Page 54 of Empire's Curse

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Time slowed, and everyone seemed to hold their breath.

Finally, he spoke again. “What do you have to say for yourself? Will you beg for your life, or cry about how wrong you were, or will you hurl insults and die on that treasonous hill of yours?”

The prisoner turned to look at the crowded room, licked the crusted blood on his chapped lips, and shifted his attention back to Muyang. “Y-You—” he rasped, then cleared his throat. “You’re a monster who sits upon someone else’s throne! You don’t deserve to have all these people worship and follow you!”

Silence filled the hall.

Daiyu gasped, the hairs on her arms rising expectantly. The soldiers around her didn’t dare rip their attention away from the scene, some of them appearing just as horrified as she felt, and others looking thrilled—as ifexcitedto smell the blood that would undoubtedly spill.

Muyang’s neutral expression didn’t change. “Ah, so you’re the latter type.”

“Th-the rightful heir will bring this empire back to its glory!” the man continued to shout, spinning around to face the soldiers. “You all will die gruesomely for your treason against the MuRong blood! The rightful heir will win! The heavens favor the MuRong dynasty!”

A laugh escaped from Muyang’s lips—both velvety and rich—and a shiver ran down Daiyu’s spine. The room seemed to darken as amusement flashed over his face, and he reclined into his throne of corpses. “You’re quite the jester.” He lightly stroked the blood coagulating against the flat of his blade. “The rightful heir will never sit upon any throne and he will condemn you for your actions. Isn’t that right, Prince Yat-sen?”

Prince Yat-sen stiffened as the emperor gestured toward him. His youthful face was smoothed down to neutrality, but Daiyu could see that he was clutching his hands together too tightly. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “You’re correct, Your Majesty.”

“Youwillsit on the throne! One of these days!” The prisoner lurched forward, but Bohai wrenched the chain back and the man collapsed on the floor. He clawed at the wood with his stubbed hands and tried to stand, blood seeping through his bandages, and a frantic, crazed look in his eyes when he looked back at the crowd. “We will bring this empire back to its former glory and eradicate the Drakkon dynasty! If not you, Prince Yat-sen, then your younger brother, Prince Daewon!”

“Yat-sen will never sit on the throne,” Muyang said slowly. “And neither will his brother. Nor his sisters. Nor his sisters’ children. Or their children. Or their children’s children. Do you understand me, treasonous rat? No MuRong will sit here so long as I breathe, and I intend to breathe for a long, long time.” Shadows twirled around his hand, and red lightning zapped from his fingers, smelling like burning flesh. The room dimmed, the shadows in every crevice seeming to have eyes as they blackened further. Muyang rose to his impressive height and more shadowy wisps gathered at his feet, pulling across the thickening blood coating the dais. “Since you love the MuRong bastards so much, maybe you should meet them in the hereafter? I’ll grant you that mercy, filth.”

The man climbed to his feet unsteadily. “You will never defeat?—”

Muyang swung his sword and sliced the man’s neck in one go. Daiyu inhaled sharply and covered her mouth. Blood gushed from the wound and the man’s severed head rolled on the floor. She could see the bone and sinew of the man’s stump of a neck as his body buckled. The chain that had been around the man’s throat fell beside his body with a loud, rattling clank. Muyang swung his sword again, the air slashing loudly, and blood danced off the blade and speckled against the dais.

“Spike his head and display it on the fortress gates so all can see what happens to traitors and cowards,” Muyang said, thrusting the sword into the dais where it stuck out ominously.He fell back onto his chair of dead bodies and waved to Bohai. “And if you catch any more traitors, do the same.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Bohai bowed low.

Daiyu was grateful she couldn’t see the detached head or where it had rolled off to, but she was becoming more uneasy in the throne room. Hopefully, this would be the end of this morbid scene and she could crawl back into her room where she could forget all of this happened.

But right when she thought the emperor would dismiss everyone, he said, “Prince Yat-sen, step forward.”

Daiyu’s breath caught in her throat as she shifted her attention to the pallid prince, who blinked in surprise, clearly not expecting this either. The others in the room were deathly silent, but the shifting in their feet told her that they didn’t know what would happen either.

Yat-sen swallowed, looking at the people beside him, and then turned back to Muyang, who watched him expressionlessly.

“Y-Your Majesty?”

His black eyes narrowed, and a flash of annoyance flitted over his face. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Yat-sen scrambled forward and fell to his knees on the dais, his pants soaking up the thickening blood on the floor from the corpses. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. I’m …” His shoulders trembled. “I’m just a bit surprised, is all.”

“Why are you surprised?” Muyang nodded to someone in the crowd and in seconds, a servant rushed forward, nearly slipping on the spilled blood, and held a silver platter with a metal bowl on it. He took the drink wordlessly, swirled it, and drank from it. All the while, the servant disappeared back into the folds of the crowd and Yat-sen remained still as a stone on the floor. “You should know why I’m displeased with you.” He took another sip, his gaze never straying from the prince. “Why don’t you tell me what you did?”

Daiyu’s stomach clenched together tightly, more so than when Muyang had interrogated and killed the prisoner, becausethis was Yat-sen, someone she knew. Someone who was kind to her. Someone who had helped her.

She didn’t want to see the emperor’s wrath on the poor prince.

Yat-sen shivered and lowered his head further until he was touching the floor, no doubt smearing blood on his forehead and face. “I don’t know what you mean, Your Majesty. Please forgive me.”

Muyang drank from his bowl nonchalantly, and that made him appear all the more terrifying. The fact that this was routine for him. Even as Yat-sen shook like a leaf.

“You don’t know?” The words came out slowly as he rested the bowl on his lap. His eyes narrowed.

“I don’t, Your Majesty,” Yat-sen whispered.

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