Page 12 of The Nightblood Prince

I woke to flickering firelight illuminating darkened cave walls, where twisted shadows were etched high on all sides.

“You are awake.” A soft voice spoke.

I blinked. My body hummed in a dull ache, heavy and numb, as if anchored by phantom chains.

If it weren’t for the steady thud-thud-thud inside my chest, the clear sound of blood pumping in my ears, and the winter air filling and emptying my lungs with every breath, I would have thought this the afterlife.

“Where am I?” I tried to move, tried to sit up, but even this small movement was too much.

“Stay still,” Yexue warned, helping me into a sitting position.

He propped my back against the ice-cold stone wall, and tucked his fur coat tighter against me.

I noticed that the outer layer of his embroidered white robe was now wrapped over my shredded clothes, the sole confirmation that the bloody encounter with the tiger wasn’t just a nightmare.

“I should be dead,” I murmured, watching for his reaction.

While my clothes were ruined, my body was not. I touched my chest, and instead of deep gashes that should have killed me, I found soft flesh that was tender to the touch.

No mangling scars. Nothing.

“I saved you,” Yexue replied, not quite looking at me as he moved toward the crackling fire at the center of the cave and fed it a handful of brambles.

“How?” My voice was harsher than it should have been. I bit my lip, immediately guilty. I should feel gratitude, not anger. Without him, I’d be a corpse abandoned by the creek waiting for wild animals to claim me.

But I had heard rumors about the Lan dynasty.

How Lan Yexue’s father practiced the forbidden kind of magic and worshipped gods who answered only after midnight.

Some said his mother was a demon; some said she was a goddess who was beguiled by his father’s beauty and fell in love despite heaven’s laws against such feelings between gods and mortals.

Rumors swirled like smoke, and often, smoke did not come without fire.

Nothing in life was free. Especially something as precious and sacred as the sort of magic that could bring someone back from certain death.

“Does it matter?” Yexue regarded me with those beautiful amber-lit eyes.

Porcelain skin, crescent-moon eyes, and a pair of seductive, pouting lips that would make even the fairest of maidens envious—Lan Yexue was ethereal in a way that didn’t feel fair. If his mother really was a goddess who had fallen in love with a mortal, I wouldn’t be surprised.

When he came back to me and touched my cheek with gentle fingertips, I almost forgot how to breathe. This close to him, I could see subtle streaks of silver under his dark hair, slightly disheveled from today. I had never noticed this before. It was an odd feature against such a young face.

Yexue was the same age as me and Siwang, if I remembered correctly.

Something about the streaks made him look even more formidable. Like a tiger’s stripes.

“You are still colder than normal, but your body is warming up. You should feel better in a few more hours.”

I looked away before my thoughts could wander to places they shouldn’t.

英雄难过美人关 : Even brave heroes struggle to survive the challenge of a beautiful face. I’d killed a Beiying tiger with my bare hands. I would not let Lan Yexue’s vexing good looks be my downfall.

“What do I owe you, Prince of Lan?”

Because I did owe him now. And it was the worst kind of debt: a life debt.

“Nothing. You saved me once when you gave me the antidote, then twice when you pushed me out of the tiger’s way. If anything, I oweyou.”

“The price of simple kindness and bringing someone back from Death’s arms are different.”

“Are they?” The prince cocked his head, his eyes soft like melting honey when he regarded me.

“Simple kindness means different things to different people. To me, a few drops of my blood is also simple kindness, perhaps less noteworthy than the generosity of saving the life of a man you do not need to save.”

My stomach tightened into knots. “Blood?”

Yexue drew his blade, the same one I had severed his arrow with hours earlier.

I shrank back, my hand reaching for Fangyun’s blade that was strapped to my waist, and found nothing.

The tiger. A sting of guilt welled behind my eyes.

I hoped both the blade and the tiger’s pelt would still be there tomorrow.

If someone tried to claim my kill as theirs…

I wrinkled my nose. I would retrieve it at first light, even if I had to crawl there on my hands and knees.

“Relax,” he told me as he made a deep cut across his palm. Dark blood pooled to the surface; then he thrust his bleeding hand toward my lips. “Drink it; it will make you feel better.”

Had he hit his head when I pushed him? Why—

I drew a shallow breath when I saw it. Here, up close, I realized that Yexue’s blood was not the scarlet of most people’s, but a deep shade of crimson darker than even the grape wines from beyond the western sea.

Not just this. There was also a shine under the firelight.

Tiny specks of glowing blue shimmered like stardust as the blood pooled across his palm.

It was…beautiful.

“The cut will close soon,” he urged me. Impatient, he grabbed me by the chin and pressed his hand over my lips. I was too weak to fight back. “If I were going to hurt you, I would have done it by now.”

His blood poured into my mouth. I didn’t taste the sharp copper I knew from when I bit my lips too hard.

Instead, I tasted a strange sweetness, like winter melons mixed with the sharp, bitter tones of aged rice wine.

Unlike the haziness that came with wine, I was hit with an undeniable alertness upon contact.

“How do you feel?” he asked when he removed his hand.

“Better.” It was true. Strength returned to my limbs, warmth bloomed at my fingertips. I pushed myself to sit a little straighter.

“Told you so.” He held his palm closer, letting me lap up the remaining blood clinging to his already healed flesh like a cat savoring the last drops of milk.

“Are you a god?” I asked when I was done. My body felt light, like it was floating, and I could simultaneously feel everything from the softness of the clothes on my body to the sharpness of the gravel under my hands. Whatever this was, it didn’t feel human.

There was that half smile again. “Maybe someday I will be a god. Not yet, though.”

“How?”

“You seem fond of that word,” he replied. No real answer followed.

My attention fell to his left leg, the one that should still be injured. “I want my bloodroot ointment back if you don’t need it.”

He laughed. “I tried to tell you, but you didn’t listen.

I did need your help, however. That poison was preventing my body from healing by itself.

If you hadn’t offered me the antidote, I don’t know if I would have survived.

” He paused, then added quietly a question I didn’t expect: “Are you afraid of me?”

I watched him closely, observing the way he avoided eye contact and kept turning aside any and all questions about his unfathomable power. “Why would I be afraid of you?”

“Because magic is not a thing we mortals are allowed to possess. Not good mortals, at least.”

I felt a pang in my chest. Recollections of me curled under my sheets, crying and wishing for a way to wash away the phoenix’s mark and all the nightmares it brought, surged behind my eyes. I am not a fallen goddess! I’d cried. I don’t want to be an empress! Just let me go home!

There was a reason I didn’t want anyone to know what I could do. Not my sister. Not my parents. Not the nannies who had raised me.

Not even Siwang.

“Anyway.” Yexue shifted away. “You might be safe from death, but your body won’t fully heal for a while, so get some rest while you can.”

It took all my control not to pull him back and ask him How did you come across this power? and whether he knew where it came from. Was his forbidden magic the fruit of some bargain with a vengeful god, or was it something that he was born with, like…like me?

Did his family know about his powers? If so, why had they sent him here as hostage, when his blood was so precious?

Most importantly: Did the Rong Emperor know about his magic?

No. If the emperor knew what Lan Yexue could do, he would not let Yexue roam freely.

I swallowed my questions before more curled to life. For even if I asked, Yexue would not answer.

I was just a girl he’d met in passing, destined to become the empress of an enemy nation. Perhaps one who would rule over him one day. If I hadn’t saved his life first, he never would have saved mine. This was a trade, and we were now even.

“Thank you,” I said, finally. “I promise that your secret is safe withme.”

“I trust you.” His eyes were focused on me again, concentrated and burning as he kept staring. As if I were a puzzle he wanted to solve, or a question he wanted to answer.

I turned away, my cheeks suddenly hot. “You know…” I steered the conversation to a safer direction.

“When I ventured into these mountains tonight, I thought I was prepared for the probability that I might not walk out alive. I was wrong. Nobody realizes just how desperately and wholeheartedly one wants to live until those final moments.”

Yexue leaned a little closer, so close I felt his tender heat permeating the frozen air. “May I ask you a question, Lifeng Fei?”

Dread crept down my spine. Reluctantly, I nodded.

“Why did you save me when you could have run? That tiger was lured there by my blood. I was its target. I should have been the one to get mauled by the beast.”

“I don’t know.” It was the honest answer. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was a mistake. Everything had happened too fast. There wasn’t time to think anything through. “Whatever the reason was, I’m glad I did it. Because both of us are alive.”

“ You could have died.”

“I didn’t.”