Page 39 of Dynasty of the Wicked

“Then what are you so angry for?” She glared at him. “Why are you so full of rage and hatred if you truly don’t care for your life? If you wanted to die with as many Kadians as possible, you would have fought tooth and nail while we tried escaping last time. You would have kept fighting until you took down as many of them as you could, but youstopped. So forgive me if I don’t believe you when you say you’re not scared of dying. But that begs the question, why are you so angry? Why are you so cruel to me? You think I don’t notice the distance you’re putting between us?”

“I stopped because ofyou,” he growled. “I couldn’t let them have you.”

“If you feel that way, then why are you so cruel to me?”

“I am not cruel?—”

“You are!” Zhi Ruo’s eyes filled with tears once more, and this time she didn’t stop them from cascading down her cheeks. “You are cruel to me when you stop turning in my direction. When you stop asking if I am well. When you act like my touch is poison to you.” She swallowed down the emotions clawing up her throat, making it hard to speak coherently. “You have pushed me to be better, over and over, and I am trying, Feng Mian, I truly am. But when you call me a failure, I can’t … I can’t keep doing this?—”

“Stop pretending you are a weak, gullible princess.” He leaned closer, his face inches away from her. “You are not weak, Princess.”

“I am not weak,” she agreed through her tears, “but I wish for you to be soft with me. It is … the least you can do.”

“You don’t needsoftness,” Feng Mian snarled, as if the word itself was nonsense. “And if you think you can get it from me, you are sorely mistaken. I am a warrior, Princess, a monster bred tokill. There is no softness in me.”

“I have gone my whole life with everyone being cruel and harsh and cold with me, but you have shown me kindness … You have shown mecare.” Zhi Ruo hated how pathetic she sounded, how desperate she was for his attention, for his love. She needed him, of all people, to be soft with her. To be understanding, caring, even.

He grimaced backward, his eyebrows pulling together. “Have you been so starved of love that you look for it in places it doesn’t exist?”

Something within her cracked at those words, and shame and embarrassment filled her chest until it was overfilling. Her shoulders hunched together, and she wanted to curl into a ball and disappear. She was so foolish to think that … they meant anything. She was not an easy person to love; she had been taught that over and over again throughout her life, so why did she foolishly think that this would be different? No, she had prepared herself mentally for this, and yet her foolish heart had yearned for more with him. He was right; there had been no love in his heart for her, and yet … she’d looked for signs that weren’t there.

“I … I know you don’t love me.” Her throat closed up and she sniffed, opened her mouth, and then clamped it shut again. The words wouldn’t come out, not from the cracks forming in her heart. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. “Iknow that. I’m stupid, and, and I’m so difficult to love. I don’t think anybody can love me. I know that, I do, but I thought … I stupidly thought that you feltsomethingtoward me. Even … even a small amount of care. I’m not easy to be around, I’m wicked, I’m … I’m hideous in every way, Iknowthat. All I wanted was for you to continue to be kind to me. I know you can’t love me, I know I’m just, I’m just Princess Zhi Ruo, the disappointment of my family, but I thought—I thought we were similar.”

“Princess—” His voice grew soft, but she couldn’t be fooled by it with how he had reacted earlier.

“I thought we were similar,” she repeated, choking back her sobs. “I know my father has abandoned me; Iknowit. He never loved me, and I’m nothing to him, and I’ve known deep in my heart that he abandoned me long ago, even before I was imprisoned here. And I know your father is the same—he abandoned you too. And I thought … I thought that meant something, but I know now that you’re more than I will ever be. You are … special. You clawed your way out, you worked hard to be something, while I did nothing but wallow in pity and wait for my fate. We’re too different; I don’t know why I thought?—”

Feng Mian took her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing over the tears on her cheeks. He was so close to her, his expression unreadable, but the harsh lines of his face had softened. “Stop,” he said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear it. “Why do you speak like you arenothing? Why do you have such a low opinion of yourself?”

She couldn’t speak, more tears welling in her eyes. She hated showing him this pathetic side of her.

“You are worthy of love,” Feng Mian said, his hold on her tightening. “Who made you think that you are difficult to love?”

Silence filled the space between them.

“I realized during our captivity that you are not wicked, nor are you anything like your reputation says. You are soft, and sweet, and kind, Princess. You weep for others. You try to be good. You love people, despite what they have done to you. You are … foolish like that. Foolish to think that people deserve another chance. You are too good for me.” His shoulders dropped, and so did his voice. “You are … pure. I have tried so hard to keep myself away from you, to stop corrupting you with my filth, with my evil. You’re right, we’re similar, but we are also different. I will always hate my father, your father, and this entire empire. I have so much hatred in my heart that I can never sleep peacefully while knowing my enemies breathe. But you … you are too sweet, Princess. You would rather forgive than burn them. And I can’t be the reason you ruin yourself. The reason you lower yourself to my level.”

Zhi Ruo stared at him, unable to rip her gaze away. There was a deep sadness swirling in the dark, silvery depths of his eyes. His face was tight, hard, like he was trying very hard to keep himself in check. Even his body was tense and stiff.

She could barely register the words he spoke. She wasn’t good, nor sweet, nor … anything like he painted her out to be.

“I’m … I’m not too good for you,” she said at last. “I’ve never been good enough?—”

“Stop with those poisonedlies.” He tilted her face toward him, his unseeing eyes boring into her. “You have been lied to your whole life. You have always been better than everyone else,Zhi Ruo.”

Hearing her name on his lips sent a jolt through her heart, something warming in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to cry at his words, to weep into his arms. She couldn’t believe in him completely, but just knowing that he thought so highly of her … It broke her heart even more. The shards dug deep into her chest.

“But you told me … you told me I am unworthy of my father’s court,” she murmured those painful words.

“You are unworthy of that terrible, nasty place,” he said. “You are worth much more than that.”

“You’re confusing me,” Zhi Ruo said. “First you say that I am looking for love in places it doesn’t exist, and now you are telling me that you don’t wish to corrupt me? Are you afraid to love me?”

Feng Mian was quiet for a while, his hands still framing her face, his breath warm against her skin

“I am afraid of you—what you do to me,” he finally said, and a hint of vulnerability leaked through. He dropped his hands from her face, letting them fall onto his lap. “I cannot love anyone, Princess. I have always been a monster.”

Zhi Ruo continued to stare at him. They were both foolish, she realized. She had been in love with him since the moment she saw him; she had been drawn to his beauty, his protectiveness over her. And he was too afraid to even think of loving her. She craved love, and she doubted she could find it in someone so unwilling to face the emotion. And he … he craved her, but he thought he couldn’t have her, that he didn’t deserve her.

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