Kingdom of Moutan 

The Past: 5^th Year of Tianji: Spring, 1461

“Your Highness, this is a terrible idea,” Feiyan sighed, crouching next to the nine-year-old Crown Prince on a high balcony.

Crown Prince Feiyu had then been known as Iseulbi, and more affectionately known to Feiyan as ‘Bi.’ Standing beside her, he made a scoffing noise, his face alight with laughter.

“Why do you have to spoil my mood, Xiao Yan?” he huffed in exasperation. “No one will notice us here and it will give us a perfect view of the mighty Prince of Shobu and his entourage as he parades into the city…in all his stunning glory…” Prince Bi added, his voice quietly dripping with an equal mix of contempt and awe.

Feiyan smothered a snort and then sighed again.

“I’m your body double and a Shadow guard. Of course, I’m worried,” she said.

“Do you think I’d take you into the city alone? Haruka and Xing are somewhere here too. They won’t let anything happen.”

“Forget it…” she muttered to herself, softening to the pleased expression on his face. To the Prince she said: “Just remember, if they catch us and I am caned for it, you owe me one hundred gold, and I get to eat all your pastries for the entire week.”

“It’s a deal,” the Prince chortled. “A’Yan, why do you put up such a fuss when you cave in so easily…and for sweets…”

He grinned at her and then reached out to poke her affectionately in the cheek.

She groaned internally already hearing in her head what the older Shadows would say later.

“The gold is for bribes, your Highness. If I have to be caned, at least if I bribe him in advance, your eunuch won’t hit me so hard…the sweets are for my pride…” she mumbled, colouring.

The Prince laughed in her face, then he sobered.

“Mu Feiyan…I’m happiest when it’s just us,” he said, only just loud enough for her to hear above the noise of the cheering crowd lining the broad avenue below.

Feeling a deep rush of affection for her Prince, Feiyan grabbed him and squeezed her arms around him until he yelped and hit his fist on her back.

“Stop it! Look, he’s coming!” Prince Bi yelled in her ear over the roar, still whacking her. “That idiot…war horns…he is being heralded by war horns…”

Feiyan swatted him back one last time for good measure and turned her attention down to the procession below them. Riding at the very front, flanked by two guards, the young Crown Prince of Shobu, Prince Seiren, waved to the crowd from atop a huge black horse. 

Having just gone through his adult naming ceremony, seventeen year old Prince Seiren was the flower of Shoban youth. Dazzling as the sun, with his long, dark hair pulled up into a high ponytail, he wore a cheerful red headband tied over his handsome forehead, accentuating the brilliant blue of his eyes. 

However, both Feiyan and Iseulbi frowned when they saw that a chest plate had been pulled over the beautiful geometrically patterned dark blue robe. Moreover, the red outer cloak with its golden tassels did nothing to disguise the wide armoured belt and thigh guards that partially covered the loose, pleated trousers. Paired swords thrust up from the side through his sword belt.

“How dare he!” seethed Prince Bi. “Wearing armour to meet his fiancée! He is looking down on Moutan with this display!”

Prince Bi’s lips were pulled back into a snarl.

“Perhaps, but his Majesty will only pass it off as youthful posturing. Prince Seiren does not have the same aggressive reputation as his father, and his Majesty will not take offense to a little armour on a seventeen-year-old boy. Although his advisors may have counselled this display, I doubt that Prince Seiren went along with it that willingly…” said Haruka from the Prince’s other side. “I heard that he was against the idea of a full-scale parade.”

“He’s not stupid then. Exposed in the street like this, the armour might protect his life…but he’s not wearing a helmet. Anyone who has a grudge would take this opportunity to kill him. As far as I know, not everyone in Shobu is happy that he is Crown Prince,” observed Xing.

“How long have you both been standing there?” grumbled Feiyan, glaring at the teenage girl and boy who were now lounging against the railing on either side of them.

“Grow ears,” said Xing, hitting her in the back of the head. “If it wasn’t us, you’d be dead already. Idiot…”

Although he was admonishing her, Feiyan realized from his tone that he was hiding a grin under his mask.

“Well,” said Haruka, folding her arms over her buxom chest. “He’s certainly pretty…makes a girl’s heartbeat quicker.”

Xing made a face hot with jealousy.

Feiyan rolled her eyes and reached out to cover her Prince’s ears.

“Would you f---?”

“Feiyan! Who is teaching you such dirty language?” Haruka cried in horror, clapping a hand over her junior’s mouth.

“It’s probably Xia…” groaned Xing, covering Feiyan’s ears. “He seduced some poor fop the other day…and robbed him blind…”

Haruka made a face beneath her mask.

“What are you talking about?” Feiyan demanded, trying to pry Xing’s hands off her head.

Prince Bi puffed with laughter, swatting away Feiyan’s hands.

“Don’t speak like that to your seniors!” scolded Haruka, taking Xing’s hands off the other girl’s ears. “If Xia wasn’t so talented, Lord Mu might have been angered to death…”

Xing grunted.

“He’s nothing more than a clever thief…” he said with a shake of his head.

“Shijie…you didn’t answer m-Mmph!”

“Be silent,” Haruka snapped, stuffing a pastry into Feiyan’s mouth. “If you say another bad word, I’ll report to your Father that you and the Prince snuck out.”

“Ha!” Feiyan grinned, talking around the mouthful of flakey red bean pastry. “Yes, but can you bear the responsibility for losing us in the first place?”

“Feiyan-ah…you really have a bad personality…” said Xing, glancing over his shoulder, eyes alight with laughter.

Prince Bi grinned.

“She does, but don’t scold her. Where’s my pastry, Haru?”

Haruka smiled then, drawing another pastry from the hidden pouch at her waist.

For a moment the four of them simply munched their pastries and watched the colourful banners go by. To someone looking up, they would have seemed like any other children enjoying the parade, but in truth there was nothing childlike about any of them – three were trained fighters and the fourth was a bird momentarily escaped from its golden cage.

“Who is that?” the Prince frowned, pointing to a blond-haired boy on a smaller horse a bit back from the Prince.

“Must be his page…” said Xing, distracted. His gaze was scanning elsewhere, neck prickling.

Wait…!

“Feiyan!” cried Haruka as the small girl launched herself off the balcony.

“Xing! Go! Go! Haruka: guard the Prince!” Fei yelled back over shoulder as she tapped down into the street below, startling a woman and her daughter.

“Shit!” muttered Xing hopping onto the railing. He jerked his head at Haruka who drew out a sickle moon blade from the holder concealed under her shirt and grabbed the Prince’s arm.

“Your Highness, we must go back to the palace. Now,” said Haruka with urgency.

“Why, what is it?” the Prince demanded, watching as Fei slipped into the crowd.

“It’s as I said. Not everyone is happy that Seiren is Crown Prince of Shobu…” said Xing grimly, flashing a bronze mirror towards the palace, barely waiting for the answering flash, before launching off the balcony. Hitting the street with a puff of dust, he sprinted off in a different direction than Feiyan.

Further down the street, slipping between bodies and legs, Fei moved as quickly as she could, while the hair stood up on the back of her neck. Like the other Shadows, she had felt, more than seen the presence that indicated an attempt was just about to be made on Prince Seiren’s life. Even though Feiyan was nine, she had been tutored by Lord Mu since before she could talk, and she understood that an attempt of the Prince’s life in Moutan would mean war. There was no time to try to find the assailant even though Xing had read her mind and gone in that direction. What needed to happen now was to ensure that Moutan would not be blamed…and that meant saving Shobu’s prince...at any cost.

Squeezing out from behind the last person at the front, ignoring the shout as they tried to cuff her, she slid into the roadway just in front of the Crown Prince’s horse. Spooked, it reared up, neighing with whitened eyes, causing the Prince to stand in the stirrups, trying to pull at the reins as he fought to yank the stallion’s head back down. People screamed as they tried to back out of the way, but the crowd was too tightly packed. The street became chaotic as the crowd panicked.

Before anyone could react, Fei rolled under the stomping hooves, hooked her fingers in the leather of the saddle strap and flipped herself upwards, throwing her knives to deflect the sudden spray of arrows.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

“Y-You-!” the Prince gaped at her, as she landed in an awkward crouch on the horse’s rump. Using the fact that he was still off balance on the rearing horse, she grabbed the back of his collar with both hands and shoved him over sideways, pushing him away from the second volley. The horse shrieked as arrows thudded into the saddle where the Prince had just been. 

“Keugh!” he grunted as they tumbled into the roadway. Rolling up onto her feet, Feiyan staggered.

“To me! To me!” she shrieked at his stunned guards. “Protect your Prince!”

Prince Seiren yelled something that Feiyan did not catch, whipping his terrified gaze back towards his men as his horse screamed in agony.

Wounded by the arrows, the Prince’s horse kicked out its hind legs, trying to get away from the terrifying pain in its haunches and back where the arrows had pierced it. In the commotion that had followed the first volley, Feiyan saw that the Prince’s young page had been unseated and he was lying on the ground holding his shoulder and staring up in horror at the huge animal’s hooves thrashing above him.

Running on sheer adrenaline, Feiyan reacted without thinking, springing forward to throw herself over him.

“ARGH!” she screamed as she smashed into the boy just as the great hooves descended with a sickening crunch.

When someone asked her years later what she remembered of the incident, she would shake her head and say that she only recalled up to the moment when she had shoved Prince Seiren out of the saddle, saving him from the arrows. Even if someone had told her later about the quirk of fate that made her save the Prince’s blond-haired page, she would have laughed it off.