The King's Dancer

Chaper 2

Xie Lian came to slowly.

He was very much aware of what had happened before he'd fallen unconscious, so he wasn't confused as to where he was. However, he was confused about the state of his body. After all, he was in significantly less pain than he had been just a few hours ago. So, in order to check himself over, he threw the covers off him, before he took a good look down his body.

His feet were bandaged properly, as were the wounds he'd received during the war last week, which had kept reopening because of the constant moving around he was forced to do on his journey through the desert. But now it seemed like they could finally start healing. He wanted to take a closer look still, and attempted to move his feet closer to his body... only to realise that his feet had been shackled to the bed.

Xie Lian sat up in a fit of panic, which only caused him to get dizzy, and he needed a moment for his equilibrium to stabilise itself again. However, this moment was enough for him to notice that his hands had not been shackled to the bed, since he was able to clutch his head. He checked his wrists and the rest of his arms, just to make sure, but they were indeed free of any sort of shackles or chains. Well, this is curious, he couldn't help but think, his blind panic ebbing away.

Given that the shackles were only on his ankles, he figured he wasn't allowed to get up, but that the intention wasn't actually to restrain him out of maliciousness. Maybe it was just done in order to prevent him from running around, so that he wouldn't aggravate the wounds on his feet.

Xie Lian knew that this was quite a stretch, he couldn't really imagine any owner to be this benevolent, but he also couldn't think of another reason at this moment.

He didn't have the chance to ponder over his current situation either, because at this moment the door opened and someone walked in and straight to his bedside.

Going by his scent, the man was an omega, and seemed strangely cheerful. Which was also quite curious.

Xie Lian had to admit to having slacked off on his studies regarding the customs and laws of WuYong, because the country had never been a threat, and simply a peaceful neighbour with minimal interaction between them. Apart from that, even if he thought the customs and laws of WuYong to be draconian, what could a tiny country such as Xian Le have possibly done about it? WuYong was much too strong to have any need whatsoever to comply with the requests of little Xian Le. It wasn't like it would've been possible to threaten WuYong into listening either, because Xian Le would've been crushed within a day.

WuYong had always been far beyond their capabilities, so he'd put all of his focus on the neighbouring countries that he could help - either by overtaking them or by throwing out friendly suggestions over a diplomatic dinner. It had always been Xie Lian's mission in life to achieve something like equality between the dynamics, difficult as it was.

So now that he was enslaved in a country where he couldn't actually be sure of how omegas were treated, he felt a bit unsure. The king of Yong An had suggested that the king of WuYong had a harem full of omegas, but Xie Lian didn't know if those omegas were gifts like him, forced to join, or if some of them were actual workers, who had joined voluntarily. He didn't even know if that was an option here.

However, seeing an omega walking around the palace freely, without any guards following him around and supervising him, Xie Lian allowed himself to get his hopes up just a little bit. The man could be an exception, but Xie Lian didn't want to believe that. If anything, the king had seemed like a good person yesterday. He wanted to believe that omegas didn't have a terrible life under his rule.

"Oh look at you, you're awake!", the omega cheered, and sat down on the edge of his bed.

"My name is Shi QingXuan, and I'm your doctor. I-"