Chapter 30
Biyu collapsed into a heap on the ground.
Waves of nausea rolled over her and she resisted the urge to vomit as she scrambled up to her knees.
Tall trees swayed in the wind, and sunlight streaked through the gaps in the canopy of leaves and branches overhead.
She was in the woods, it appeared, and there was nobody around her.
Yat-sen hadn’t warped himself; had he only had enough magic for her?
For a moment, she fell back on her bottom and simply stared at the sky, then the trees in absolutely disbelief. It was jarring to be somewhere else entirely, when just seconds ago she had been in the palace, with His Majesty about to kill them both, with Nikator staring at her so coldly.
Her attention flicked down to her hands, which were still sticky with Yat-sen’s blood.
There were streaks of it on her skirts, too.
She blinked at them dumbfoundedly. And then it all hit her—how she had betrayed Nikator, the dawning horror on his face, the way his voice had trembled.
And she was reminded of Yat-sen’s words; his grief, his guilt.
Her heart tightened, her stomach clenching, and her eyes quickly filled with tears.
Now that she was alone, she curled into a ball and sobbed onto her knees. She had gotten what she wanted—freedom—but it had cost her everything.
Her brother’s life.
Her relationship with Nikator.
Her heart.
She kept crying, and crying, until there was nothing left within her but a cold, cold void. The woods were unnaturally quiet, dead. Maybe nature realized that she was too wicked to have anything other than silence. That she deserved this loneliness.
Biyu didn’t want to get up and roam the woods to find out where she was.
She didn’t want to do anything but curl in on herself and weep.
But her tears had dried and she didn’t want Yat-sen’s sacrifice to go to waste.
He should have used this on himself. He should have warped himself away.
He should have left her to her own fate.
But he was too kind. Too guilt-riddled to do anything for himself.
She pushed herself to her feet and wandered the woods.
It didn’t take her long to find a small stream and wash the blood off her hands.
The water was wintry cold, and the shock of it jolted through her system as she splashed it over her face, arms, and the sections of her skirts that were bloodied.
The stains remained, fading into a pinkish color against her pale dress.
The discomfort was good for her, she told herself.
It made her feel even more awful about herself, which she needed.
When she was done with the water, she continued to meander through the thickening trees. Her sense of direction was off—everything looked the same—but she kept going straight, her mind a jumbled mess.
She had done what she needed to do. For freedom, but it left a bitter taste in her mouth.
This was freedom?
This miserable feeling in her chest? The gnawing guilt that made her feel empty? The splintering pain in her cracked heart? This is what she had wanted all along, so why couldn’t she just be happy?
Biyu’s feet ached the more she walked; her thin silk shoes were useless against the thorns, the branches, the bramble, and the thick underbrush.
The heat beat down on her incessantly, and sweat pooled beneath her armpits, under her breasts, and down her face.
She was thirsty and she should have been hungry, but her appetite alluded her.
The love she had shared with Nikator had died; she still remembered the way she had woken up to his arm around her waist, her back pressed against his bare chest. His embrace had been so warm—so comforting. She had loved waking up like that.
She had felt so safe with him; it had been a long, long time since she had ever felt that way. So long, in fact, that she wasn’t even sure she had ever felt true safety than she did with him.
And she had ruined it.
All for an opportunity that had failed.
Every time she thought of his soft caresses, the way he would twirl her hair between his fingers and brush a kiss on her temple when he thought she was asleep, her throat constricted and a half-sob strangled her.
For someone who was so powerful, so lethal, and so capable of killing, he was surprisingly gentle. With his words. His touch.
She was reminded of that cold look he had given her and her chest ached all over again.
Night fell and her eyelids grew heavy. Another hour passed before the trees began to thin and she entered a small town. She kept walking, legs heavy, eyes glazed. At some point, she found herself in front of a building with smoke billowing from the chimney and a sign that read that it was an inn.
She tried pushing the door, but it was locked, so she knocked and waited. When nobody answered, she tried again, this time with a heavier hand.
“Please,” she murmured, numbly. “I need a room.”
Some noise came from behind the door, some shuffling, and then it cracked open. An older man peered at her, and then pulled it wider when he seemed to realize she wasn’t a threat.
Biyu rubbed her face. “I need a bed to sleep in, please. This … this is an inn, correct?”
“It is,” he said with a frown, squinting at her dress.
She likely looked strange, dressed in finery and yet with twigs and blood and sweat caking her like a second skin.
“Do you have money on you, little girl?”
“No.” Her shoulder dropped as the realization hit her; how was she going to do anything with her newfound freedom without any money? Would she have to look for a job? Or … what she even do at this point? What were her options?
He eyed her hairpin. “That’s gold, isn’t it?”
“Oh. Um, yes.” Her fingers danced over one of the hairpins and she slid it out, allowing one section of her hair to tumble down her shoulder. She held it out for him. “Will this be enough for a room?”
“That’ll be enough for the month,” he said with raised brows. “Is … is everything all right, miss?”
“Where are we?”
“Excuse me?”
“Which city is this?”
“Yucheng,” he answered with another suspicious look. “In State Rei.”
She was several states away from the capital; how had Yat-sen managed to send her this far? He must have wanted to ensure that she could completely disappear. The thought both warmed and weighed down her heart; he should have warped himself. He had wasted it on her.
“I’d like to stay for … for a little while,” she said. Just until she figured things out.
He took the hairpin from her and ushered her inside.
Everything happened in a blur afterward; he gave her a key to a room on the third floor, told her about what times dinner and breakfast were served, told her about the bathhouse at the back of the inn, and then left her alone to wander upstairs.
There were only four paces between the bed and the door, making the space cramped and uninviting.
The view from the window above was the only nice thing to look at; between the dusty sheets and the musty smell, it was a hard cry from her luxurious room in the palace.
This was her freedom, she told herself glumly.
As she stepped near the bed, her reflection caught in the corner of her eye from the handheld mirror that was propped up with two stones.
She flinched at her appearance. She was bedraggled.
Even in the dim candle lighting, she could make out the redness and puffiness in her eyes, and the grief and exhaustion on her face.
She looked terrible, and it reminded her too much of what she had done, so she shoved the stones away until the mirror fell back. A crack splintered on the edge of it, but she ignored it as she crawled under the covers.
She was too tired to care about anything right now.
She squeezed her eyes shut and willed sleep to come and take her away from reality.
But the empty space beside her only made her want to cry once more.
Her hand stretched out onto the spot next to her, where Nikator should have been.
Tears filled her eyes once more. This time, she wept quietly, her tears soaking through her pillow.
Biyu had done what she needed to do; she told herself over and over again about how necessary it was for her to escape from Muyang’s grips. She’d been a prisoner—how could Nikator fault her for wanting to not be a prisoner anymore? No, he was wrong.
He saw the loneliness, the forced isolation, the way she was trapped in her bedroom; he saw it all and yet he didn’t even offer to help?
He chose to still go along with whatever Muyang planned for her?
If they were truly lovers, then he would have found a way for her to be free.
He would have cared enough to do something.
She’d had to take matters into her own hands, even if it had broken her heart in the process.
And if Nikator hated her for it? Then he’d never truly cared about her in the first place.
For the first three days after the event, Biyu holed herself away in the inn and refused to get out.
She ate, slept, and cried, and then repeated it all the next day.
By the fourth day, her anger overtook everything else.
How dare Nikator fault her for wanting the most basic of human rights?
The right to be free? To not be a prisoner?