Page 44 of The Nightblood Prince

“I know.” I gently put my hand over hers. “Come on, the food is getting cold.”

23

Fangyun and I sipped from the same bowl of noodles, something I had never done in the palace. It was strange, knowing this was the sort of closeness we should have experienced our entire lives. If not for the prophecy. If not for the emperor.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

“You keep saying that,” Fangyun grumbled through a mouthful of noodles, something she wouldn’t be caught dead doing back at the capital. “What are you sorry for this time?”

I nodded at Zhangxi, who was walking past with her husband. “If it weren’t for me, that could be you by now. A noble husband, a kid on the way. Warm home and full belly.” Fangyun sneered. A splutter of soup rolled down her chin, and I stifled my own laughter. I reached over and helped wipe it off her face. “Never mind, I take what I said back. If you keep talking with your mouth full, no amount of dowry would have helped you secure a good marriage.”

My sister rolled her eyes. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Theending would have been the same either way. Marriage, motherhood, death. What does it matter if my husband is rich or poor if I don’t love him? You were the one who showed me that there is more to life than doing what’s expected of us. And now, far from the capital, we are both experiencingmore.We are the choices we made, Fei. If I’d wanted to stay in the capital, believe me, I would have found a way. You are not the only one who wanted to leave that stifling city with all its rules and never-ending schemes.”

She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “I didn’t lose anything because of you, Fei. Instead, I’ve gained things more valuable than money and status. I get to be myself out here. I get to do what I want, when I want. Do you think I could have talked with a mouth full of food back at the capital? If I laughed too loud, walked too fast, or talked too much, I would have been the gossip on every noble lady’s tongue the next morning. No one wants to live that sort of life. You didn’t want to live it, and I don’t want to live it, either. After your antics, Father wouldn’t marry either of us off to a husband who doesn’t love us. And if giving up that old life in Yong’An is the price I have to pay for true freedom, then I’ll pay it willingly twice over. Do you know that in the capital, I couldn’t even leave the house without a chaperone? Now I can gossip with the other market ladies about the war and the emperor and how bad a job he is doing.”

“If you put it that way, then perhaps this exile is the best thing that’s ever happened to us. Because if you ever dared to criticize the emperor in the capital, you would have had your head chopped off.”

I was about to get up and take the empty bowls back to Lu-ma’s stall when someone limped to stand beside our table.

Lu Bao, Lu-ma’s son.

My chest tightened.

“My mother sent me to collect the bowls before the shop gets busy.”

“Oh, I was just about to—”

“No worries. I like the practice.” Lu Bao laughed and gestured at his wooden leg. “Still need to get used to it.”

“Thank you,” my sister and I said at the same time. We handed him our empty bowls, and he gave each of us a polite smile.

After Lu Bao was gone, my sister reached across the table and brushed away the tears I didn’t know I had shed.

“The Warring States have not seen peace in the last thousand years,” Fangyun said. “There are always skirmishes and territorial disputes between dynasties. This is simply the first time in our lives that casualties are so close to home. Lan Yexue did not start this war because of you. He started it because of his own greed.”

You are destined to be the empress of all empresses.

“I thought that by leaving the palace, I would stop the nightmares from coming true. It seems I have only made things worse.”

“What nightmares?”

I scolded myself. “I…Just these nightmares that my prophecy would bring calamity to Rong.”

“You are just a girl, Fei’er.You have no power over any of this. And who is to say destinies even exist?”

Was I just a girl? The prophecy had called me a fallen goddess. The phoenix’s mark brought me glimpses of the future, things no mortal should be able to see.

What if the prophecy was right? What if I could help the people of this land, and by hiding from my destiny I was prolonging their sufferings?

“Don’t you wish you could join the army and fight? I wish they’d let women enlist,” my sister mused.

“I don’t,” I said quietly. “I wish the emperor would spare these young men and fight Lan Yexue himself. Just the two of them. The winner gets all.”

My sister laughed. Then, in a quieter voice, she said, “Is it true, that you saved Lan Yexue in the mountains?”

My heart jerked in my chest, and I looked up to see not blame but curiosity in her eyes.

Again, I saw flashes of blood in the snow. Lan Yexue’s eyes wet with hurt after I had plunged his own blade into his chest. “Yes. And it was the worst mistake of my life.”I should have aimed for his wretched heart.

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