CHINESE ARYA STARK meets THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.
*A Wattpad Featured story*
When everyone wears a mask, who do you trust?
In the unforgiving empire of Erden where the Imperials reign supreme, Sarna is a slave. After escaping the brothel where a m...
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"None can escape the justice of the High Immortals, just as none can break a promise. Can Nü was found dead, wrapped around the very horse she promised to marry and later skinned, and hung from a tree."
The Silk Lady—The Tome of Evil
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The sun was a harsh, unforgiving mirror in the sky. Wanru and I were given a set of white shirts and pants to change into, then clamped in chains before we were carted off toward the plain where the trial would take place. They removed my pins and my jewelry, but I'd hidden my scalpel and faces underneath my shirt as I changed.
The steely calmness I felt last night was still there, a cold bursting in my veins.
Protect Wanru. Kill the wolves. I could do this. I was half-Immortal. I had been through Eighteen Hells and back. There was nothing I couldn't do.
Those words were a battle cry in my head, growing louder and louder.
As we were led past the platform, the nobles jeered at me. Commoners weren't allowed to be present at my trial, for I was considered a member of the Imperial household, being Wulin's fiancée. Under the scrutinization and disgust of the nobles, I finally understood how Biyu felt when he was paraded like a freak through the streets. Wanru shrunk as curses bounced off us, and she tightened her grip on my arm.
Wulin was dressed in his usual black, but Shila was covered from head to toe in the heaviest jewelry and silkware. She glittered like insect carapaces left out in the sun. I scoffed. She wanted to look her very best when the wolves tore me to shreds.
There was a possibility that Shila poisoned herself. She was sent by her father to Erden as a political prisoner dressed in jewelry and silk with the goal of reigning as Empress, but I'd barged into her life like a Yaoguai and shattered that dream. I was the thorn in her eye, and if I was Shila, I too would get rid of whatever was in my way.
After all, I had agreed to murder the crown prince for my theater.
Bowen was sitting behind Wulin, hands on laps, and his face was pulled down into a frown. Wulin was standing next to Shila near the wooden railings, looking even grimmer.
Next to Wulin and Shila were two quivers containing three arrows each. Both Imperials clutched a longbow in their hands.
Roughly twenty men stood on the raised wooden platform, all of them here to speculate our death.
My eyes fell on the rectangular pen. It was made from barbed wires which stretched wide, tall, and long. The sides were taller higher than I was, presumably so that the wolves wouldn't be able to jump out. On the opposite ends were wooden gates—one which we would enter, and the other which we would exit if we even made it that far. In the middle was a large metal cage filled with three growling, snarling wolves. Cramped within the cage, the wolves howled and screamed, clawing at the bars and the ground, begging to be released.
