Page 53 of The Nightblood Prince

Whispers rumbled through the camp. The stench of fear always spread fast among soldiers.

It was near twilight when Siwang’s meeting finally ended. Heavy footsteps departed the war room to the north of camp. I searched the men’s despondent faces for clues, or any form of hope to cling to.

And found nothing.

I went to find Siwang at nightfall. His guards were used to me by now and let me enter and leave as I pleased.

My prince was slumped against his fur-covered seat, staring at the swirling incense placed on a stand before a golden statue depicting a menacing god of war. An offering.

Siwang was not superstitious.

There were dark circles under his eyes, and a lingering trace of redness. Had he been crying?

“You can’t win a war on an empty stomach,” I told him, and set down the lamb-bone broth I’d asked the cooks to make for him.

He always forgot his body’s mortal needs for things like food, water, and even sleep when other things occupied his mind. I wouldn’t have been surprised if this was his first meal of the day.

Everybody in that war room had their own agendas, their own points of view.

Some would press Siwang subtly, while others would push their visions like fists at his throat.

Everybody wanted to make decisions through him, forgetting that Siwang was just one man—barely.

He was just nineteen. Too young to carry the burden of a nation.

Yet here he was.

When he failed to respond, I silently dipped one of the silver needles into the broth for him, to check for poison. When the silver came away untarnished, I scooped the broth into a bowl, set it at his side, and rose to leave.

“Don’t go,” he whispered. “Don’t go, Fei.”

He asked, so I didn’t. I pulled up a chair to sit beside him, then placed the bowl in his hands. Strong and callused, his hands no longer felt like the soft silk I remembered from the palace.

Up close, I saw that his eyes were as red as I’d imagined, and tears still clung to his lashes.

Something twisted in my chest. I wished there were something I could do for him.

A way to command Fate and force her to show me a way to win this war for Siwang—something I had tried, more than once.

Every night, I prayed for her to divulge some heavenly secret to me.

And every night, I dreamt the same nightmares and bloodshed. Always the same blood-soaked ending.

I was no strategist or scholar. I could offer him nothing except my shoulder to lean on and my ears for his worries.

女子无才便是德 — having no talent is a virtue for a woman.

A saying repeated too many times by the scholars who were supposed to teach me, the father who was supposed to love and believe in me, and especially the emperor, who saw my yearning to learn as a threat against his son.

It was only after excessive begging that I had been allowed to study with the rest of the noble children.

Though, as with all girls, our education was limited.

War and strategy were subjects I was banned from.

This didn’t stop me from hunting them down in the imperial library.

I devoured as much power as I could from their pages despite knowing that the simple act of reading these books would not equate to being taught by the greatest minds of our time, as Siwang was.

Now I wished I had been more stubborn, made Siwang teach me these things even if the world forbade him to.

I knew my power over him; I would have been able to convince him if I had tried. Perhaps in another lifetime, I would. And in that lifetime Siwang would have a girl who could help carry his burdens with intellect instead of silence.

I wished I was capable of more. Just as I wished the world believed I was capable of more.

But I wasn’t. So I placed my hand over his and squeezed tight.

“What did you argue about today?” I tried to keep my tone light, humorous. He didn’t laugh. So I added, “I heard you’re preparing an attack for tomorrow.”

Siwang let his head fall back, eyelids fluttering closed. “If we don’t win tomorrow, if silver fails to make a dent in Lan Yexue’s monsters, it might be the end of Rong as we know it.”

I didn’t want to think about the bleak future that awaited our continent if we couldn’t put an end to Lan Yexue’s reign.

My eyes fell on the unfurled map in the center of the room, and the formations of enemies that stood between us and the city of Changchun, where Caikun’s father and thousands of civilians were trapped.

“Pray to the gods that the attack goes well tomorrow,” Siwang whispered.

“What is tomorrow’s plan?” I asked.

“Lan’s army is a mix of vampires and humans, with the vampires patrolling the night and the humans patrolling the day.

” Siwang relented after a beat of silence.

“We will attack before the vampires retreat to their tents, close enough to dawn so that even if we don’t succeed, the sunlight will aid us.

When it’s just human to human, we have a much better chance.

If things go well, we will send in more men with silver weapons. ”

I knew the real plan had to be more complicated than this, but I didn’t want to force more military secrets from his lips.

Siwang had already said more than he should have.

I couldn’t sleep that night. How could I, when so much hung in the balance?

I counted the sunsets. Seven days. I will give you seven days to remove yourself from this war.

Seven days had passed since Yexue had snuck into my tent. According to the senior soldiers, this was the longest ceasefire between our two sides.

I see your prince still has a habit of keeping secrets from you.

What did he mean by this? Was this ceasefire for me, or was he waiting for something else? Biding his time, planning for—

A loud, spine-chilling scream pierced the night. Outside the tent, orange flames surged brighter than the bleeding dawn.

I jumped to my feet, wrapped my robe around me, and claimed my blade from the bedside.

Blood. I smelled blood as I ran for the door, my heart pounding in my ears.

调虎离山 . Lure the tiger away from the mountain before attacking. With our best men sneaking behind the enemy lines with most of our silver weapons, the camp was left vulnerable to an attack.

We’d been tricked. There had to be a spy among us.

I pushed open the tent flap just as a cacophony of cries erupted. My phoenix’s mark burned at my forehead, and I caught blurred glimpses from an overload of visions, trying to warn me of the dangers that could come from all directions.

Run, my better instincts told me, as they had all those months ago when I witnessed that village being raided by vampires.

I drew my sword just as someone covered my mouth and forced me back into the shadows.

“Shh,” a voice cooed, soft and nectar-sweet, fingers firm yet gentle around my throat.

Yexue.

He pressed me against a wooden beam of the tent to keep me from struggling. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered, removing his hand from my mouth.

“You think I was born yesterday?” I tried to free myself from his hold, but Yexue grabbed both of my hands and tried to pin them above my head just as I changed course and opted to stomp on his foot instead, hard enough to break it.

Lan Yexue didn’t even flinch. Stupid magic.

His lips twitched, and he leaned even closer. “I’m not your enemy, Fei. I’ve never been your enemy.”

I thought of his blood, which had brought me back from the brink of death more than once now, and then Siwang, kneeling in his throne room, the white-robed figure with his obsidian blade…. Yexue might not be my enemy, but he could be Siwang’s killer. Which was worse.

“Need I remind you that you wouldn’t even be here if I didn’t save your life back in the mountains!”

“If we are talking about blood debts, then your beloved Prince Siwang is twice the killer I’ll ever be.”

“Siwang is nothing like you.”

“If you think that, then you don’t know your prince at all, Fei.”

“Really? Well, how about—” I headbutted him, and it felt like smacking my head against a stone wall. At least it was enough to stun him for a moment, enough for me to pull my blade from its sheath. And drive it straight into Lan Yexue’s long and elegant neck.

Lan Yexue didn’t even try to move. When the blade met his throat, instead of piercing his skin, it cracked and shattered. His flesh, so soft when he touched me, was now hard enough to splinter iron.

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. I watched you 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.”