faced snake." Bohai sighed and sat more upright. "But, someone has to be a stark contrast between your seriousness."

I took a seat on one of the vacant couches, somewhat interested in what was transpiring between Bohai and Fang. Bohai, in my mind, was a nice, loyal, trusted friend to Meilin. It was hard to think that he was mischievous in any way.

"I didn't know you liked to play tricks, Bohai," I said with a smile.

"I wouldn't exactly call them tricks," he said with a shrug, "but sometimes I like to shake things up. It's fun to . . . toy with people."

Fang raised an eyebrow. "You're a sadist."

Bohai ignored him when he glanced over at me. "Before you came here, we were talking about something funny that we did to Meilin a while ago."

"A few years ago, Bohai and I made a bet with Meilin and forced him to dress as a woman," Fang said with a dry smile while Bohai started cracking up.

My eyes widened. "You're kidding? Meilin would never—"

"This was back when Fang and I were twelve," Bohai said with a smirk as he ran his hand through his hair. "We were traveling through . . . the Da'al empire, I believe. It was right before the time we were going to head to Arile. Well, anyway, we liked to make bets about who could earn the most money by the end of the day, you see. Fang and I usually didn't make any much money, but this one guy we met told us that he needed a really beautiful girl to tag along with him to this fancy party or whatever."

"Keep in mind, we both obviously look like we're from the Huo empire," Fang interrupted calmly. "Bohai might be mixed, but I clearly am not. The man wanted to bring an exotic woman, as he liked to call it. Anyway, he was asking us if we had any sisters he could take to the party. He offered us a few silver pieces if we could bring our 'sister'."

Bohai bobbed his head, flashing his white teeth at me as he chuckled. "Fang and I both talked it through and we decided to bring Meilin. Well, since the guy paid us a silver coin, we had earned more money than Meilin. He would pay us more if we actually brought our 'sister.' Anyway, Meilin lost but refused to dress as a woman. After a long talk and a lot of persuasion and, well, a few drinks here and there, he agreed. His honor was on the line, after all."

"Meilin never lies or breaks his promises," Fang said. "We already knew that he was going to begrudgingly agree."

"Also keep in mind that since Meilin was twenty-two at the time, so he looked a bit younger than he does now, believe it or not," Bohai added as he tugged at the end of his hair, his grin growing wider by the second. "So he dressed up and went. I think we crushed his pride that day."

"But he was indeed the most stunning one at the party," Fang said as he laughed, completely breaking his stoic visage.

"I remember those hordes of women who were so jealous of her." Bohai laughed out loud, unable to contain himself. He swiped at his eyes. "Meilin was so angry that people actually thought he was a woman. I don't know if you know this, Lady Daiyu, but Meilin hates the fact that he looks so young. It's his . . . weakness, if you will. He loves his looks, no doubt, but he hates that his face is so gentle. This was all before he got those scars from Remus, so he looked even less fierce than he does now."

My mouth hung open and I stared at the two of them in disbelief. I honestly couldn't believe I word that was coming out of their mouths. The way they were describing Meilin was as if he was a different person. It was impossible for me to imagine Meilin in that type of situation.

"Well, we swore we would never tell anyone," Fang said with a frown.

"Oops." Bohai snickered and walked over to where his drink was at.

"You guys," I noted, "have seen more sides of Meilin than I have. I didn't even know he had that side to him."

"We've stuck with him for twenty years. We're family," Bohai said with a shrug as he plopped back down on the couch. He took a sip from the bottle and grinned wolfishly. "We know more about him than he knows about himself."

Fang eyed the drink distastefully before turning back to me. "There are many sides to Meilin. He's human, after all."

"For one, he's a narcissist. I remember one time this lady said he was as beautiful as the Empress Xian, and he was so insulted. He said he was many times better looking than her." Bohai ticked his fingers. "He's cruel, arrogant, senseless, confident, mischievous . . . You got anything, Fang?"

"Annoying. Careless." He shrugged. "Sadistic."

Bohai nodded. "Definitely all of the above."

My face must've shown the shock and horror I was feeling—they were blatantly insulting their emperor—because they both looked amused. Bohai spun the now empty bottle in his hand while Fang crossed his arms over his chest. "Lady Daiyu, we all are close enough to each other that we can insult each other all day long," Bohai said with a chuckle.

"How did you both meet Meilin?" I asked. The shock I was feeling was too strong for me to hide. It was as if Meilin's twisted visage was being morphed into something else. Although I knew that there was a caring side to Meilin's dark and formidable presence, it was still hard to believe that he had such a . . . playful side to him. Normal, even.

Fang cracked his knuckles while Bohai scratched his chin. "Well, that's an interesting story, I suppose," Bohai said with a shrug. He placed the empty bottle on the table and walked over to the desk, pulling out another bottle from inside of its compartments. He leaned his hip against the desk while he uncorked the bottle. "My mother, as you may know, was from Kadios while the father was from a small village in the Huo empire. My mother ran away from Kadios because she was poor and couldn't pay the taxes or whatever. She jumped the border to the Huo empire and bumped into my father, who was a wandering swordsman.

"Anyhow, I was born soon after. They settled down in some village and when I was six, they both were killed by a bunch of bandits that wanted my father's head. Apparently, my father had fought one of them a few days ago when he tried stealing from us. He called the rest of them and they attacked us. My mother was able to hide me away somewhere before the attack. I saw them . . . kill my father and then . . . rape my mother before killing her. I was hiding, but I could see everything. It took a while, but I escaped from my home and ran as far as possible. A few weeks after that and I bumped into Fang."

Fang sighed and folded his hands on top of his knees, his expression back to the cool, grim look he always wore. "I lived with my sister, my brother, and my parents. When I was five, a sickness went around and they all were infected with it. They all died within the year. I managed to not catch it and when they were all dead, I had no choice but to bury them. We were poor and when the tax collectors came, I was forced to run away from my home. Sometime after that, Bohai and I met."

"We were both orphans and we both had gone through a great ordeal, so we decided to stick with each other and steal food and stuff." Bohai took another swig from his drink and plopped back down on the couch. His expression was nonchalant but his eyes were somewhat blank, as if he was remembering something he didn't want to think about. "Well, we both were living miserably and poorly, and one day, we came across Meilin."

"He was a terrifying person, indeed," Fang recalled. "He had blood splatters across his clothing and he had a wild look in his eyes. He looked like he would kill anyone if they bumped into him. He was so dark and scary that we both were terrified of him. We were seven at the time, while he was seventeen."

Bohai picked at something underneath his nail, the usual glimmer in his eyes seeming to fade away as he continued speaking. "Well, long story short, he fell asleep near the place that Fang and I were staying at, and when it was nighttime, Fang and I were having a nightmare like we usually did. It was a normal thing for us to have nightmares, but we didn't think that we would wake up Meilin in the process of our screaming. He found us—he was sleeping in the ally next to ours—and he asked us why we had nightmares."

"He had this dark look in his eyes. We were scared and being the idiot that I was, I told him to piss off. He repeated his question and Fang told him we were orphans and that we saw our family die. He laughed at us; we were so shocked that we could only stare. As he continued to laugh, he somehow started crying." Bohai stared down at his hands, his lips pressed down into a firm line. "We all started sobbing then. The next day, we didn't talk about anything and Meilin asked if we wanted to leave with him. In three weeks, we left the Huo empire and decided to never come back."

"I . . . I don't know what to say to that," I murmured. It was becoming clear that I was the only naïve and innocent person among Meilin's group of people. I was the only one that hadn't been through something atrocious that built me into someone else. Was this why Meilin and the people around him were the way they were? Because they all went through hardships?

With Fang and Bohai, it wasn't apparent that they had been through something horrifying. In fact, not even Meilin or the Peccata seemed like they were broken by any of the things that had happened to them.

Everyone was so strong.

"We met the Peccata when we were . . . seventeen," Bohai said, changing the subject. "Right, Fang? We were seventeen?"

"Yes. Meilin was twenty-seven at the time."

"It's crazy how time flies. Ten whole years." Bohai grinned while popping his knuckles. He had a faraway look in his eyes when he spoke next. "I can still remember the way Nikator was curled up in the corner of the room, even after Meilin had rescued them all. He wouldn't eat and he was so skinny. He had this hollow look in his eyes and he was bruised and beaten so badly."

"Thera would flinch anytime we touched her. A tap on the shoulder, ruffling her hair—any of that. Vita cried all the time and couldn't stop shaking. Minos was waiting for us to sell him off while Atreus was mentally prepping himself for the pit. Remus was lost in his own world and didn't talk much. None of them smiled," Fang remembered with a stoic look on his face. "It took them two weeks to open up to Meilin. Remus was instantly attached to him. The hardest was Nikator; he didn't speak and he flinched anytime someone would raised their voice. He would curl up into a ball and rock himself. He didn't believe he was free."

"People from Lebel aren't treated like humans," Bohai said. "He went through torture and he was only six years old. Since he was taken from his village when he was a baby, he was a slave his whole life up until Meilin freed him. He was treated less than typical slaves and he was beaten on a daily basis. They were all treated horribly, but I suppose him and Remus psychologically went through the most torture, since they were treated as nothing."

Fang nodded stiffly. "Bohai and I didn't have an easy childhood, Lady Daiyu, but the Peccata didn't even have a childhood."

"I don't know what's worse, losing everything that ever had meaning to you, and thus living in a cruel world, or being born into a cruel world." Bohai's dark eyes were hard and the smile that had been on his face a few moments prior was gone, replaced with a dark, serious look.

"You all are so strong," I said, the back of my eyes burning with unshed tears. I sniffled and quickly swiped at my eyes before I could cry. "I feel so naïve to think that I could understand the pain that you all went through."

"It's enough that you're with Meilin," Fang said suddenly. "He loves you and it's clear to see that. You don't need to understand his pain. All you need to do is continue to love him and be there for him. He'll never lose the darkness he holds, but at least he has some sort of light by his side."

"You all are by his side as well," I said.

"Yes, but you're not like any of us. You're innocent, we're not."

Was that innocence of mine really worth anything? The more I thought about it, the more I hated the innocence in me. That same innocence had made me believe that Meilin was a monster, instead of looking at the scars that had made him the way he was. There was darkness surrounding him, Bohai, Fang, and the Peccata, but I was too blind to see any of it until they had told me about it.

The world was a cruel place, but I felt even crueler for not noticing.