Page 70 of The Nightblood Prince

“What’s happening?” I asked the man guarding the tent.

He bowed as soon as he saw me, as if I were someone important.

I guessed that to him, I was, considering I had climbed into bed with the crown prince last night. I blushed. “The prince and the commanders got word that the situation at the front is becoming dire. They had to leave overnight with the First Battalion. The Second and Third will follow in the coming days.” He spoke with the rigid fluidity of a well-practiced speech, which meant there was more that he wasn’t telling me. Siwang wouldn’t leave in the middle of the night without a good reason.

“What kind of emergency?”

The man opened his mouth, then closed it. He had not rehearsed this part half as well. I pulled out my dagger and slammed him against the pole of the tent. “Tell me.”

“I don’t know! I’m just a guard!”

“What do you know, then?”

“The…the prince told me to tell you to wait for him if you asked anything.”

Wait for him?Who was I? A docile wife, expected to sew and embroider while she waited for her beloved to come back from the war?

I let him go. “Very well.”

I could send a messenger to warn Siwang, but what if the message couldn’t reach him in time? In the dream, I had no idea where they were. I didn’t see Changchun in the background. They could have been ambushed for all I knew.

They’d left last night. If I left within the hour, I’d still have a chance of catching them before they reached Changchun.

“Can I borrow a horse from the stables?” I asked the guard, not knowing if he had the power to grant my request. Horses were valuable in the army, and we didn’t have many to spare.

“The prince left his steed, Beifeng, for you.”

I paused. Beifeng was the fastest horse in the land; this boded well for me. “Did he tell you anything else?”

“No.”

I had never been to Changchun; I knew only that it was south of here. “Get me a map, fast. Prince Siwang’s life depends on it.”

I slipped back into the tent and picked up the silver-tipped bow Siwang had also left behind.

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I moved as fast as I could through the unfamiliar terrain. But the land between the camp and Changchun was sandy and barren, crisscrossed with too many intervening paths and footprints leading from all corners of the empire. Navigating them would be difficult even for those who regularly used these roads.

I thought it would be easy, following an army, but these men moved in units. They traveled on different roads in case of ambush. Which was a great idea, usually, but not right now. I had no idea which direction Siwang had gone. All I could do was head for Changchun and hope for the best. However, between frequent checks of the map and getting myself lost on the wrong roads, even my fastest wasn’t enough. Especially since my visions gave me only glimpses of what would happen, not directions to get there.

Eventually, I did come across small groups of people carrying heavy bags, some pushing carts full of the elderly, children, and amassed belongings. Too heavy for a trip between villages to visit family.

I had seen people like them during my travels over the past year.Wind-beaten folks forced to leave behind all that was dear to them, all they had ever known, to flee for their lives. Like too many had done since Lan’s rise.

In war, there were three types of people: those who ran, those who fought, and those who stayed to die.

I remembered Siwang’s warnings about Lan’s vampires, who needed blood to survive. I hoped these people could find refuge farther north, where they might live to see more dawns and watch their children grow.

Day by day, as I passed the sun-bronzed faces of the escapees, who became more and more frantic, their steps hurried and fearful, I knew I was getting closer to Changchun.

When I started seeing bloodied soldiers peppered throughout the crowd, clad in the faded reds of our uniform, stripped of their armor, heads low to avoid attention, I knew the battlefield was not far.

Deserters. Men who did not want to fight, or merely feared the prospect of dying—as they had every right to.

War was fought in the name of empires and conquerors. Nobody would remember these nameless foot soldiers in a hundred years. No honor, no glory. The men at camp liked to shame the deserters, but until one experienced this kind of trauma, we had no right to judge.

I kicked Beifeng into a sprint.

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