Page 1 of The Nightblood Prince

I was born in the midnight crevice between two lunar years.

When fireworks shattered the star-woven sky, it drowned out my first cries. Sadly, not enough to disturb the divine fate uttered a thousand miles away behind palace walls.

A fallen goddess who bears the phoenix’s mark is destined to rule a united An’Lu.

A curse disguised as a prophecy that ignited a want so violent inside our great emperor, it engulfed the land by sunrise.

He ordered the girl to be found and brought to him, and three days later, they found me under the roof of a seventh-ranked minister in a forgotten corner of the empire with the phoenix’s mark bloodred between my brows.

“If anyone is to be the empress of a united continent, she can only be the Empress of Rong and rule from the arm of my son,” the emperor announced to his court days later. His eyes were stained with tears as he cradled an infant close to his chest.

A baby boy born between the same lunar years as I was. The only surviving child of his beloved empress, who took her last breath when her son drew his first.

Rumors had it those gilded halls echoed with my scream when the emperor tied a blessed red string of fate between my and Prince Siwang’s stubby infant fingers.

“With her prophecy at Siwang’s side,” the emperor exulted, “my son will achieve what the ancestors before us could not: unite the continent and finally bring peace to these lands!”

The court roared in cheers and applause; no one dared to object to the emperor’s fantasies of victory and glory.

Except me, whose cries refused to quiet.