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How was this possible? What had he become in the past year?

“What are you?” I breathed.

“You think you are the only one who wants me dead? If I were so easily killed, I would have died a long time ago.”

“You weren’t like this a year ago. You weren’t invincible. You bled. Iwatchedyou bleed.” Three days ago, he’d bled for me when he cut open his palm. I’d tasted the sweetness of his blood.

“Things change,” he replied. “People change.”

“How?”

“I’ll answer under one condition.” He offered me his hand. “Come to Lan, and everything will be explained. You are too smart not to know that Siwang is keeping something from you. Aren’t you curious?”

Half of me wanted to shove him away and run for my silver-tipped bow. But the other…

I peered outside, where the dying cries of men made my stomachturn.

“I will go with you under one condition,” I said. “End this war.”

“Oh, he really doesn’t tell you anything, does he? I am not the one prolonging this war. If you want peace, you need to ask that cruel prince of yours.”

“What do you mean?”

He extended his hand once more. “Come with me, and I will explain everything.”

“Will you stop this war?”

He laughed. “Like I said, that is not up to me. But if you come with me, I can promise that my men will retreat immediately. We did not come here to take innocent lives. We came here to teach Rong Siwang a lesson. And hopefully, this time he will learn.” Lan Yexue wiggled his fingers. “My arm is getting tired, Little Goddess.”

I could still hear the screams outside, which sounded exactly like something from my nightmares. “If I come with you, you promise that you will retreat?”

“You have my word.”

I placed my hand in his, and he flashed that beautiful, dimpled smile.

“You should have run when you had the chance, Little Goddess. Because I’m not going to let you go a third time.”

Part Three

The Nightblood Prince

45

Misty spring breath cascaded down from the mountains, its movement as elegant as a dancer’s arching limbs, bitter cold by the time it fluttered the hem of my silk robes. The kind that seeped through clothes and flesh, deep into your bones.

The manor Yexue had brought me to was built against a vast mountain, jade green with bamboo forests and mossy streams.

I didn’t know where we were, only that we were far from the front lines. I could no longer hear the thundering rhythms of war. When I opened the windows, lulling sounds of markets and leisurely footsteps, the hawking of street vendors and the creak of slow-moving carriages, greeted me from beyond the courtyard.

A city, though not bustling enough to be Lan’s capital.

The manor had plenty of staff: cooks and gardeners and servant girls who dressed me in silk robes and adorned my neck with jewels that reminded me of my days as Siwang’s betrothed. There were even nannies who brushed my hair and powdered my face, though thesenannies did not scold me over perceived slights, and the rules here were not as strict as at the palace.

In fact, the only rule was that I stayed within the confinement of the courtyard. Anything I wanted, they would bring to me.

Was this what Yexue wanted, to groom me back into that girl who had run away?

He’d disappeared as soon we arrived, so I couldn’t even confront him about it. Days passed with no news. And whatever answer he had promised was nowhere to be found.