Page 7 of Dynasty of the Wicked

It was all she needed to spur her forward.

Nobody here would protect her. Nobody here would fight for her. So she needed to do it herself.

She had only taken a dozen steps before she came face to face with an assassin. The man’s sword rose high above his head and Zhi Ruo barely jerked to the side in time. She tripped over her clumsy, leaden legs, and buckled to the floor. The weapon bit into the wood beside her leg, catching the hem of her dress and tearing it.

A raw, guttural scream tore from her throat as she crawled on her hands and knees away from the man. Just then, a steel-toed boot connected with her temple and her face cracked against the floor. Her vision swam with inky blotches of darkness, flickering for a second, before her world was swamped in black.

3

Zhi Ruo wasin and out of consciousness for the next few days, or at least she assumed it was a few days. She didn’t have any real sense of time. It could have been hours, or weeks, and she wouldn’t have known the difference. She was always in the back of a wagon whenever she awoke, her arms and legs tightly bound behind her body, a rough, wet cloth stuffed in her mouth, and a heaviness in her head that made it hard to peel her eyes open. The constant bumps and the sound of wheels grinding over rocks, gravel, and earth told her they were on the move.

The smell of manure and hay was strong when she awoke for the dozenth time that week. She couldn’t open her eyes as usual, but she could hear the faint arguing between three men. A chill settled over her shoulders.

“You got the wrong princess, you fucking morons,” one of the men snapped. His voice was gruff and gravelly, and there was a quality to it that reminded her of a grumpy old man who could never be satisfied—like Father. “It’s not enough that you fuck-ups couldn’t kill the emperor, but you bringthisprincess here? Are you serious? Do I pay you all to fuck around?”

Relief pooled in Zhi Ruo’s chest at those barbed words.Father was alive.

At least this way, he would be able to save her from these people. She was sure he’d pay whatever ransom they wanted and take her back. She might have been the disfavored princess, but even Father wouldn’t want her to be tortured like this. It was an embarrassment to the royal family.

“The other princess was guarded to the teeth,” one of them grumbled after a moment of silence. “And this one’s pretty enough. How will the Kadians know the difference?”

“This one’s not worth as much!”

The other man began cursing him out and Zhi Ruo’s consciousness began to fade again.

Zhi Ruo’shead felt like it would explode. It was heavy and her eyelids even heavier. She knew immediately that she had been drugged most of the days, or weeks, of her imprisonment. But she could tell that this was different; there was more clarity in her thoughts, and she didn’t feel like her consciousness was ebbing away.

Slowly, she tried moving her floppy limbs. Her arm twitched and she spread her numbing fingers against the floor. She then tried moving her legs, but she couldn’t feel them much. Her throat was dry and parched, her stomach growled incessantly, and she was aware of a putrid smell pervading the air—she couldn’t pinpoint what exactly it was. Rotting horseshit? Urine? A dead animal? The amalgamation of scents made her stomach turn, despite her ravenous hunger.

She didn’t know how long she laid there, groaning softly at the heavy pain in her head. Finally, she cracked her eyes open. She was in a cell. The only light source seemed to be outside from … a hallway, it seemed?

“What a pretty girl,” an old, raspy voice cooed from her left. “Moan some more, will you?”

Zhi Ruo suppressed a scream as she jerked to the side, coming face to face with an elderly man a few feet from her. He had bald patches all along his head, with long, stringy chunks of hair falling down to his shoulders, stuck to the dried blood on his face and neck. He was missing most of his teeth and the ones that remained were black and decaying.

He grinned widely at her. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a girl.”

She scooted further into the cell, her numb legs barely allowing her to scramble away. Her heart pounded in her chest wildly and it took her a second to realize there were bars between her cell and his.

The man wrapped his grubby, dirt-stained hands over the bars and tried reaching for her through them. His shoulders rammed against the rods and he grunted in protest.

“Stay away from me,” she croaked, her throat drying further.

“It’s not fair,” the old man hissed, rattling the bars. He made a face as his mouth worked and then he spat a glob of spit and mucus in her direction. It landed directly on her face, where it slid down onto her lap.

Zhi Ruo suppressed a shriek and wiped her cheek with her sleeve. “W-What are you doing?”

“It’s not fair.”

She had no idea what he was talking about. What wasn’t fair? She quickly glanced around herself, trying to get an understanding of her surroundings. There was a stone wall behind her and to her right. In front of her were bars, and a hallway that seemed to stretch further ahead. To her left was the cell the old man was in, and she assumed the rest of the hall led to other cells.

“Keep talking and I’ll stuff your head so far up your ass you’ll be a fucking ouroboros,” a velvety smooth voice called from the dark corner of her cell.

Zhi Ruo covered her mouth with her hands and stifled another scream. She scrambled away to the corner of the cell, heart hammering in her chest. “W-Who goes there?”

It was so dark in the corners that she couldn’t see the man, but his voice sounded young, albeit annoyed and harsh. She tried peering over at him, but her eyes still hadn’t completely adjusted to the darkness, so she couldn’t even see an outline. Was she trapped with another creep?

A hand clamped over her bicep and the old man chuckled into her ear. “I’ve got you.”

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