Chapter 3

I immediately tried to grip the dagger. Kill him? I couldn’t even hold its handle!

“Not only will I untie you, I’ll keep you by my side as a little slave.

“Without the antidote, the powder will leave your limbs so weak you won’t even be able to lift a spoon.

“Whatever I do to you, you won’t be able to resist.”

He deliberately leaned closer as he spoke. I could force no strength into my body. Frustration brought the heat rushing to my face.

Xie Lin chuckled.

“Why so shy?

“Do you think I’m so desperate I’ll take anyone?

“I don’t like men.”

I had nothing to say to that.

In the end, he kicked both me and the dagger off the bed, lay down himself, and fell sound asleep.

I tried several times to pick up the weapon. Eventually, I could only slump beside the bed, utterly limp.

I checked my clothes. Fortunately, my disguise was secure. Otherwise, at such close quarters, he would certainly have discovered I was a woman.

Lu Wei would come for me.

Hugging my knees, I remembered the palace when I was little. Whenever Jinyu and I stood together, Lu Wei never saw me.

He had been a prince’s study companion then. He treated me better than any of my elder brothers did.

When I asked why, he said it was because, of all the princesses, I looked most like Jinyu.

Years later in the army, I had asked whether I was merely a substitute for my sister.

He tweaked my nose. He had only been a child, he said; children spoke without thinking. I was petty to remember one remark for so long.

Hadn’t we survived battle after battle together? Didn’t he know the one secret I kept from everyone else?

“Zhaoning, no one can come between us.”

Yet on the battlefield, he had chosen my sister without hesitation.

I lay awake all night making excuses for him. Surely he had settled the princess by now?

Even if he had needed to find an army physician to treat her, an entire night should have been enough.

By morning, surely he could bring his troops to rescue me?

Even one attempt to storm the camp would have been enough—anything to show me that he wanted to save me!

I stayed awake until dawn. Lu Wei never came.

Refusing to give up, I waited three more days.

Throughout those days, I remained confined in Xie Lin’s tent. Apart from the weakness in my limbs and that oppressive sandalwood scent I had to breathe every day, I lacked neither food nor drink.

I had read the histories. Being a royal hostage in an enemy country was humiliating, but it generally didn’t mean going hungry or cold.

Still, how many of those princes had been kept beside the emperor as his personal little slave?

At such moments, I was grateful for my concealing clothes and rough voice. As long as no one saw through me, I could keep surviving as a prince.