Chapter 19
IMPERIAL PALACE - CROWN PRINCE'S QUARTERS.
Crown Prince He paced furiously around his room, his eyes wild with fury and disbelief as he went over everything that happened that day on his head.
Jiang Ying Yue was alive. She was alive. He would still not dare completely believe it, if for anything other than his own hands having hold her. The feeling of her thin arms, the weight of her beautiful eyes looking at him, eyes that were so different from those on his memory, and yet could not be anyone else's.
It was her. It really was.
"Dammit!" he screamed, brus.h.i.+ng his arms over a nightstand and throwing everything on the grown, ceramic, gla.s.s, chinaware, everything broke down on pieces at his feet, only increasing the fire burning behind his dark, dangerous eyes.
He had asked.
When his father sent him to the camp, with the pitiful excuse of making him bond with his army and enhance the Empire's strength, Geng Xin had wanted to laugh. Anyone would be able to tell the Emperor's reasoning. His engagement had just been made official, but the Imperial City's gossip mill was still hot with whispers and tales about his secret meetings with the Jiang girl.
His goal was to keep them two apart. And he almost succeeded, in a most definite way.
At first, he had laughed. To think the old man thought he could keep them apart was such a ridiculous idea that he brushed it aside with ease and conceded to travel most graciously.
Apparently, he had underestimated the situation.
'The only thing more dangerous than a greedy men, is a greedy woman', his maternal uncle used to say, with a faraway look in his old, yellowish eyes.
But the man had got it wrong. All of them had. There was something worst than greed. Even more dangerous and unpredictable.
A variable that hid itself in plain sight, so that when anyone noticed, it would be far too lat to act.
He never saw the jealousy on Tong Zhi Ruo's eyes. He saw her greed, her envy at his time, her need for power and callous treatment of anyone beneath her.
Now he understood, he saw only what she had wanted him to see, nothing else. She showed him a reflex of his own needs, desires and flaws. That's why the prince never cared to look deeper.
That one oversight almost cost Ying Yue's life.
When the news of her 'death' reached him, he had wanted to rush back, too see her at any cost, to prove everyone else wrong...!
But it would mean disobeying a royal decree. It would mean exposing himself far too soon, and jeopardizing everything he had been working for his entire life.
Geng Xin could not, would not, risk his position now. Not after everything he had to endure just to be nominated the Crown Prince. He knew Ying Yue would understand him, she always did.
She saw the darkness on his soul and matched it. She was his partner, the one he turned to talk to whenever the weight of his choices tried to burry him. There was never kindness on the young girl's eyes. But there was acceptance and, even more important, there was loyalty.
So he mourned in silence. He let his heart die slowly, turning colder and colder as the days went by.
Every few days, though, Geng Xin would succ.u.mb to his grief and ask his Fourth brother about the Jiang family. But the answer was always the same.
"There were no words from the Capital. I'm sorry, brother".
And then, one day, he too had disappeared, living behind only the notice that General He had received a secret decree urging him back to the Imperial City.
The Crown Prince had feared the worst then. His blood turned cold as images of the Emperor finding out everything and making arrangements to have him arrested as soon as he stepped foot on the capital flooded his mind.
Geng Xin had tried contacting all his allies on the court, his spies and even some long-time friends
As far as everyone knew, General He himself was still back on the war camp.
That particular information gave him pause. But it was what he read next that made him finally reach a decision.
'You wouldn't know, of course, but the most amusing thing happened while you are away' one of his friends had written 'it seem's that the youngest Jiang girl has finally lost her wits. There has been talk all around the city about her crazy antics. I...'.
He hadn't bothered reading anything else.
As far as reasoning was concerned, Geng Xin had the motive, he had the perfect excuse to go back: see what moves was his brother taking.
But deep inside, burrowed under tons of brick walls and frosted ice, his heart was beating a bit faster.
'Could it be true?' the question hung in the air around him throughout the journey back 'Could it be she really is alive?'.
He didn't care what anyone else thought. If she really was crazy, if she was hurt. Nothing mattered anymore, not at that point. She was alive. And, for some reason he didn't want to look too close into, it was enough for him.
The Crown Prince sighed, closing his eyes and falling against a wall in a defeated position. There was no point in relieving all the h.e.l.l he'd bee through those last two months. Now that he was back, that the first move had been made, it was once again time to plan.
It would put things into motion sooner than was his wish... But there was no helping it now. At least, not right now. It would all depend on the conversation he was sure his father would want to have with him.
After all, coming back to the Capital City uninvited was still a crime.
There was a knock on the door.
"I said I want to be alone!" he screamed, his eyes burning at the direction of the intruder.
Completely disregarding his words, General He walks slowly through the door, his eyes hard as the metal of his sword as the men took his time apprising the destruction on the room before turning to look at his older brother.
A disgusted frown etched itself on his face, turning the tip of his lips slightly down.
"Still so fast to take your anger on everything around you" he said with an annoyed undertone to his voice "Imperial Father is not happy. You should have stayed on the camp, brother."
The anger boiling inside Geng Xin seemed to reach a new high as he watched his Fourth Bother, his eyes seeing read as he slowly got up.
"Impudent!" he seethed venomously "General He, are you trying to rebel? Don't you consider me anymore the Crown Prince?"
The General raised a singe brow, seemingly imune to the hidden threat on the other man's words.
"Your Highness, Crown Prince" he bowed his head slightly, completely unfazed.
"Won't you bow?" Geng Xin sneered, nearing him slowly, like a snake rounding his pray.
General He only blinked at him, his eyes s.h.i.+ning a bit darker than before the only sign that his patience, even though running under a tight leach, was coming to an end.
"Do you still consider yourself the Crown Prince?" he accused in a low, steady, almost detached voice "What where you thinking? Fighting on the street? Clinging to a n.o.ble woman like she was a street harl..."
"Don't you dare talk about her!" he cut on a forceful tone, clutching his brother's clothes near the neck on a tight grip, bringing his face at a hair distance from his "This is my business! Stay out of it" he warned on a dangerous voice.
The temperature on the room seemed to drop even more, making even the air stand still.
"Your business?" the General repeated in a condescending tone "When you decide to act like a stupid street urchin and put the Family's honor at stake, it is not only your business anymore, brother !" the Crown Prince only lifted a bored eyebrow at his words, the General's eyes becoming harder with the taunting.
"Did you think, for even a second, about all the people that witnessed your little stunt ? Don't you care they had to lose their lives in exchange for their silence? For your honor?"
The fist came fast, so fast that the General was not fast enough to avoid it before his chin exploded in pain and his back hit the hard, shards-covered floor.
"I won't warn you again, little brother, so listen carefully" the Crown Prince warned in a very low voice "Stay out of my business. Or else, next time, I won't be so considerate of our brotherly ties".
The General slowly got up, his eyes bright with a feverish anger he was fighting to contain.
The sudden shatter on his brother's otherwise impenetrable armor brought a smug smile to Geng Xin's lips.
"The Jiang girl... If you still want to keep this t.i.tle, you'll leave her alone"
"She is mine" the older cut, his jaw clenched, teeth grinding "It's not up to you to decide what I do".
Before any of them could say anything else, there was another nock on the door, just before Geng Xin's aide entered, his trained, hawk like eyes scanning the place as if in search of any hidden dangers before walking fast to his employer.
"Master, it's time" he whispered at his ear, sanding a murderous glance at the General's direction now and them "The Emperor's Eunuch has come. Your Majesty wants to talk to you on his study now".
The Crown Prince only nodded, turning a now-bored glance at his brother.
"It seems father finally decided to see me" he explained, indicating for his aide to leave before him "it seems I won't be able to keep entertaining you anymore, Fourth Brother" he pointed at the the door with mocking solicitude "After you".
General He just stood still for a few seconds, studying the other men's face as if trying to find something there.
Finally, he sighed.
"You should not mention her" he warned, turning his back and leaving "Father is not happy right now."
Geng Xin scoffed.
"I know how to deal with him" he murmured, not missing the fact that his brother didn't bow before leaving, as it was expected from every other Prince on the Imperial Family when facing the Heir to the throne.
His eyes turned cold once more.
He would make him bow… He would put the world at his feet. And then stand aside and watch while it burned.