Page 54 of The Nightblood Prince

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 these nannies 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.

“Where is your prince?” I asked the staff morning, noon, and night. “Can you tell me what is happening at the front lines? Is Lan still fighting with Rong? The prince, Rong Siwang, have you heard any news of him?”

No one gave me a real answer. It was always some version of The prince regent has duties elsewhere, and We do not hear news of the front lines.

Even my nightmares kept me in the dark. For the first time in a long while, my dreams were quieter. There were still screams and fire, but everything was muffled. No matter how hard I tried, I could not remember them when I woke.

I’d never thought there would come a day when I would miss the vivid bloodshed.

Fine. If no one was going to give me answers, I would take matters into my own hands.

The guards here worked in rotation and paced the hallways with eagle eyes. But they couldn’t watch every corner of the manor at all hours. Just as no emperor, no king, no man, regardless of his status and power, was omnipresent.

Finding Yexue’s bedroom and the adjacent study was easy. Getting inside, however, was much harder. Located in the opposite wing of the manor, they were the only rooms that were locked. When I asked to see the rooms, the nannies shook their heads in unison.

I had learned how to pick locks during my months on the road; the trick was not to listen for the click, but feel it through the vibration of the metal.

I studied the rotation of the guards carefully and took note of the hallway around Yexue’s rooms, creating a mental list of places to hide and various escape routes just in case.

Ten minutes to get inside before the next guard turns the corner, I reminded myself as I crouched beside the door and cupped the lock in my hand.

I wedged in the thinnest pin from my hair, then twisted, hoping to feel something click.

But this had to be a particularly quiet lock, because I neither heard nor felt anything.

“Come on, you stupid lock!” I muttered, turning and turning, pressing my ear as close to the lock as possible. Until, finally, a click.

I was biting down the urge to cheer when I heard someone chuckle from behind me.

“You could have asked me for the key.”

I jerked to my feet and immediately recognized the pristine, silver-embellished white robe.

Lan Yexue stared down at me with an amused smile. “You are not breaking into my study, are you?”

“No,” I lied.

“Are you trying to steal military secrets?” He cocked his head, and I had half a mind to stab him with my hairpin and make a run for it. But memories of my last act of rebellion were still fresh, how my blade had bounced off him as if I had struck a statue of stone.

“…No.”

“Then what are you doing?” Those amber eyes watched me with interest. I wagered he was just waiting for me to trip over my words so he could mock me.

“Um.” Shit. “I…didn’t know where you were and thought perhaps someone had locked you inside this room?”

His smile deepened. “Oh, my savior! I knew you had a soft spot for me after all.” He offered me his hand, and I realized I was still half kneeling against the door. This made for a precarious position. “If you don’t want to get up, you are welcome to stay on your knees, Little Goddess.”

I didn’t take his hand, and rose on my own accord. “Well, now that I know you are safe and sound, I will leave you to it.” I tried to sidestep out of his way, but Yexue moved his arm out to block me.

“After all that work, are you not going to come in and see what kind of military secrets I am keeping from you? Because I clearly need to change my locks, and the next one might not be so easily picked.” He pushed open the door and gestured for me to enter.

Inside was an airy space with high carved ceilings and large windows that overlooked a small water garden bathed in a slant of golden light.

A large desk occupied the center of the room, and there were rows and rows of bookshelves stacked high in all directions, full of aged scrolls and yellowed books, organized into neat piles.

I peered at the wooden tags that seemed to organize everything into categories and realized they were sorted by empires and dynasties.

A large hand came over my eyes before I could glean anything else. “Stealing from me already?” Yexue chuckled.

My face went red while my feet remained frozen at the threshold. The wolf was inviting me into his den; this was the sort of trap parents warned children about. Nothing good could come of this.

However, I was already in his territory, my life in his hands. What else did I have to lose?

“I’m not going to eat you,” Yexue added, teasingly pulling the door closed. “If you don’t want to hear—”

“You claimed Siwang was keeping secrets from me.” I sidestepped him and barged into the room, taking a seat at the large desk before he could change his mind. “I came here for a reason, and I’m not letting you go back on your promise.”

I had hoped there would be a mess of scattered papers I could glean intel from, but the desk was empty. Everything about this space was organized.

“You look surprised,” Yexue mused as he followed me in, leaving the door open behind us, as if to reassure me. “Is this not what you expected?”

“I expected your quarters to be more chaotic,” I said.

He faked a gasp and clutched his heart. “Are you insulting me?”

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t come here often?” I ran my finger along the desk and came away with a thin layer of dust. This place might be organized, however it was not clean.

“I have been a bit preoccupied, with that little war between Rong and Lan,” he said, and my ears perked up.

You mean Lan and half the continent? I almost corrected him, because in addition to his war with Rong, Yexue had invaded many of his neighbors.

Unfortunately, he seemed to be winning every fight he’d picked so far.

“You said you would stop attacking. We agreed that if I left the front lines with you, you would end this war.”

“ I would end this war?” He huffed a laugh.

“I told you already, I’ve seen enough death to last a lifetime.

I don’t want to watch more foolish men charge into battle for lies like glory and honor.

I don’t want to watch another city burn, another child die, hear the ghostly wail of another parent forced to bury their baby… ”

Yexue’s voice cracked. He looked away quickly, though not before I caught the tears that glistened at the corners of his eyes.

These words felt genuine. But…“But you are the Prince Regent of Lan. If you want this war to end, it will be as easy as a snap of your fingers.”

Lan Yexue laughed. He walked around the circular table to stand on the opposite side. “Come here.”

From a secret compartment under the table, he pulled out a stash of papers.

I quickly got to my feet and caught sight of what I couldonly presume was special paper made for royal mandates, and a row of jade-and-gold-encased seals—my breath caught in my throat.

Forget about military information; if I could steal one of Yexue’s imperial seals and somehow send it to Siwang to fake mandates with, that might be more useful than every grain route and army location.

“These are the rejected peace treaties,” Yexue said, and handed me the small stack of paper, which I almost dropped, so distracted by his imperial seals.

“I’ve been sending these to Siwang since last summer.

I only ever wanted to reclaim the land that was rightfully my ancestors’.

No more. No less. I offered peace on the condition that Rong agree to become Lan’s tribute state—which is fair.

As Rong forced Lan to be their tribute state for so many years.

Siwang seems to take these offers of peace as a sign of weakness, however.

Each time, he responds not with compromises and envoys to discuss the terms, but aggressive attacks, which forces me to retaliate by pushing farther and farther into his territories. ”

I had heard plenty of tyrants try to justify their greed this way.

“If you had given Siwang a way to end this war back in the summer, he would have taken it in a heartbeat. Even if he didn’t back then,he would have come to the table and agreed to negotiate by now.

” I flipped through the pages and tried to look for the egregious demands Yexue had to be hiding.

“Like I’ve said, he’s very good at keeping secrets from you.” Yexue offered me his hand. “I am not the villain of this story. And if you don’t believe my words, why don’t you see things for yourself?”