Page 39 of The Nightblood Prince

Sleep was futile in places like these, where bodies were packed like livestock for winter. Especially when nights quite literallyrumbledwith the snores of men.

I stared at the ceiling for one heartbeat, then two, and hopped up from the bed. My eyes were still heavy, but I couldn’t stay in this pigsty a moment longer. I also didn’t want to fall back asleep and witness more bloodshed on the front lines.

My fault.That constant voice surfaced again.Everything is my fault.

Siwang had been right after all. Sometimes we got what we wanted, only to find out it wasn’t how we’d imagined it. Leaving the palace was just like that: what I’d wanted, though not how I’d imagined.

I peeked outside the papered windows and onto the dark streets. Some vendors were already setting up their carts for the morning.

The innkeeper was still asleep when I stepped outside. “One scallion pancake,” I told the old lady setting up her stall across the street.

“Three coins.”

“Threecoins?”

“We all have to make a living, young man. Flour is expensive, and the price of eggs is going up, too. It won’t be long until I have to charge you five or six coins for a scallion pancake.”

I took in the old lady’s empty eyes and wrinkled hands. The early morning was freezing cold, yet someone her age was already out to sell food. I couldn’t help but think of my mother and sister, who had also resorted to selling food at the market. I wondered if they, too, were waking up at dawn just to spend the day letting hot oil splatters scald their hands for coins they’d never had to count in the capital.

It is not too late to change your mind.I heard Siwang’s voice in my ears, lulling me home.

“Three coins it is.” I gave her the money and took a seat on a low wooden stool while she mixed the batter and heated the oil.

I took out the address again. Trying to track down the stargazer was more difficult than I had anticipated. Almost a year later, and I was still coming up on dead ends, trying to find new leads that might indicate where she was. She hid like a woman who did not want to be found, and I wasn’t sure how I should feel about this. For one to hide, there must be a hunter not too far behind.

Thankfully, not everyone in her life was so good at hiding their trails.

“What is a northern girl like you doing so far west?” the old lady murmured once she handed the pancake to me.

My head jerked up.

She laughed. “Relax, your disguise is good. I used to be young once, used to travel disguised as a boy because it was easier. I’m just saying it is not safe for a girl to be this far from home in times like these.”

“The war is pretty well contained to the south side of the empire,” I reminded her. “The west should be fine for a while.”

“Nowhere is safe in the times of tyrants, my dear. There are some things you will understand when you get to my age.”

“We are going to be okay,” I said out of habit, even though I didn’t believe it—even though I had seen the future and knew it to be a lie. One had to hope. “Speaking of why I’m here, can you tell me where this is?”

I handed her the piece of paper. When my original lead for finding the stargazer’s family came to the cold end of an untended grave, I bribed this from a neighbor.

The neighbor said she had not seen the stargazer, whose birth name was Yinxing, since she was a child—the younger of two daughters, sold to the palace at five years old to be trained in the art of foresight. She had told me that six months ago, right around the time that Yinxing’s father had died, a strange woman had shown up. She wore a long, dark veil, so the neighbor couldn’t get a good look at her face, but her stature and voice and mannerisms reminded the neighbor of Yinxing’s mother, who had run away years ago.

“You are here looking for family?” the old lady asked as she handed the piece of paper back to me.

“Themotherof a friend.”

“Zhang Jing is not a friendly woman,” she whispered, voice low like it was a secret, or a warning. “She lives on the outskirts of the village and keeps to herself. She has a garden and chickens and only comes into the village for red meat during times of festivities.”

“Have you seen her recently, or do you know if she still lives by herself?”

“Like I said, she doesn’t come into the village often, and has no friends or family that I know of.”

“Her husband died six months ago. Do you know—”

“You are asking a lot of questions for someone who—”

I reached into my pouch and handed her ten more coins, and the old lady stopped midsentence. She pocketed the coins, looked around as if someone on this empty street might be listening to a random traveler and a gossiping aunty. “What do you know of her family, especially her daughter?” I pressed.

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