Page 3 of Dynasty of the Wicked (The Wicked Princess #1)

3

Zhi Ruo was in and out of consciousness for the next few days, or at least she assumed it was a few days. She didn’t have any real sense of time. It could have been hours, or weeks, and she wouldn’t have known the difference. She was always in the back of a wagon whenever she awoke, her arms and legs tightly bound behind her body, a rough, wet cloth stuffed in her mouth, and a heaviness in her head that made it hard to peel her eyes open. The constant bumps and the sound of wheels grinding over rocks, gravel, and earth told her they were on the move.

The smell of manure and hay was strong when she awoke for the dozenth time that week. She couldn’t open her eyes as usual, but she could hear the faint arguing between three men. A chill settled over her shoulders.

“You got the wrong princess, you fucking morons,” one of the men snapped. His voice was gruff and gravelly, and there was a quality to it that reminded her of a grumpy old man who could never be satisfied—like Father. “It’s not enough that you fuck-ups couldn’t kill the emperor, but you bring this princess here? Are you serious? Do I pay you all to fuck around?”

Relief pooled in Zhi Ruo’s chest at those barbed words. Father was alive .

At least this way, he would be able to save her from these people. She was sure he’d pay whatever ransom they wanted and take her back. She might have been the disfavored princess, but even Father wouldn’t want her to be tortured like this. It was an embarrassment to the royal family.

“The other princess was guarded to the teeth,” one of them grumbled after a moment of silence. “And this one’s pretty enough. How will the Kadians know the difference?”

“This one’s not worth as much!”

The other man began cursing him out and Zhi Ruo’s consciousness began to fade again.

Zhi Ruo’s head felt like it would explode. It was heavy and her eyelids even heavier. She knew immediately that she had been drugged most of the days, or weeks, of her imprisonment. But she could tell that this was different; there was more clarity in her thoughts, and she didn’t feel like her consciousness was ebbing away.

Slowly, she tried moving her floppy limbs. Her arm twitched and she spread her numbing fingers against the floor. She then tried moving her legs, but she couldn’t feel them much. Her throat was dry and parched, her stomach growled incessantly, and she was aware of a putrid smell pervading the air—she couldn’t pinpoint what exactly it was. Rotting horseshit? Urine? A dead animal? The amalgamation of scents made her stomach turn, despite her ravenous hunger.

She didn’t know how long she laid there, groaning softly at the heavy pain in her head. Finally, she cracked her eyes open. She was in a cell. The only light source seemed to be outside from … a hallway, it seemed?

“What a pretty girl,” an old, raspy voice cooed from her left. “Moan some more, will you?”

Zhi Ruo suppressed a scream as she jerked to the side, coming face to face with an elderly man a few feet from her. He had bald patches all along his head, with long, stringy chunks of hair falling down to his shoulders, stuck to the dried blood on his face and neck. He was missing most of his teeth and the ones that remained were black and decaying.

He grinned widely at her. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a girl.”

She scooted further into the cell, her numb legs barely allowing her to scramble away. Her heart pounded in her chest wildly and it took her a second to realize there were bars between her cell and his.

The man wrapped his grubby, dirt-stained hands over the bars and tried reaching for her through them. His shoulders rammed against the rods and he grunted in protest.

“Stay away from me,” she croaked, her throat drying further.

“It’s not fair,” the old man hissed, rattling the bars. He made a face as his mouth worked and then he spat a glob of spit and mucus in her direction. It landed directly on her face, where it slid down onto her lap.

Zhi Ruo suppressed a shriek and wiped her cheek with her sleeve. “W-What are you doing?”

“ It’s not fair .”

She had no idea what he was talking about. What wasn’t fair? She quickly glanced around herself, trying to get an understanding of her surroundings. There was a stone wall behind her and to her right. In front of her were bars, and a hallway that seemed to stretch further ahead. To her left was the cell the old man was in, and she assumed the rest of the hall led to other cells.

“Keep talking and I’ll stuff your head so far up your ass you’ll be a fucking ouroboros,” a velvety smooth voice called from the dark corner of her cell.

Zhi Ruo covered her mouth with her hands and stifled another scream. She scrambled away to the corner of the cell, heart hammering in her chest. “W-Who goes there?”

It was so dark in the corners that she couldn’t see the man, but his voice sounded young, albeit annoyed and harsh. She tried peering over at him, but her eyes still hadn’t completely adjusted to the darkness, so she couldn’t even see an outline. Was she trapped with another creep?

A hand clamped over her bicep and the old man chuckled into her ear. “I’ve got you.”

She screamed, tugging away from him, but his bony fingers pierced into her flesh and held her tight. Another arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her against the cold bars with bone-thin arms. She banged her limbs and her head back, and continued thrashing as the old man gripped her waist and hips, his nose buried into the crook of her shoulder.

Finally, she scratched his hand and arms as hard as she could, drawing blood, and he released her. She lunged forward and fell on her knees, where she quickly crawled to the opposite side of the cell, as far away from the old man as she could. Her back smacked into the wall and she couldn’t stop from heaving.

The old man hissed in pain, licking his wounds. A twisted, angry expression marred his wrinkled face. “I only wanted a taste.”

“Stay the hell away from me,” she breathed and then turned to the man in the corner of the cell. She narrowed her eyes to stare at his silhouette, but she could barely make it out. “And you too.”

“Ignore the crazy old man. He’s a traitor to our empire,” the man in the corner said roughly, his tone hardening. “Keep as far away from him as you can.”

“Noted.” She rubbed the spot on her bicep the old man had clenched and gritted her teeth together to keep from hissing in pain. She bruised easily, so she was sure she’d have purple shadows in the shape of his fingers on her tomorrow.

Her wrists and ankles throbbed, and it was then that she noticed the skin was red and peeled raw. Her hideous yellow dress with lime-green rabbits etched onto the sleeves and the hem of the skirt looked even uglier with splatters of crusted blood and dried mud adorning it.

“I am no traitor,” the old man hissed. He grumbled a few curse words and disappeared deeper into his own cell.

Zhi Ruo couldn’t breathe a sigh in relief to be free from the old man’s lecherous gaze, not when there was another stranger in her cell. At least this one didn’t sound as … terrible.

“Where am I?” she finally asked, hoping he at least held some answers for her.

“In a Kadian prison.”

She gasped, vaguely remembering one of her captors mentioning something about Kadios, the enemy kingdom neighboring the Huo Empire.

“You were sold here,” he supplied when she didn’t say anything.

“How long has it been?”

“Since you were dumped here?” She was sure the man shrugged, by the rustling in the corner. “Maybe an hour.”

Zhi Ruo chewed on her trembling lower lip to keep from bursting into tears or hyperventilating. She was imprisoned by Kadios. Why would they take her? As a political prisoner? The Huo Empire and Kadios were currently at war with one another, with Kadios wanting to encroach on their land and steal their resources, since their own land was so barren and fruitless. But she had thought, a bit foolishly, that the war was centralized on the border and that it couldn’t spread deep enough to the capital.

“They attempted to kill my father.” Her eyebrows pulled together as she remembered that night. The blood. The swords. The screaming. She squeezed her eyes shut to rid herself of the memory of the nameless concubine’s head rolling by her feet, of her brother Wanqing collapsing onto the floor with a dagger stuck in his forehead. “They?—”

She also tried, and failed, to forget the sting and pang in her chest when the guards had rushed over to protect Ying Yue. Her stomach twisted and she felt nauseous all over again.

“Which princess are you? There are two, aren’t there?”

“Princess Zhi Ruo,” she answered, but then hesitated. Would it be better to pretend to be Ying Yue? But it was too late, her name had already slipped past her lips.

“Oh. Oh .” She could hear the disappointment in his voice and her chest tightened again.

“Is that a problem?”

“You’re the wicked princess.” It wasn’t a question. And with another sigh of disappointment, he continued, “Well … this is unfortunate.”

It felt like a slap to the face. She reeled back, pressing against the wall stiffly, as if that could put as much distance between herself and her cellmate. She closed her eyes tightly. She didn’t have time to worry about any of this. She was a captive here, and it didn’t matter that this wretched man thought lowly of her. All she had to do was bide her time until Father sent his men to rescue her.

But even as she told herself that it was best not to engage with this stranger, she found herself asking through gritted teeth, “And why, exactly, is that unfortunate for you?”

“Because—”

The sound of boot steps down the hallway stopped both of them. Zhi Ruo braced herself against the wall, her wide-eyed stare trained on the dimly lit corridor. The small, orangey flame dancing in the sconce a dozen feet away from their cell shifted as a man hurried down. A soldier with combed golden-brown hair, arctic blue eyes, and a scar splitting his lip at the corner to give him a permanent smirk peered down at her. She realized immediately that he was Kadian.

The soldier inched closer to the cell, one hand curling over the bar. “You. Princess. Up.”

He spoke crude Huo, his accent so thick she almost didn’t understand him.

Zhi Ruo remained huddled against the wall. She didn’t want to go anywhere with the man. He was a soldier, she could tell that much, judging by his dusty tunic, the sword strapped to his waist, and the Kadian symbol—a lion and rose—stamped on his breast pocket. Was he going to take her somewhere and torture her? Or worse—would he strip her of her dignity, in more ways than one?

She had heard stories of what happened to female prisoners of war, and they never ended well.

The Kadian soldier snapped his fingers, his expression darkening. “Up. Now.”

She remained frozen where she was. If she moved further into the cell, she’d be too close to her cellmate, and if she moved more to the left, the old man would grab her. She wasn’t sure which of these men was worse. Fear locked her muscles in place.

The man cursed in his language—a tongue she had been forced to learn at a young age; the shock of hearing the words spoke out loud, and realizing that it was actually useful to her now, sent another shiver down her spine.

He stepped forward and stuck his arm out through the bars. Snatching her already bruised arm, he yanked her forward. Zhi Ruo cried out as she was forcefully jerked up her feet and slammed into the bars of the cell. Her forehead smacked straight into one of the rods, and she could already feel the wound welting. It all happened so fast. She tried pulling away, he jerked her harder, and then, something blurred beside her and all at once, the soldier released his grip.

Her cellmate shot forward, grasped the soldier’s tunic and yanked him forward until he slammed into the bars himself. He grunted in response, hands going up to his face, but her cellmate was faster and punched him through the slats. Blood sprayed immediately and the crunch of the man’s nose beneath his fist sounded loudly in the room. Zhi Ruo stumbled back, wide-eyed.

Her cellmate punched the man again, and again, and again, intermittently ramming the man’s skull against the bars of the cell until the man’s face was completely bloodied and unrecognizable.

Crack. Crack. Crack .

Zhi Ruo’s stomach turned and she fell back on trembling legs as the man’s face was bashed into the bar again.

Splat .

She covered her ears and breathed through her nose to keep the nausea at bay.

Crack .

The soldier tried speaking, the words wet and his mouth gurgling, but nothing came out. Zhi Ruo squeezed her eyes shut.

Crack .

Her stomach heaved and she vomited on the floor, her body lurching forward and her neck straining. Bitter bile steamed from her mouth. She wiped her face with shaking fingers.

The broken, mangled man went limp in her cellmate’s hand. By the odd angle the soldier’s neck was bent at, she presumed he was dead. White bone poked through flesh and blood and broken skin. Waves of nausea hit her again.

Her cellmate was large, dwarfing her in the suddenly tiny cell. Long hair streamed down his back, and even in the dim lighting she could make out its shocking white color. He was dressed in a military uniform stripped of its armor; black leather hugged his muscular frame, and dark military robes covered his broad back.

He released the soldier with a thud, and then knelt down and pulled at the body until it was flush against the bars. Slowly, he began fishing through the man’s pockets, before finally producing a handful of dried meat and a thin knife. He twisted the weapon in his hand for a moment, his fingers brushing against the simple handle. He yanked it free from its leather scabbard, touched the flat side of the blade, snapped it back inside its sheath, and then slipped it into the gap between his boot and his leg.

“What about his sword?” Zhi Ruo found herself saying. She swallowed down the thickening apprehension clogging her throat. She didn’t want to see the man’s crumpled, twisted body, but she couldn’t tear her attention away either. “We can escape. You’ve proven yourself adept at …” She breathed out shakily at the dead man. Killing , she wanted to say, or violence , but she settled on, “Fighting. We stand a chance.”

“With just a sword?” He scoffed, not bothering to turn around as he chewed on one of the pieces of dried meat. He continued pilfering the man’s corpse once more. “Good luck with that, Princess. We’re in the midst of an entire army, and you want me to defeat them all with a single fucking sword?”

She cringed at his crude language; she wasn’t accustomed to such harsh words in the palace. “Surely, it is better to have a sword than none.”

“And what do you think will happen when a soldier comes down here to look for his missing brethren, finds his corpse, and then sees me with his sword? Do you think he will smile and laugh at me, or do you think he will draw his own weapon and filet me through these bars?”

She didn’t realize he was being sarcastic until she spoke, “I don’t wish for you to be prodded with the sword, but perhaps?—”

“ Prodded .” He laughed, short and cruel. “You make it sound so innocent. They’ll kill me. Painfully.”

Zhi Ruo didn’t know what to say. “I … Forgive me if I’ve offended you, but?—”

“Princess, I can’t hide the sword anywhere here without notice.” He waved at the cell, and then finally turned toward her. She inhaled sharply as two moon-like silver eyes stared in her direction. She had expected him to be an older man, due to his white hair, but he was young—incredibly so. Early twenties. Maybe even her age. And he was ethereally beautiful—a sharp jawline, defined cheeks, full lips.

Her breath caught in her throat and she found it hard to speak. She had never seen someone so devastatingly handsome, so … violent.

Because marring his otherworldly beauty were the blood splatters across his face. The twist of his lips. And the flash of annoyance over his features.

“So in case you can shove a sword somewhere up that dress of yours, I highly, highly doubt we’d survive a beating from those bastards.”

Color bloomed on her cheeks. How rude .

She was used to people being rude to her, but not like this. Not so … bluntly. They usually hid it behind snide remarks, whispered insults, and nasty stares.

“I … Never mind,” she finally said. “Is there any way we can escape with that blade you stole? Maybe you can jostle the lock with the tip of it and?—”

“How?”

“I … I don’t know.” Zhi Ruo shifted on her sore legs. She swayed on her feet and grasped the grimy, moist wall for support. “I’ve read that thieves are able to lock pick padlocks with tiny needles and knives.” Even to her own ears, she sounded ridiculous, and she could feel the heat clawing up her cheeks.

Her cellmate’s eyebrows lifted, but she noticed he wasn’t staring at her, but a foot or so beside her head. “You think I am a thief?”

“Well … no.”

“Then?”

Her blush deepened. “I just thought, maybe, you were … able to do that?”

“Ah. I almost forgot I’m speaking to a pampered princess,” he said with a snort. He finally pushed away from the metal bars of the cell and strode over to her.

She hugged her back to the wall, her knees knocking into one another. Something stirred in the pit of her stomach and she swallowed down the strange feeling climbing her throat. She didn’t like how her body reacted to this beautiful, strange man. She almost didn’t register his words, not until he was standing a foot away from her.

“Are you accustomed to people doing everything for you?” He was a head taller than her, broad and muscled. He tilted his head to the side, and there was a cruelty to the quality of his voice. “You must be used to treating others like servants. Telling them to do this, or that, and expecting the world from them.”

Zhi Ruo’s shoulders immediately tensed at those words and she couldn’t stop her limbs from trembling—but this time, not from weakness or fear, but anger. How dare he assume she was like that?

“I don’t—” she began.

“I’ve heard rumors of you. Practically everyone in the empire has,” he continued harshly. “You’re a wicked woman who pleasures herself in beating her servants, lashing her guards, and treating everyone beneath you like they owe you something.”

She slapped him, hard—or at least, she would have, if he didn’t catch her hand midair.

Grunting, she tried again with her free hand, but he caught that too. All at once, he pinned her wrists above her head on the wall with one hand, and grasped her chin with the other. He drew closer to her as she struggled against him. His warm breath fanned over her face and a shiver ran down her spine.

“Release me,” she whispered.

“Will you attack me again?”

“That depends on how you act,” she snapped.

The corner of his mouth rose and her heart raced. She was all too aware of how close he was, how her breasts almost touched his chest, how his long hair brushed over her shoulders, and how their legs were tangled together at her attempts at kneeing him. She had never been touched like this by a man before; she had never been in a situation like this, so close to someone.

“You …” She searched his face. There was something off about him, about the way he wasn’t meeting her gaze, and then it struck her. “You’re blind?”

Suddenly, the man released her and stepped away. His body warmth disappeared, replaced by the chill in the cell, and she nearly slumped forward.

“I am correct, aren’t I?” She peered over at him through the darkness, and the old man in the next cell chuckled a laugh. She jumped at his sound—she had forgotten he was there.

“Yes, he is,” he said with delighted glee.

“I don’t need to see to be able to kill you,” the man replied, tilting his head toward the older man. The evidence was lying a few feet away from him. “Come a little closer to the bars, traitorous bastard.”

The old prisoner cackled, but remained at the far end of his cell. Zhi Ruo looked between her cellmate, the old man, and then the bloody corpse. How was he able to move that fast, with that much accuracy, and kill the man so easily? And judging by his clothes, he was a soldier in the Huo army. There was no way a blind soldier could join the empire’s military.

“Are you of noble blood?” she finally asked.

It was the only way he’d be allowed in. Maybe he was a wealthy noble’s son, and had joined the military in name only, and was actually a reserve. It had happened many times before, where noble children pretended to be a part of the military for the prestige so their family could proudly boast that their child fought for the empire, while in reality they only served as reserve soldiers who never saw a battle in their life.

A muscle on the man’s jaw ticked. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t see how you can fight like that.”

“Like what? Being blind?” His voice came out harsh and he motioned to the contorted corpse. “Have I not proven myself, Princess?”

“He is a general’s son,” the elderly man called from the furthest corner of his cell. He grinned widely and Zhi Ruo cringed at the toothless, rotten smile. “General Zheng is his father. It’s the only reason they’re keeping him alive here.”

General Zheng’s son? A jolt of surprise coursed through her body and she stared at the beautiful man. She couldn’t see much resemblance between the two; General Zheng was painted in shades of darkness, while this man seemed to glow like the moon.

But then it hit her. She had heard of him.

“Zheng Feng Mian?” she said slowly. “You’re the cursed heir.”

Now it was his turn to flinch. She took advantage of that moment and stepped forward, her eyes narrowing as she glared at him. How could he say all that crap about her being wicked and terrible, when he himself had a sour reputation?

He was cursed with evil magic, she had heard, and he was violent, impulsive, and overall, a great disappointment. And, since his father had only had daughters after Feng Mian’s birth, General Zheng was forced to name the blind, cursed child as his heir.

“Your magic is terrible,” Zhi Ruo continued, watching the way he tightened his jaw. “It corrodes all that it touches. It is devoid of life. A terrible, terrible curse that will kill you and all you hold dear.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” he seethed.

“Oh? Then maybe keep your mouth shut about me, because you also don’t know anything about me, Feng Mian.” His name rolled off her tongue so easily, almost like she had known him for a long time. Any formalities she should have upheld had withered the moment he had called her wicked.

They both stared at each other, or more accurately, she stared at him while he glared in her general direction. He grumbled something she didn’t catch, stalked off to the barred wall they shared with the old man, and plopped down in the corner. The tension in the room grew tight, but the apprehension she felt at the possible confrontation fizzled away when she realized he wasn’t going to do anything.

Her legs buckled and she slid down the wall. Sighing, she buried her face in her hands to keep from screaming, or crying, or cursing out loud—she didn’t even know what she was supposed to feel. All the fight left her body and she shook uncontrollably. She was a prisoner here. Panic bubbled up to the surface of her usually masked expression. She was stuck here, for who knew how long. And her only companion was a lecherous old man and a notorious, cursed man whose magic was said to kill everything he touched.

She didn’t know which was worse.