Chapter 10 Blood on the Ice
I took a candle and climbed down the hanging ladder beside the opening.
The Ice Cellar was dark and deep. I climbed a long while before my feet touched the ground.
Biting cold struck me. I clutched my collar tight and used a fire striker to light the candle in my hand.
Candlelight fell on the glittering ice. I narrowed my eyes and looked around.
It was spacious down here, but the candle only reached so far. Ahead was still dim. I had to go forward slowly.
"Your Highness, Your Highness?" I tried to call.
No one answered.
I clenched my teeth and kept walking. Then my foot twisted. I slid far across the ice and did not stop until I hit a wall.
The candle went out too.
I rubbed my knee, braced on the wall, and slowly got up. I lit the candle again.
The flame rose. I froze.
It was not a wall.
It was an ice coffin, open, gusting cold air.
A thick smell of blood rushed into my nose.
Under the dim yellow light, my hands and my skirt hem were covered in slick blood.
It was over. Had the real Xiao Yan already been found and killed?
I raised the candle with a shaking hand. Under the swaying light, the inside of the ice coffin lay fully exposed.
Thud.
The candle fell to the ground. My sight went black.
My stomach churned. I kept wanting to vomit.
How could it be. How could it be.
Wrong. It was all wrong.
I knelt and clutched my head. I heard cloth rustling from the cellar mouth.
Someone came closer with a lamp.
Short boots, black with gold embroidery, stopped before my eyes. The person slowly crouched. Light moved in those pitch-black pupils, like a jackal staring at prey in the night.
"A Yue, what are you afraid of?"
"Have you not always liked my work?" He sneered, stood, and lit the torches on both walls of the Ice Cellar.
The whole Ice Cellar lit up.