Page 44 of Empire's Curse

With that, the door clicked shut and Daiyu was all alone. She slumped over the bathtub, the energy seeming to leave her shaking legs, and exhaled deeply. She had somehow survived another interaction with him, and this time it didn’t end with a dagger pressed to her throat or a dunk in the garden pond.

She hastily undid the clasp of the cloak and let it drop to the floor. She peeled back her soiled night robes,the dirtied bandages around her feet, and folded them next to the cloak. It didn’t take her long to slip into the bath and begin to scrub the weeks of dirt and grime from her body and hair.

For the longest time, she simply lay in the tub and stared up at the ceiling, her eyelids growing heavy and the water turning cold.

If she had been told a few months ago that she would be one of the women chosen to be the emperor’s wife, that she would be living in the royal palace, that she would be poisoned, kidnapped, and escape from a band of thieves—she would have thought someone had accidentally told the storyline of a convoluted poem rather than that of her life.

But alas, here she was. Soaking in a bath filled with rosebuds and fermented rice water. With the emperor somewhere in the fortress. And with hundreds of soldiers packed inside this fortress.

Daiyu rose to her feet, the bathwater sloshing over the rim and sopping into the rug below. She cringed as she stepped out, her toes squelching against the now-wet rug.

Spotting a towel on the couch—along with a folded set of deep-blue clothes, a pair of matching shoes, and two black hairpins—Daiyu wrung the water from her body and quickly donned the silk dress. Her hands skimmed over the dark material; it was a blend of dark purple and sapphire, with gold dragons embroidered on the sleeves and golden lotuses etched throughout the skirt. She hadn’t realized how accustomed she had become to the fancy clothes from the upper class, so different than the rough, over-washed, and patchy cotton or linen she had worn for most of her life.

She dried her hair with the towel as best as she could and styled it into a low bun with the two hairpins. Finally, she appeared somewhat like a normal human being and not like a bedraggled, wet rat.

Once she was ready, she left the room and set out for the dining hall. She hoped the rest of her stay here would go smoothly and that she’d find a loophole to escape from Muyang.

The dining hallwas arranged with rows of long, low tables, where soldiers sat on cushioned mats on the floor. At the end of the room, on a dais, there was a shorter table where the emperor sat with his closest people. When Daiyu entered the room, she spotted Muyang immediately. He was picking at his food and listening to something Bohai, who sat beside him, was saying. There was another man beside him that she vaguely recognized but couldn’t put her finger on where she had seen him. Along the table with the emperor sat a dozen more people, all of them seeming to vie for his attention. At the very end of the table sat Atreus and a young man who couldn’t have been older than fifteen.

Almost immediately, everyone’s attention drew to her and she hesitated by the doorway, unsure if she should spin on her heels and run back to her room. But then her gaze locked with Muyang, and all at once, everyone seemed to blur away until there was only him. She hated him, she told herself, and yet there was something oddly beautiful about him. The way he sat among his men, the way his black fitted outfit seemed to accentuate his wickedness. The way his handsome face was void of any emotion. Those oppressive, dark eyes seemed to trap her in place, and it was only when he beckoned her forward that her trance was broken.

Heat clawed up her throat and she hoped nobody had noticed her gawking. She walked between the rows slowly, the men’s conversations seeming to hush as she hurried toward the emperor’s table.

“Daiyu, have a seat.” Muyang motioned to the end of his table, beside Atreus and the young man.

She gingerly took the vacant seat between the young man and Atreus. All at once, everyone began their conversations again as if she hadn’t entered the room. The young man gave her a curious look, and she smiled at him. He had long hair that was pulled back at the crown of his head and held in place with various goldpins slotted into his silver dragon hair crown. Jade beaded necklaces adorned his neck and just above his collar, she spotted the undeniable royal tattoo of a snake slithering around a moon—the symbol of the MuRong dynasty.

“Oh.” She blinked at the young man. She racked through her mind of the MuRong princes who were still alive but couldn’t remember their names. “You must be … a prince?”

“Yes, I’m Prince Yat-sen,” he said with a small nod. “And you must be Lady Daiyu.”

“Ah, yes.” She couldn’t believe she was in the presence of what many called therightfulheir to the throne. She would have thought someone like Muyang would keep the prince locked away in the palace to rot, but maybe he wanted to keep his enemies close.

Atreus picked a slice of roasted beef off the many platters of food arranged in front of them and placed it atop his bowl of rice and vegetables. “No need to speak to him too much, Lady Daiyu,” he said coldly, shooting the young man a sharp glare. “It’s better not to involve yourself.”

Yat-sen flinched and tightened his hold on his chopsticks. Daiyu could feel the tension in the air between the two and she picked up her own utensils tentatively. “What do you mean?” she asked, piling sautéed vegetables, sticky rice, and savory meat into her own empty bowl.

“It’s better not to speak to a cursed heir with questionable loyalties.”

Yat-sen seemed to shrink within himself, his gaze locked onto his food.

“Oh. Thank you, Atreus.” She looked between the two young men, unsure of what to say. It appeared like Yat-sen was similar to her—an outsider here. “But I think I’ll speak to whoever I see fit.” She pointed to the soy-glazed mushrooms in Yat-sen’s bowl. “Are those good? Not too sweet?”

He blinked rapidly, turning to her and then to the food in front of him as if seeing it for the first time. “Err, ittastes good,” he answered after a moment. “It’s not sweet at all, mostly salty. I think … you should give it a try. It’s good.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it, then.” Daiyu smiled warmly at him as she loaded the mushrooms into her bowl and then took a bite of it. “You’re right; it tastes pretty salty!”

“I prefer the saltiness,” he said with a small grin.

She could feel Atreus’s disapproving look on them, but she ignored it and continued to eat her food. Her gaze wandered to Muyang, who was several feet away from them at the other side of the table. He was speaking with Bohai and the other familiar-looking man. They seemed to be deep in conversation because he didn’t even look her way, nor did his stony expression change.

“Who’s the man beside His Majesty?” Daiyu asked in a low voice. “I think I’ve seen him before.”

Yat-sen followed her gaze, but it was Atreus who spoke. “That’s General Liang Fang. You might have seen him in the palace.”

“Hm.” She stared at him for a moment longer. He was dressed in the usual Huo military attire and had an icy expression on his face. She felt like she had seen him before, but … where? Finally, a mental image formed in her mind. The first day she had entered the palace, she had run into Jia and him, and he had seemed suspicious of her.

“He appears mean, but he’s not that bad,” Atreus said between mouthfuls of juicy chicken and savory noodles. “He doesn’t spend nearly as much time in the palace as Bohai does, so you might have seen Bohai more often than him. But then again … I don’t think either of them ever step foot in the Lotus wing.”

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