Page 16 of Dynasty of the Wicked

Zhi Ruo didn’t know what overcame her. Adrenaline rushed through her veins. Her body trembled with it, a high settling over her bones and flesh. Rage built in the back of her throat.

She didn’t want to be powerless.

Her hand curled around the hilt of the blade sticking out of his eye and she yanked it out. Blood rushed over the pulpy wound, and his shrieks intensified. He tried rising off her, but she drove the knife straight into his neck before he could. It jammed in through tendons and bones and flesh. Blood slipped down her fingers and she grunted, shoving her weight into the thrust as he toppled against the wall beside them. She squirmed out from under him, watching as he clutched his bloodied throat. Red, sticky, hot blood bathed her dress and spread over the floor like a sick painting.

She was breathing heavily, her chest heaving up and down, her hands trembling with panic, rage, and adrenaline.

She watched as he died, his hands closing over his throat to try to stop the bleeding. The life slowly seeped out from his eyes.

“Princess!” Feng Mian tackled the remaining soldier. “Run away!”

They both were covered in blood, their bodies bruised and battered and cut. They rolled on the floor, punching, kicking and grunting.

Zhi Ruo turned to the end of the hall, where the doorway was. But she couldn’t rush down there. Not after everything that had transpired.

She didn’t think twice. She scrambled over the floor by the dead soldier, her eyes straining in the dark to see where he had dropped his sword. In his haste to capture her and violate her, he had released it. Finally, she found it on the floor outside the entrance of their cell. Her heart panged. Feng Mian wouldn’t have been able to see it here, so close to his grasp.

Scooping up the heavy blade, she rushed back inside the cell. The short soldier was atop Feng Mian, straddling him like the other soldier had done to her. He threw his whole weight behind his sword as he pressed it against Feng Mian’s throat. The sharp edge of the weapon bit into her cellmate’s hands. The weapon drew closer to his throat. Soon, his hands wouldn’t be able to take it, and his throat would be slit.

Zhi Ruo raised the sword in her hand and released a guttural scream as she slammed it into the man’s back. It slashed over his back, but not deep enough. The man shouted, the shock and pain making him weaken his hold on his own sword. Feng Mian shoved the man off him and the soldier staggered onto his knees, his sword dragging across the floor. Zhi Ruo aimed the tip of the sword at his stomach.

She slammed into his thick body. The impact rattled up to her elbows and she watched as the soldier’s eyes widened.

Slowly, she sank to the floor with him, not releasing her hold on the handle.

“Die,” she seethed, twisting the blade.

Blood gurgled from his mouth. She released her death-like grip from the sword and stumbled away, her back smacking against Feng Mian. He grasped her shoulder, steadying her.

“Are you … okay?” he breathed out, sweat beading over his face and body. She could feel his blood seeping into her shoulders.

The adrenaline began fading, but she continued to quiver. A torrent of confusing emotions rushed over her—panic, fear, horror, power—but she didn’t have time to tarry in her thoughts.

“We have to escape,” she found herself saying. The two men were dead. Their glassy eyes stared straight at her. Her stomach clenched. “We have to?—”

Feng Mian clamped his wounded hands on her shoulder and turned her around so she was facing him. His blind gaze focusedon nothing in particular, but she could see the concern shining in them. His eyebrows pulled together.

“Calm yourself. You just killed two people.”

“I-I know, but we have to?—”

“Give yourself a second tobreathe.”

She didn’t even realize she was inhaling sharply, her breaths barely filling her lungs. She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the tattered parts of her dress over her bare breasts. There was so much blood everywhere. She could smell it in the air, thick and perfused. It stained her hands, her body, the floor. Everything her eye could see was tainted with it.

“I …” She really didn’t have time for this. “I can panic some other time—” The words rushed out of her rapidly, like she needed to flush them out and move on. “Look, we don’t have much time?—”

“We will escape, both you and I, Princess. I need you to be calm for what happens next. When we leave here, it’s only going to be harder out there.” He touched her chin with a gentle hand and raised her head. He gestured in the general direction of the corpses. “You did what you had to. These men deserved it.”

“I—” She didn’t even know what to say. Her attention kept straying to the dead bodies.

“I should have protected you.” He breathed out shakily and she realized that it was probably taking everything in him to keep standing. There were gashes on his thighs—the material of his pants darkened with blood—and he was paler than before. “You shouldn’t have their putrid, low-borne blood tainting your hands. Forgive me, I should have killed them.”

Her throat closed up, a lightheaded feeling budding over her. “Feng Mian?—”

She didn’t know this man, but she somehow felt closer to him than before. They had fought together in a life and death situation; she was sure that counted for something.

Feng Mian touched the drying blood on her face, the bruises that littered her cheeks, her swollen eye, her split lip. A shadow darkened over his features. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but closed it shut.

---