Page 28 of The Nightblood Prince

“Siwang, please.Help me.”

“Fei…”

“Any girl would be lucky to be your empress. Once this news breaks, every maiden in the empire will sell her soul for a chance of becoming your bride. You are the dream of—”

“I don’t want them!” he snapped in a rare moment of untethered temper, so sudden I almost let go of his hands. But this time, he was the one who held tighter, who pulled me close. “I can make you happy, Fei. I know I can. If you just give me the chance, I can make you love me. Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it. I’ll change everything about me, about this country, about thisworlduntil it pleases you…. Until your heart matches mine in love, even if only a fraction.”

“It’s not that simple, Siwang.”

“Try me.”

I closed my eyes. “You might hold the power of an empire in the palm of your hand one day, but even you cannot change the expectations of society. The palace rules demand that I spend my entire life locked up behind its crimson walls. A life devoted to bearing your weight and birthing your heirs until I am wrought and empty, until I am a corpse ready for burial.”

His lips thinned. “If you don’t want that to be your life, I can take you out of the palace and spend days in the city. I can—”

“I don’t want to spend another day inside that palace. There is a world beyond the palace, beyond Rong and its valleys and steeps. In the great north where our ancestors used to live, there was more. Icy mountains and whispers of dragons born from snow and frost. Beasts so mighty they can swallow Beiying tigers whole. There is a whole world out there beyond Yong’An. Cities and stories and beauties of every sort. Colors and scents and tastes andeverything.I want all of it, Siwang. I want tolive.I want more from my life than being an empress. I want and I want, but I can’t have any of it because of that gods-forsaken prophecy. Because of…”

Because of the emperor’s greed and Siwang’s ambition and everything in between that made me a mere pawn in their quest for power. All the things that would one day lead to a massacre befalling Yong’An if we stayed on this path.

Two things could be true at the same time. I could want freedom and also want to protect him and Yong’An from calamity. It was fortunate that by leaving, I could accomplish both.

“As emperor, you would have hundreds of consorts and concubines and serving girls at your beck and call. And all I will have is loneliness. I don’t want to share my husband. I don’t want to see you only whenyouwant to see me. How can I love you if one of us is the sun, the source of all power and warmth, and I am a mere flower in your gardens, hoping to bask in your light? How can I offer my heart to you, only for you to break it every night you choose to lie next to another?”

“But when I unite the Warring States, you’ll be empress of the entire continent. I will give you everything you could possibly want.”

“And how can you be so sure that you can give me what I want,when you don’t know what I want? Maybe this is why we are wrong for each other. You’ve spent your whole life in the lap of luxury, used to being obeyed and desired and wanted. Everyone you’ve ever met will do anything to make your eyes linger just a moment longer, to exist within the halo of your radiance. Not because they love you, but because their lives depend on it. This is why you can never understand why I don’t melt at your promises.”

With every word, I watched Siwang’s face drop a little more, his eyes watering and his lips quivering as if he were looking for words he couldn’t find.

I felt like I had stabbed him and was now twisting the knife.

It is better this way.The sooner I broke his heart, the sooner he could begin to heal.

“Tiger’s pelt or not, I will still ask the emperor to cancel our betrothal. Even if I have to die for it,” I added after the pause.

“Your Highness?” A eunuch’s voice cut in from outside. “The emperor has summoned both you and Lady Lifeng to his tent. He has important matters to discuss with the two of you.”

Siwang winced.

“Tell him I’ll be there shortly.” I took a deep breath. “Now, Your Highness, if you could please give me some privacy, I need to change into appropriate attire before meeting with your father.”

“Don’t say anything once we see my father,” Siwang warned as he turned to leave. “Let me do the talking.”

12

Let me do the talking,he’d repeated over and over again on our way here.Let me handle this.

“You and the Prince of Lan spent the night in a cavetogether?” The emperor’s voice was low and stern like rumbling thunder.

Chastity was a fragile thing, and the single hint of a rumor was all it took to ruin a girl’s reputation. Great empires had crumbled because of lineage rumors. The emperor would never let a girl of questionable chastity become the Empress of Rong.

Maybe I didn’t need the pelt of a Beiying tiger to change my destiny after all. Maybe all I needed was a rumor with a dangerous yet beautiful prince who was not Siwang.

The emperor’s lips thinned with barely contained rage. I thought he might raise his hand and slap me, or draw a blade and grant me a swift end.

In the end, his eyes roamed past me. The emperor’s wrath refocused on my still-kneeling father, who had remained silent.

I glanced at Siwang for help. His face had returned to its usualnonchalance. The emperor and Siwang were standing while Father and I were on our knees, waiting to be allowed to rise again. To my left was a gilded table with cups of still-warm tea and decadent cakes dusted in sugar.

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