Page 68 of Empire's Curse

“Hm.” He tilted his head to the side, inching closer to her. “You’ve grown bolder lately.”

“Excuse me?” She pushed a messy strand of hair behind her ear. Throughout the journey—perhaps when she climbed down from the fortress walls—she had lost all her hairpins, so her hair was loose and wild from the weather.

“You left the safety of my walls, you’ve insulted me several times, and now you lie through your teeth.” He didn’t say it withany ire, only mild amusement, but it still caused a ripple of anticipation to run through her body. “But I suspect this isn’t the first time you’ve lied to me, or the first time you’ll ever disobey me.”

Daiyu picked at the dried blood crusted on her skirt, where the arrow had wounded her. She definitely didn’t want to tell him that he was right on the mark, but she couldn’t bring herself to refute him either. “I didn’t disobey you,” she mumbled.

“You aren’t the type to listen often.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

Muyang lifted a shoulder, a light dusting of snow falling with the motion. “Perhaps not for the average man. But I am the emperor and everyone must obey me.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” she murmured. She desperately needed that reminder. No matter how nice or charming he seemed right now, his true colors were that of an overbearing monarch who didn’t take no for an answer.

An uncomfortable quietness washed over them. Daiyu bundled herself tighter within her cloak and snapped her teeth together to keep them from chattering too loudly, then stared off at the mounds of snow in the distance and the dark trees. Her stomach growled and she shoveled snow into her mouth with a rigid hand.

“Are you really part dragon?” she blurted out when she couldn’t withstand the silence any longer.

Muyang pinned her with a neutral expression she couldn’t read. “Why do you ask?”

“Aren’t dragons”—she licked her lips, hating that she sounded so naïve and so much like the country bumpkin she was—“supposed to breathe fire and be warm all the time?”

“I’m not part dragon,” he said slowly. “But … I do have dragon’s blood running through my veins.”

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yes.” He stared off into the distance, his jaw stiffening as he seemed to think about something. “It’s given me dragon-like properties for sure, but I was not born this way.”

“What properties?”

“I appear youthful.”

She blinked at him; she had expected an answer about his great strength, or the magical abilities he had, or something of that nature. Not about his appearance, but now that she looked at him, the pieces clicked together. Of course he couldn’t be a twenty-something emperor with all that experience under his belt. “Then how old are you?”

“Not much older than you. Add a decade or so and you have my age.”

“You’re in your thirties?”

“Later thirties, but yes.”

“That’s …” She couldn’t hide her disappointment, but upon meeting his critical gaze, she shrugged. “You’re not old either way. You’re still in your youth …”

“You sound dissatisfied.” He raised both eyebrows, his shadowy eyes gleaming with amusement. “Well, forgive me for not being a three-hundred-year-old dragon, but alas, I am but a mortal man with magicked blood.”

Daiyu laughed, and for the first time since they interacted with one another, she smiled over at him genuinely. They were too close to each other. His face was so close to her that she could touch their noses together with a simple push. And a part of herwantedto bridge the gap between them, even as something stronger within her resisted.

“I would have been more impressed if you were an immortal.” She couldn’t help the teasing quality in her voice, and it surprised her more than it should have—for her to feel so at ease around him in that moment. “I was hoping to marry an immortal thousand-year-old dragon, but I suppose?—”

You will have to do, she finished in her head.

Whatever cheerful mood they had going between them seemed to fizzle out as Daiyu tucked her chin against her knees once more. Her mind traveled to the muddy thoughts she hadearlier in the day and the choices she made to lead up to this moment.

She had been trying to escape him. She had been trying so, so hard to change this fate he had imposed on her. She didn’t want to marry him. She didn’t want to be his. And yet …

“Your Majesty,” Daiyu whispered, turning to him with wide eyes. Her heart was pounding loudly in her ribcage, her palms growing clammy and her stomach twisting with nausea. She had to make a decision, she realized, and it was now or never. “If … or, more like,whenwe marry, what will happen to my family?”

Muyang didn’t even blink. “They will be taken care of, if that’s what you wish. Your family has been good to you, have they not?”

---