They did not pay attention to the court assembly.
To put it nicely, the Third Princess’s input wasn’t needed; to put it bluntly, she and Xi Qian’e were only there for the no-killing rule in the Hall.
Lovely.
The moment that court was decred adjourned, the princess rushed off to the find the First Prince whilst Three obediently vanished into the dark, ready to hunt down her target. The man had escaped once —
And he wouldn’t again.
The Fifth Prince met with his attendants outside of the hall; then, they got into a carriage and cracked a whip. Two men fnked him on horses.
Three silently twitched under the carriage.
The gravel peppered against her back, dust caking her skin. Lifting herself higher, hugging the wooden belly, she scaled closer to the front — dirt and stones, kicked up by the horses’ stomping hooves, fshed before her with white hide.
The road became rougher, the carriage wheels bumping and jostling with every rock on the ground. Ducked her head — ate a mouthful of dirt — and watched the pace buildings and walls roll away.
Layers and yers of trees rolled in front, finally entering the vast forests held inside the Imperial City.
Three pulled out her knife and flipped up onto the carriage roof. A soft thump — the coachman, startled looked up at her but before he could speak, she slit his throat, strangling that st scream, instead gasping and coughing blood through that bloody mouth —
A guard, spotting her, raised a bow and shot — she ducked, snatching it out of the air and throwing it back — a scream, a thump — the reins sckened; she seized them with an open hand, then cut the leather with a swing.
The carriage made a great screech, the horses shrieking and fleeing. The Fifth Prince gave a loud shout, the other horseman rearing his steed. Everything lurched forwards — she jumped off the colpsing carriage, over the rampaging horse and smmed into the other man. Her fingers locked around his face — she smashed it to the ground, man screaming, then she tossed him under the stamping hooves —
Blood flew.
She stalked to the carriage and tore open the curtains.
Five was standing there, bruised on the head and protecting the screaming Fifth Prince with a knife.
She was seen.
And that meant she had to kill her sister.
Threw herself forwards, lunging, and the wooden window frame shattered, splinters flying, needles fshing past her face — a hand flew up, catching them between her fingers — she smashed a kick into Five, her sister gasping from pain —
That scarred hand reached for a white fsk.
She didn’t need to think. She threw a needle, the silver point piercing into Five’s thumb, that left hand that had never quite recovered from a poison accident, and agony split across her sister’s face, colpsing and crumpling, clutching that betrayed knowledge. She smashed a kick into her sister, breaking ribs and shattering the delicate, venomous woman into a heap of broken gss on the splintered carriage floor.
That fsk, she seized it, she turned and uncorked it, smming it into the Fifth Prince’s wailing, open mouth.
He choked.
He spasmed. Drool — a pale white froth — spilled from his mouth.
He fell.
And a wild fear and panic rolled into her. Her fist hailed into him, the other smothering his nose and pinching his jaw, forcing him to swallow over and over and over. His bones were snapping, crushed under her reckless, useless assault, bruises blossoming over her knuckles and his neck, a foot breaking his knees and finally she clenched his neck.
Popping, a terrible popping.
The heat of his skin burned her eyes, the pulse in her neck. A horrible silence fell over them, broken only by the noble prince’s increasingly boured breathing; a plum-red hue crept over his skin, the capilries in his eyes bursting one by one, a bloody haze rolling down poisoned cheeks in pearls.
The boy wheezed, ‘Father, I don’t — I don’t want to die.’
Her hands tightened.
The boy began to cry, even as he spasmed, a light that had no source shining in his eyes. ‘Father, why does Mother want me dead?’
Then he fell silent and died.
Ahrihn
