Page 62 of The Nightblood Prince

“Unfortunately for me, yes, I am only interested in girls who are interested in killing me. Unfortunately for you, I seem to have a shortage of those. It is a pity—the girl whom I am trying to offer my beating heart to would rather stab that heart than cherish it. No wonder the emperors of the past often referred to themselves as 孤家寡人 : lonely souls who must choose solitary paths. For love is a concept so far off when the one I admire…”

“Oh, skies.” How many more hours of this?

“Yes, do pray to skies and beg them to help you get back in my good graces.”

I huffed. “I never realized you talked this much when we were in Yong’An.”

“ 你在嫌弃我吗 ?” Are you judging me?

Yes. I wanted to tease him back, but didn’t want to open this door of friendliness. Regardless of how kind he appeared to be, a tiger was still a tiger.

However, I did prefer this Yexue to his serious side. “I never realized you had a sense of humor.”

“Did you expect me to brood constantly, like some sad prince who only wants to recite obscure poetry, or a tyrant whose heart is stone cold and devoid of kindness?” he said, laughing, and my lips twitched before I pressed them down.

“In Yong’An, you constantly looked like you were in a bad mood.”

“That’s because I was,” he replied, his voice suddenly heavier.

“I’m not like you, Fei. In Yong’An I was a ward, living under the roof of bitter hosts.

Yes, I had the power to run away, but where would I go?

I was a kid, and my father was dying and my uncle had told me to die in Rong and never come home.

When my dream of finding the imperial stargazer and having her rid me of my prophecy failed to materialize, I didn’t know what I should do next.

During my time there, between waking up and going to sleep, I thought of one thing and one thing only: whether it was worth trying to survive.

” The humor faded from his voice. “You might not know this from your days as the empress-to-be, but the world is not fair, and it is not kind. Yong’An is a dog-eat-dog place, and the only way to survive it was by pretending that I was the most dangerous dog of them all, one that would never whimper or flinch, no matter how hard you kicked it.

You had a family who cared about you and a prince who adored you.

I, on the other hand, had nothing. Just a mother who hated me, a father who feared me, an uncle who wanted me dead, and a monstrous ability that I didn’t know how to use at the time. ”

My stomach twisted, remembering the words he had spoken on the city walls. How he had walked into the mountains two years ago with the intention of dying.

Yexue turned away. “None of it matters anymore. Sooner or later, I will make everyone who ever hurt me pay.”

The horses began to pick up their pace. The carriage was too dark, so I slid the window open just a little, enough to let in some air and light. Though the gap was barely wider than a finger, I could see that we had left the city, and another group of riders had joined the guards.

Something had happened, and Yexue was keeping it from me.

“Speaking of Yong’An, why did the Rong emperor insist on collecting you as his ward? Why do he and Siwang hate you so much?”

A beat of silence. Yexue leaned back against the seat and stared up at the ceiling, his expression somber. That brief ray of light I had enjoyed so much was gone now.

“We can talk about other things. It’s a long ride back,” he said.

In other words: end of conversation.

I leaned back against the seat, my body mirroring him. “I feel bad for Ping. What the emperor did is beastly.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Yexue visibly tense, and the carriage felt colder. “Is this the first time you realized the Rongemperor is an evil man?”

No, it was not. “Is it possible that we are the reason the Rong emperor tried to kill her and her teacher?”

Yexue was quiet for a moment. “If I told you it was because of our prophecies, would you feel guilty?”

“Yes.”

Yexue stared at the ceiling for a moment, his eyes drifting to a close. He seemed as exhausted as I was.

“I’m going to tell you something Siwang will never tell you: wicked people do wicked things. You are not responsible for another person’s bad actions, even if they do bad things because of you.”

My chest hollowed at his words. The carriage jolted over a sharp curb, and our hands brushed, just a little.

I was suddenly too aware of how small this carriage was, how close our two bodies were.

Our arms were mere inches apart, and our hands…

Another jolt, and Yexue’s fingertips touched mine again.

I pulled my hand away and shifted in my seat until I am pressed against the far corner, putting as much distance between us as possible. “What about you?”

He chuckled, grinning when he replied, “I wish I could say that I am different, that I want to be better, yet I fear I may be as rotten as the rest of them. The point is that even if you didn’t exist, even if the Lan and Rong and Wang and Zhao and every dynasty who rules this land did not exist, there would be other dynasties.

Because this is the way of men. We want power, and the only way we know is through war.

Prophecy or not, this land will not know peace until someone strong enough unites it once and for all. ”

My mouth was dry; I didn’t know what to say.

All my life, people told me was that I was the reason Rong had to conquer our neighbors so that they would not one day grow greedy and covet the empress of all empresses.

When the emperor waged wars, he had waged them in my name, in the name of my prophecy.

“They say that I am blessed by Fate and the stars and all the gods. But why do I feel so powerless? Every decision made in my name is made by men more powerful than I am. They say they do it to protect me, but no one ever asks what I want.”

I didn’t know I was crying until Yexue reached over and brushed a tear from my cheek. “What do you want, Fei?”

To be free. Of everything. I pushed his hand away and dried my tears with the hem of my sleeve. I let go of the breath I was holding and unfurled the scroll. I couldn’t run from the truth forever.

The terms were simple. Lan wanted to keep all the land they had already conquered and for Rong to relinquish their rights to these lands.

They also asked for Rong to become a tribute state of Lan, and for Rong to offer up a fraction of their annual tax revenue in addition to a yearly quota of domestic production.

All material things, nothing that crossed the line of citizens offered up as indentured servants, like some empires demanded from their tribute states.

The terms were unfavorable toward Rong, but such was to be expected. I had no doubt that the Emperor of Rong had drawn up worse peace treaties during his years as conqueror.

风水轮流转 , the fortune comes and the fortune goes.

“Siwang would be a fool not to sign this. Is he the one turning the treaty down, or is his father?”

“Have you ever heard of a peace treaty being on the table? If Siwang had passed it to the Rong court, rumors would have spread. You know how these things work.”

I did. “Why would Siwang keep this to himself?”

“Ask him yourself.” Yexue glanced past me, at the narrow opening of the window. “I will send my best guards with you to Rong’s camp.”

“I don’t need them. Siwang wouldn’t hurt me. Besides, if I returned to camp with your men escorting me, Siwang wouldn’t trust me. War changes men; he is paranoid, and if—”

“The guards are mandatory. You might be foolish enough to believe you are safe with Siwang, but—”

I arched a brow. “What are you trying to say?”

“That maybe you don’t know that prince of yours as well as you think, and you—”

A spark at the edge of my vision.

A narrow valley, surrounded by trees on both sides.

Arrows, descending like rain around our metal carriage, piercing straight through the legs of a horse—

“Stop the carriage! We are going to be ambushed!” I screamed, moments before the cart came to a screeching halt and someone from outside cried, “Get down!”

Yexue immediately pushed me to the floor, closing the window as he covered me with his body.

This was why he had left in such haste, and why he had changed from horses to a metal carriage. He knew someone had been tracking us, planning an attack.

“Stay down.”

I closed my eyes, tried to will another vision into existence and do something, anything, to help.

“Don’t be scared,” Yexue whispered as the sound of clashing swords erupted outside. He brushed a thumb between my brows; he must have mistaken my concentration for fear.

I tried to push him off. “Give me your sword.”

Yexue smiled, handed me his dagger, then placed a hand on my shoulder before I could rush outside and join the fight.

“My men are trained, Fei. You are just a green soldier with a few months of practice. That is nothing in a fight against killers. Frankly, it is ridiculous that Siwang even let you or any of the idiots you trained with get this close to the front lines.”

Siwang is desperate. My attention once again fell on the peace treaty. Could it be true? Could it—

Another spark.

A man, dressed in black, coming behind the youngest and smallest of Yexue’s guards.

The glint of a blade. The swish as it sliced through air and found the young man’s throat.

I leaped out of the carriage. It took me a heartbeat to find the young man in the chaos. Just as the assassin came up behind him.

I threw my knife, letting Fate’s glimmer guide it, and it sliced through the assassin’s hand before he could sever the head of the young guard.

I smiled. I almost couldn’t believe it. I had saved someone’s life.

“Fei, be careful!” Yexue jumped out of the carriage, his hand grabbing mine, and I half expected him to pull me back inside. Thankfully, he did not.

I had spent my entire life hiding while men fought and bled to protect me.

No more. It was time I started protecting myself, perhaps even protecting those who—

A scream pierced the air, and it sounded just like it had in my vision.

I turned to see the same young man I thought I had saved. The very knife I had thrown to stop the assassin was now plunged into his abdomen.

“Ruichan!” Yexue cried, panic flaring in his eyes for the first time.

“Go,” I choked. “I can protect myself.”

Yexue thrust the hilt of his knife at me and lunged into the battle. He was as fast as I remembered, moving with the grace of a dancer, leaping through the air, leaving a path of crimson behind him like he had a year ago in the mountains. Faster and stronger than any mortal had the right to be.

He said his magic was a curse, yet all I felt was envy.

How I wished to be burdened with his curse, his power, and the control he had over his magic.

Soon, dead men lay cradled by puddles of blood, their throats slit. War was cruel and swords had no eyes. From their uniforms, it seemed the attackers were not of Rong.

By the time Yexue had snapped the neck of the last assassin, his men were crying around the dying boy I had tried to save. Even from a distance, he looked too young to be called a man.

“I know you said you wanted to join your brother as a vampire, but this isn’t the way, Ruichan,” I heard Yexue say as he knelt beside the dying boy, who spluttered a sound that was more blood than laugh.

The men moved to give Yexue better access to him, and as they parted, I saw the huge wound in his stomach, blood pouring fast, slipping through the fingers of frantic hands that were trying to apply pressure and keep everything inside.

Yexue scooped a handful of blood from the dying boy and poured it into his mouth. Then he bit open his hand, to give the boy his blood, moments before he went limp.

“Take care of him,” Yexue said before he returned to the carriage. Some of the men followed him, but two stayed behind with the lifeless body of the boy.

There were tears in Yexue’s eyes when he returned to the carriage.

I could smell the blood that covered his hands.

I gasped when I saw the crimson of his eyes, the same shade as my phoenix’s mark, as the blood that poured from every man he had just killed.

Yexue quickly pressed his lids closed and turned away from me when he sat back down, tucking his body against the other side of the carriage, as if trying to hide himself from me.

We sat in silence as the carriage began to move again.

I peeked out the window to see Yexue’s men digging.

“Did you not heal him?”

Tears were trickling down his cheek. “I did healhim.”

“Then why are they burying him?”

“Military secrets.”

“This is how you make vampires,” I murmured, an observation, not a question. Those red-eyed demons weren’t demons from hell. They were people, just like that boy….

“If I say yes, will you report it back to your prince and use it against me?”

I picked up the forgotten peace treaty from the floor of the carriage. “I will make sure Siwang signs this. You don’t want to watch more innocent lives end, and neither do I.”

“Good,” Yexue whispered. “Let your prince know that if he doesn’t surrender while he still has the chance, I might have to become the monster he wants the world to think I am.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, this morning’s dream still fresh in my mind. “I believe you.”