Page 24 of Dynasty of the Wicked

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Zhi Ruoand Feng Mian weren’t able to practice magic that day, because they both were hauled to their feet, and once again forced into the back of a wagon. This time, however, they were together and Zhi Ruo wasn’t stuffed inside a cage that was too small for her. Unfortunately, however, the old prisoner from earlier was cooped up in the same wagon as them.

They all sat on a bed of rough hay and horse feed, their hands and feet bound behind their backs. The front of Zhi Ruo’s cloak was undone and loose over her chest, and she noticed the Kadian soldiers glancing over at her full cleavage that was on display despite her best efforts to hide herself. She had never felt so exposed, so vulnerable.

The old man stared at her breasts unashamedly, a thin, sleazy grin curving his lips.

Zhi Ruo angled her body away from him. “Stop looking,” she snapped.

“It’s not my fault you’re dressed like a whore,” he said with a short cackle, his rotting, blackened teeth glinting in the harsh, bitter light. “It’s good for morale, don’t you think?”

“What are you even saying?” Zhi Ruo said in disgust. “Do you have no shame?”

“It’s not my fault,” he repeated, but then a darker look passed over him, something cruel glimmering in his beady, hooded eyes. “Besides, you should blame yourself. If you knew what was best for you, you would have killed yourself to preserve your dignity, and the dignity of your father and this empire! But you’re too proud and wicked to do such a selfless thing. Instead, you’d rather whore yourself out to these Kadians!”

The color drained from her face and she reeled back until she hit the edge of the wagon. It was true that most women might have done such a thing to keep their honor intact, but it was nothing she had ever considered.

The thundering sound of the wagon wheels crashing over ice, snow, rocks, and pebbles was almost deafening. One tumble and she’d be fatally injured.

Was … was Father expecting her to do the same? The thought sent another tremble over her body.

“Stop looking at her,” Feng Mian snapped, glaring in the old man’s direction. “Keep talking and?—”

“You’ll what? Toss me off the wagon?” The old man chortled loudly. “Good luck with that! Bound as we are, you can’t do anything to me!”

Harsh winds blew against them and Feng Mian’s silvery-white hair brushed over Zhi Ruo’s face for a moment, distracting her from the old man.

A muscle on Feng Mian’s jaw ticked.

“Oh, poor boy,” he continued. “I feel almost bad for you. You can’t see how marvelous and full and voluptuous this whore of a princess looks. If I were not bound like this, I would take my?—”

Feng Mian lunged forward. The old man screamed, edging toward the back of the wagon while Feng Mian was atop of him in a second. A spray of blood gushed over the floor of the wagon, the yellowed hay soaking up the brilliant red. The surrounding soldiers shouted something, and when Feng Mian pulled back,Zhi Ruo watched in horror as he held a severed, mangled ear between his teeth. He spat it out, and it plopped onto the center of the wagon.

The old man writhed, blood rushing over his shoulders and staining his clothes.

Blood dribbled down Feng Mian’s soft mouth and trailed down his chin. Zhi Ruo remained frozen where she sat, heart pounding wildly to the tune of Feng Mian’s breaths.

“If you touch her, look at her, or so much asbreathein her direction, I will not hesitate to kill you,” Feng Mian’s words came out like a harsh whisper, stronger and more frigid than winter itself. “I promise you, old fucker, I’m going to kill you.”

For the next hour, the old prisoner didn’t bother her or Feng Mian, instead choosing to weep and sulk and cry out in pain, all of which was ignored by the Kadians, who only laughed when they saw his bloodied face and his severed ear on the floor. The entire time, Zhi Ruo’s chest swelled with confusing emotions and she couldn’t rip her gaze away from her blind, cursedhusband.

It was such a strange concept to accept—that she wasmarried.

That this beautiful man with blood running down his chin had protected her.

But she couldn’t let herself fall into a fit of giddiness, because she knew that this was temporary, and that anything he did for her didn’t matter. He would have done it for any woman, she reckoned. If it was Ying Yue here instead, he’d probably do even more. The bitter thought kept her emotions in check, kept her unloved mind from taking something trivial and running with it.

Later that evening, the Kadians made camp in a forest clearing. They set up a tent in the center of it and locked the three of them inside of it. Thankfully, they freed them of their chains too, likely afraid that the cold metal would freeze theirlimbs. For some reason, they seemed to want them all in one piece—minus the old man, she assumed, since Feng Mian was never reprimanded for injuring him. She doubted they cared that much, anyway.

“Don’t leave me in here!” the old man shouted, his weathered hands curling over the frosted bars of the cage. He glanced back at Feng Mian, and then snapped his attention to the entrance of the tent. “Please! He’ll kill me!”

Zhi Ruo fastened the cloak around herself and watched the old man with a frown. Was he also someone important? Why else was he here with the two of them—her, a princess, and Feng Mian, the noble son and heir of a famed General?

Feng Mian sat cross-legged on the bed of hay one of the soldiers had, so graciously, allowed them to sleep on since the snow and ice was unbearably cold tonight. A circle of hot stones sat just outside their cage. It was still cold, though, and their breaths puffed out in front of them like misty white clouds.

The old man rattled the bars again. “Please! Come back!”

Finally, one of the soldiers, a baby-faced young man who couldn’t have been older than Zhi Ruo, poked his head through the flaps of the tent. “What do you want?” he snapped in rough Kadian.

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