Page 6 of The Nightblood Prince

“Are you not going to praise me?” Siwang whispered when he came by my stall after we arrived back at the stables.

“For what? For tolerating someone else killing the first stag of the season?” I replied, making sure to be quiet so the other riders couldn’t hear us. “It’s not easy, being raised so far from his family and home.”

Siwang’s eyes softened. He knew my scars better than anyone.

His hand brushed my back, pulled me to him for a small hug. “When we are married, I will ask my father to let your family visit my palace anytime they want.”

His palace.

Siwang’s eyes gleamed as he said this, as if expecting my gratitude. He meant well, but he was still a prince.

I forced a smile, didn’t tell him that I shouldn’t have to ask for his permission in order to see my family.

This was the way of men. As daughters, we were the property of our fathers.

As wives, we were the property of our husbands.

And one day, if we ever outlived our husbands, we would become the property of our sons.

Whether empress or peasant, we women were never our own.

“Look at the lovebirds,” a young man with short-cropped hair and a scar across his right cheek said, laughing.

An heir from one of our tribute states, someone insignificant because I didn’t know his name.

“How much longer are you making him wait, empress of all empresses? Weren’t the two of you supposed to get married last year? ”

Siwang positioned his body in front of me and gave what must have been a scowl, because the young man quickly bowed his head and murmured, “Apologies, Your Highness.”

A motion of Siwang’s head. The onlookers around the stable quickly disappeared.

He turned toward me. “Don’t listen to them.”

Another forced smile from me. “He’s not the only one asking when we will get married. We are not children anymore, and will turn eighteen when the year ends.”

The emperor would set a date for our wedding sooner or later. He was simply waiting for an auspicious occasion. If Siwang impressed the court by killing a Beiying tiger two years in a row, it would be the perfect opportunity to officially offer me to him like a prize.

“We will get married when you want us to get married.”

“Not when your father wants us to be married?”

“I will handle him.” Siwang’s hand brushed my cheek, as if to reassure me.

Siwang had kept his promise and delayed our wedding year by year, waiting until I was ready.

His father, however, was not so patient.

The emperor wanted his son to claim the continent, and he wanted the prophecy to be sealed.

Every day that I was not wed, our power-hungry neighbors eyed me and my prophecy as something that could be stolen.

A cold draft swept in through the stable doors, bringing with it a gusting of snow. “I have to go,” I said. “I need to get changed before the feast tonight.”

“I will walk you back to your tent.”

“No. It’s fine. I think I need some quiet after the chaos of today.”

If Siwang was hurt by this, he didn’t let it show. He nodded and stepped aside so I could leave the stall.

On the long walk through camp, back to my tent, I passed men. Unfamiliar faces, dressed in lavish furs, likely nobles from one of Rong’s tribute states.

Their eyes went wide when they saw me, or perhaps when they saw the phoenix’s mark between my brows. A swirl of stark red, supposedly in the shape of a phoenix in flight, though I always thought it resembled more a sideways eye.

“The fallen goddess, promised to be the empress of all empresses…,” one whispered behind his hand, though not quietly enough.

“Or a country bumpkin, brought to the court as a child bride,” another said, giggling.

“Amazing how one mark can change someone’s life. 想不到一只山鸡都能飞上枝头变凤凰 .” I can’t believe even a mountain chicken can fly to a high branch and become a phoenix.

I picked up my pace. I had heard insults like these my whole life. I didn’t need to hear what would follow those words.

How do we know she’s not some peasant with a strange birthmark?

Why would a goddess reincarnate as a peasant girl from the middle of nowhere?

I almost wished I had taken Siwang’s offer to walk me back. At least when he was with me, nobody dared to look at me like this, or to be so careless with their whispers.

When Siwang was around, the girls hid their faces behind fans or handkerchiefs, always too busy looking modestly at the ground to notice me. And the men bowed their heads, as quiet as the girls.

In life, not everyone was created equal.

I had known this for as long as I could remember.

People were treated differently because of which region of the empire they hailed from, and which family they descended from.

It wasn’t until much later, in the imperial classrooms with Siwang and the other noble children, that I learned even children of the same father were not created equal.

Lijian was one of those sons: born of the mistress instead of the official wife, forever treated as an afterthought in his family and by our teachers, despite being the smartest person in every room. For this, people treated him like an outsider.

I guess that gave us something in common.

I liked talking to him. He was nice, funny, and he was patient enough to explain the poetry I didn’t understand in the classroom.

But when Siwang caught Lijian and me sitting beside each other in the corner of the library three years ago, giggling about somethingI can no longer remember, sharing the red bean cakes he had the imperial chefs make for me each morning, it was the first time I realized Siwang had a dark side.

I had never seen him lose his temper like that.

Nobody from the capital had seen Lijian since. And perhaps nobody would again.

This wasn’t the first time that Siwang had punished someone for getting too close to me. However, it was the first time he had banished someone from the capital.

Siwang was like the sun scholars said the continent revolved around. His kindness was light. When he shone upon you, everything waswarm and dripping in gold. The moment that kindness turned away, the absence of him was a bitter darkness unlike anything else.

The court fought for his light. Father said I should curry his favor, too. For the more Siwang cared for me, the easier my life would be…. The easier everyone’s life would be

But what if I didn’t want his light? What if I wanted to be my own light?

When I pushed open the heavy sheepskin of my tent and saw my sister pacing inside with fevered strides, I nearly turned around and offered my body back to the winter wilderness like a sacrifice.

However, Fangyun caught me before I could spin on my heels.

“Fei.” My name rang out in the cold air like a plea.

I turned, saw Fangyun’s fingers clasped in knots. Fear gleamed in her eyes like freshly shed tears.

I let the sheepskin fall behind me, holding in a nervous exhale. I wished I had hidden my hunting manuals better when she visited me. “I have made up my mind; nothing you can say will change it.”

“Not everything needs to be a fight,” my sister hissed under her breath. I flinched, like I’d been struck. “You have a good life, Fei.You are betrothed to a good prince, who loves you. Sometimes—”

“You are supposed to be on my side, Fangyun.”

While a chasm divided me from my parents, Fangyun was different.

She was my sister, was granted special privileges to enter the palace and study alongside me and the noble kids.

Though our time together was always too short, it was still more hours than I got with our parents.

Even if we spent most of it sitting in silence, listening to the scholars lecture us about the poems of dead men.

“What’s so bad about marrying Siwang?” Fangyun asked. When I didn’t respond, she sighed and reached out so that her warm hands cradled my cold ones, bringing them close to her lips so she could blow warm air on them. “I told you to wear gloves when you go hunting. Your hands are freezing!”

Last night’s nightmare flashed behind my eyes.

Fire.

Screams.

Yong’An in flames.

My sister, running, running, running. Her robes were torn and she was crying and—

I blinked it away.

“Fei, are you all right?”

You don’t know the things I’ve seen, sister, I desperately wanted to tell her. You don’t know what I know. “Just a little cold from the hunt.”

My sister’s demeanor immediately softened.

“The Beiying tigers are predators. Great hunters have died for their pelts. What makes you think the pampered prince’s bride who is raised in the palace by servants and protected by guards can accomplish the impossible?

Even if you succeed, can you be sure the emperor will grant your wish? ”

“ 君子一言驷马难追 ,” I replied. What is said cannot be unsaid, the words of an honorable man cannot be chased down by the fastest of horses. “If an emperor goes back on one promise, then all his promises will become worthless.”

“But your prophecy is not a fast horse. It is the promise of uniting the continent for his son.”

My lips thinned. She was right; I didn’t know if the emperor would honor his promise. However, I could not sit idle and wait for death and destruction to sweep Yong’An. A prophecy was just words, strung together. If my fate was written in the stars, then I would fly up to heaven and rewrite it.

When Siwang had taught me combat, I could predict his every move through my visions, and if I moved accordingly, I could change the outcome, every time.

A swipe of his feet that would knock me off balance in my visions would be met with nothing, because I knew to move out of the way.

What if the stargazer’s visions worked the same?