Chapter 5
JINGYI
The city of Changzihuā hit her in layers—mud and damp wood from the docks, acrid smoke off the braziers, and beneath it all, the same cloying reek of sickness she knew from the palace wards.
Then the noise: bargemen crying, piers groaning beneath her slippers, the endless slap of water against filthy hulls.
It was X?en-Sarai’s capital, the ‘Flower of the South.’ A city she’d lived in all her life, yet never seen. Where were the fabled shining docks, the markets overflowing with goods, the boats so laden with silks and spices they seemed to drift on waves of perfume instead of water?
She stared across the Jiāndēng River. At the pier’s margins, her healer’s eyes witnessed the proofs: beggars with empty bowls, children in rags picking broken rice between planks, a mother bargaining with a ferocity that only earned her a dismissive wave.
The people looked thin and fevered, bent double.
Dysentery and hunger had gutted the city, written across every face she’d encountered.
The river’s name meant Lantern’s Edge—a poetic tribute to how it was said to glow at night, reflections of golden lanterns like fallen stars upon its surface.
There were no lights now. Only the silt-heavy current, curling thick as brownish ink.
His Majesty’s ships bobbed on the water, carrying food bound for foreign markets, already sold to pay for limyerite while the people starved.
Still, her father demanded a procession fit for legends. Around her, workers loaded lavish gifts: rice and barley, silks, gilded lacquerwares, rare spices. A display of abundance meant to impress her new husband’s court but looked obscene amid the city’s poverty.
Yet, for all the splendour of her departure, her father hadn’t bid her farewell.
JingYi had last seen him the night before in the Hall of Eternal Harmony, where the marriage by proxy had been performed.
He hadn’t spoken to her, not even during the banquet afterward.
She’d spent the entire time staring at her lap as one elaborate dish after another was placed before her, with no stomach to even taste a bite.
He’d left halfway through the feast, sparing her only a single glance—fleeting, impassive—before turning away. She’d given her final bow to his back as he retreated.
JingYi swallowed the lump in her throat. She knew better than to expect more from a man who’d never truly believed she was his blood. Yet hope was a strange thing. Fragile, but impossible to kill.
Her fingers brushed the gold phoenix pin in her hair, a parting gift from LinXin that very morning. Her sister had at least seen her off, pressing the pin into her palm with uncharacteristic gentleness.
‘Live well,’ LinXin had said.
Wu Mā and Fēng, too, had said their goodbyes. They’d tied a new Heat suppressant pouch at her waist.
‘Now that you’ll have an Alpha husband,’ Wu Mā said, pulling the knot firm, ‘may you never need this cunning concoction again. But one last cycle’s worth won’t hurt. Remember: keep the pouch close. Your body heat activates them. If the blend gets wet and spoils . . .’
JingYi’s hand closed over Wu Mā’s—dry, warm palms, fingers gnarled from years of manual labour.
‘You don’t need to remind me,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’ve been wearing them for twelve years. Remember?’
Wu Mā’s lips parted, but then she pursed them and nodded. JingYi squeezed once more before the woman could pull away.
‘You cared for me when my own mother turned away. These hands raised me.’ She bent and pressed them to her forehead. ‘I know they ache. I’ve left a jar of salve by your bed, enough for the year. Every night, warm a spoonful and rub it deep into the joints, then wrap them.’
Her eyes held Wu Mā’s, unwavering. ‘Keep your hands strong so no one will have cause to turn you out.’
Wu Mā sniffed. ‘Bossy child.’
‘Promise you’ll do it. For me,’ JingYi insisted.
A small, steady grip. ‘I promise.’
She had carried memories of that parting from the palace gates onto the pier—a comfort against the sharper truths that awaited. Her father hadn’t sent her into this journey alone. He’d saddled her with companions of a crueller sort.
The three ladies-in-waiting chosen were none other than her tormentors: LánYàn, RenHuā, and MeiYün. Their fathers saw honour in the posting; the women saw only gross inconvenience.
“She should be grateful,” LánYàn murmured behind her. “Sent so far away to a man who doesn’t know what he’s getting.”
RenHuā’s laugh was muffled. “Perhaps he’ll send her back once he sees her.”
“Imagine—returned before the year is out.” MeiYün’s giggle was shallow, eager.
JingYi didn’t react. She didn’t need them to see that she feared the same.
The emperor had said her husband was appraised of her condition.
He must have. Her father wouldn’t risk the loss of the bride price, nor the disgrace of a broken treaty, by omitting two irrefutable facts.
Lord Wulfbane had agreed to the terms—to her, as documented.
If anything, she could take solace in that cold certainty.
A stir swept through the gathered party. JingYi watched as everyone around her turned and bowed. She followed their gaze, and her heart stopped.
Crown Prince ShunLi stood at the edge of the pier, flanked by his guards.
Clothed in indigo robes and a black belt with jade pendants, he held himself with the elegance of an empire’s heir, but it was the gauntlets on his forearms that drew the eye: forged in overlapping plates, gleaming like a pangolin’s scales.
He had been born in the Year of the Pangolin—an animal deemed shy, reclusive, unworthy of a future emperor. Instead of hiding from the association, he’d embraced it, transforming its symbolism into strength. The scales spoke for him: Beneath the silk was armour. Beneath the heir, a warrior.
They hadn’t spoken last night either.
Now, as she curtsied, his stare pressed down on her, cold and measuring. A thought emerged: one day, this Alpha would be emperor, and she would never truly know what he carried behind that silence.
His guards parted as she approached, and then it was just the two of them, the noise of the docks falling away. At last, he spoke, just loud enough for her to hear.
“You’ve been given a fresh start. Do not squander it.”
JingYi’s stomach seized. Was this brotherly advice? An ominous premonition? His voice was too controlled, too distant for her to glean any true meaning.
Before she could speak, he turned—long black hair flowing, stride unbroken—and disappeared into his palanquin as his retinue closed around him. He did not look back. She stood, watching until the ornate litter vanished into the chaos of Changzihuā.
“Your Highness.” The ship captain’s voice cut through her stillness. “It is time.”
Behind her, the Imperial Phoenix towered, its great red sails taut like wings ready for flight. Beyond its stern, the Jiandēng River widened, a path leading to the open sea and a foreign shore.
JingYi drew a final breath—a last taste of river mud, of charcoal, of the ghost of palace incense. She let it fill her, then released it slowly, exhaling the silent, unseen girl who’d breathed this air for a lifetime.
Without looking back, she stepped onto the gangway.
She hadn’t let herself expect anything from life aboard the ship. It turned out to be a test of endurance.
It wasn’t so unbearable. Not when she could hide in her cabin, away from her ‘ladies-in-waiting.’ She filled the solitary hours with study: the language of her husband’s kingdom (Tremesi), medical texts, and a volume on the nature of limyerite.
She learned that in Tremore, the crystals were mined and forged into weapons.
In X?en-Sarai, they were refined into healing art.
Same substance. Two vastly different philosophies.
The sea swayed. She rose and looked out the window.
The sky was impossibly blue—nothing like the bruised purple of the gale that had once forced them to take shelter in the kingdom of Aethonia.
Once the storm passed, she’d marvelled over its busy port, the bustling crowds, the happy, unguarded faces.
For a fleeting moment, she had imagined stepping ashore.
Alas, the ship sailed on.
At the beginning of the fifth week, as she stood by the gunwale, she saw Tremore for the first time.
They dropped anchor at Terresard, Niewberg’s main port, a busy gateway of trade and wealth. Unlike the poverty and oppression of X?en-Sarai’s river harbour, this place thrived.
The very air was crisp and cool, scoured clean by a wind tasting of pine and distant snow, not of humid silt and decay.
It brimmed with life: salt and spice, the smoke of roasting fish skewers, the warm scent of fresh bread.
The buildings were stout and solid, built of stone and heavy timber, with steep roofs to shed snow—so different from the upward-curving wooden eaves of the Imperial Palace.
The colours were bolder too, less about harmonious restraint and more about vibrant declaration.
As the ship neared its mooring, she spotted a small envoy waiting at the pier, dressed in crisp uniforms, their posture disciplined.
Her welcome party.
When they finally docked, JingYi stepped onto solid ground for the first time in over four weeks.
Her right leg, stiff from weeks of confinement, threatened to buckle.
She caught herself, shifting her weight smoothly to her left, then settled into the careful, balanced rhythm she used in public: short step, place heel, roll foot.
No drag, no stumble. Performance began the moment the plank met the pier.
Her travelling silks, chosen more for show than comfort, marked her at once as foreign.
The jade and gold silk clung heavily in the damp sea air, but it was the wide travelling hat—its brim draped with a veil of loosely woven white silk—that set her apart most of all.
To the outside world, it softened her visage into a hazy impression.
Yet from within, the open weave granted her a textured view—a pair of watchful eyes behind a shield of elegance.
Nonetheless, she looked every inch a princess from another world.
Untouchable. Unknowable.
Undeniably strange.
She’d barely adjusted to the sensation when she was met by two men. One was tall and brown, broad-shouldered with shoulder-length black hair. He held a soldier’s bearing and an unmistakable air of command. Even before he spoke, she knew what he was.
An Alpha.
Unease rippled through her. Instinctively, her hand went to the suppressant pouch at her waist. Though no one could see her face beneath her veil, she kept her expression carefully neutral.
The other was younger, perhaps fourteen or fifteen, with hair the colour of palm sugar and skin the colour of ripe wheat. His unlined face was open, his energy brighter, easier. More importantly, she didn’t sense Alpha’s presence from him.
A Beta.
For now, at least. He was young enough that he might still Awaken.
The Alpha bowed. “Your Highness,” he greeted gruffly in Isseric, the common tongue of the Nine Kingdoms. “I am Darion Merrow, Commander of the Wulfbane household guard. I’ve been entrusted with overseeing your protection during your journey to Blackwood-Veyrde.”
JingYi dipped her head in acknowledgment. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir Darion.”
Her Isseric felt stiff and, within that greeting alone, her tongue almost tripped over the simple words. Still, disappointment bloomed, having hoped to test her understanding of the local language.
Then, the younger one stepped forward, looking up at her with an easy, boyish charm. His bow carried the flourish the stern commander didn’t have.
“Your Highness,” he echoed, his voice amicable. “Conrad of Reave, at your service. Sir Darion will be your primary guard, but I plan to be your entertainment. Your betrothed sends his regrets. An urgent matter kept him back this morning, but he will meet us at the halfway mark.”
His candour startled her. No one ever spoke so plainly to her before, but his eyes were kind, his grin disarming.
He bowed again. “Should the journey bore you, call on me. I’ll gladly play the jester if it earns me a smile.”
The corners of her mouth twitched despite herself. She swallowed it down; decorum demanded composure. “I thank you, Conrad of Reave, for your noble duty.”
Behind him, Darion gave a low snort, his voice pitched just enough to carry. “Solthar preserves us. If you’re Her Highness’s jester, boy, pray you don’t trip over your own feet before we even leave the pier.”
Conrad shot him a look—half-affronted, half-amused—before bowing deeper and stepping aside.
A whisper, sharp as a needle, drifted down the gangway.
“How fitting she meets them veiled,” LánYàn murmured. “Let them admire the mystery. It will make the revelation so much sweeter.”
JingYi’s spine straightened a fraction more, even when the old habit of flinching was a ghost in her muscles.
They are the past. A few more days, and they’d return to Changzihuā. She would never have to see them again.
She followed the Tremorian envoy as they escorted her down the pier into the sprawling chaos of Terresard’s docks.
“Your Highness,” Darion said, appearing at her elbow once they passed the marketplace, his tone stiff. “It’ll take some time to unload the bridal gifts. They’re bound straight for Limyere Palace for the king. The men are seeing to it. Once that’s done, we’ll ride for Blackwood-Veyrde.”
He hesitated, then added in his plain, soldier’s way, “We’ve set up a tent for you past the docks. It’s peaceful enough. Rest there, get some food in you while you can. The forest roads won’t offer much in the way of fine fare.”
JingYi turned slightly, catching the way his shoulders squared, the tight set of his mouth. Darion Merrow wasn’t a man accustomed to escorting women, it seemed. An Alpha commander more at ease with orders and steel than formalities and noble courtesies.
For some reason, knowing she wasn’t alone in her discomfort put her at ease.
“That is very thoughtful, Sir,” she murmured. “Thank you.”
He gave a curt nod before stepping back.
Conrad, however, watched her carefully. He must’ve noticed her discomfort in the marketplace, because he offered her a small, reassuring smile.
“Fear not, Your Highness. We’ll soon leave the bustle of Terresard. The journey to Blackwood-Veyrde will be long, but we’ll do our best to make it comfortable.”
His tone was without court polish or stiff formality—just simple kindness.
She knew better than to trust kindness.
Still, she found herself smiling as she let them lead her through the throng.