The Masked Prince

The carriage jolted again. Something heavy slammed against its side. Aiko crawled toward the opposite bench as a blade ripped through the curtain. Cold air rushed in, carrying the smell of rain, crushed cedar, and blood.

A masked figure stood beyond the torn silk.

Not one of the escort. He wore dark clothes fitted close to his body, a gray scarf covering the lower half of his face, and a narrow sword in his hand. Rain silvered the strands of hair at his temples. His eyes found hers through the opening - black, steady, and startlingly alive amid the chaos.

“Princess Aiko?”

She seized the small knife hidden in her sleeve. “You know my name.”

“I know where they are taking you.”

“That is not an answer.”

A shout rose behind him. The masked man turned, struck at something outside, and moved with such swift precision that Aiko saw only the flash of steel and a body collapsing into the mud.

He looked back. “If you stay in this carriage, you will be taken by the men who began this attack.”

“You expect me to trust the man who broke into my prison?”

“I expect you to choose the danger you can survive.”

His voice was low, unhurried. It irritated her more than the shouting. He spoke as though her life were a problem already measured and solved.

Aiko tightened her grip on the knife. “Who are you?”

“Someone offering you a way out.”

Another arrow struck the carriage. The wood groaned. A horse reared, and the entire vehicle tilted toward the ravine.

The masked man reached inside.

Aiko slashed.

He caught her wrist before the blade touched him. His gloved fingers closed around her with firm restraint, not crushing, not careless. His gaze dropped to the knife, then returned to her face.

“If I meant to harm you,” he said, “you would not still be holding that.”

“Release me.”

He did so at once.

The obedience unsettled her more than resistance would have. Aiko pulled the knife against her chest. Outside, Captain Mori shouted her name, but his voice was distant now, drowned by the roar of the river below.

The masked man extended his hand again. “Now.”

Aiko glanced toward the torn curtain. Through the rain, she saw two guards fall beneath arrows. A third fled uphill, abandoning the carriage. The men attacking the convoy wore no crest. Some carried curved blades; others wore the blue cords of Liang soldiers.

The convoy had not been attacked by bandits.

Someone wanted her lost between kingdoms.

Aiko placed the knife at the masked man’s throat instead of taking his hand. “If you are Liang, I will kill you before I let you deliver me.”

His eyes narrowed, not in anger but in consideration. “Then keep the knife ready.”

He stepped backward, giving her room to climb out.

The carriage rocked again. Aiko seized the doorframe and lowered herself into the mud. Her silk hem soaked through instantly. The ravine was narrower than she had imagined, its walls rising steep and black on either side. Cedar roots twisted across the road. The river foamed below, swollen with mountain rain.

Captain Mori lay near the lead wagon, one hand pressed to his side. He saw her and tried to stand.

“Princess - run uphill!”

An attacker came from behind him.

Aiko started forward, but the masked man moved first. He crossed the distance in a blur, caught the attacker’s wrist, and drove him against the wagon. The man’s sword clattered into the mud. Aiko saw the masked stranger’s shoulder strain beneath his dark coat, saw the controlled breath that followed, and felt an unwanted flicker of wonder.

Then he looked at her.

“Up the ravine,” he ordered.

She hated the command. She obeyed anyway.

Aiko ran.

Rain slicked the stones beneath her sandals. Her formal robes dragged at her legs, heavy with water, while the ravine twisted ahead into a wall of cedar trunks. Behind her, steel rang against steel. Men shouted in a language she knew only from court interpreters. She heard the masked man follow, his footfalls quieter than hers.

A branch caught her sleeve. She tore free, leaving a strip of silk behind.

“Left,” he called.

“There is no path.”

“There is.”

“Then find it yourself.”

Aiko veered right.

The ground vanished beneath her foot.

She cried out as the slope gave way. Mud and stones slid toward the river. Her fingers caught a cedar root, but her body swung over the drop. Below, white water struck the rocks with a sound like breaking pottery.

The masked man seized her around the waist.

For one breath, she hung between his strength and the river.

His arm locked beneath her ribs. His chest pressed against her back, warm even through wet cloth. She felt his breath against her ear.

“Do not move.”

“I had not planned to fall.”

“Your plans are poor.”

She twisted to glare at him. His face was inches from hers, the gray mask damp against his skin. “You have known me less than a minute.”

“And already you have ignored two instructions.”

“Perhaps your instructions are poor.”

Something changed in his eyes. Not amusement exactly. Recognition, perhaps - the reluctant acknowledgment of an equal opponent.

He pulled her upward. Aiko’s knee struck the slope, then his hand slid from her waist to her forearm, hauling her onto solid ground. She landed against him, palms braced on his chest.

Under the wet cloth, his heart beat hard.

Not the calm stranger’s heart, then. Not entirely.

A whistle sounded below.

The masked man’s attention snapped toward the road. “They are coming.”

Aiko pushed away. “You said this was a way out.”

“It is.”

“You have led me into a ravine with armed men behind us and a river below.”

“I did not lead you here. You chose the wrong side.”

“I am beginning to understand why.”

He looked toward the cedar trees. “Can you walk?”

Her ankle throbbed where she had struck it, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing pain master her. “Yes.”

“Then we move.”

He turned. Aiko caught his sleeve.

He looked down at her hand.

The fabric was rough beneath her fingers, unlike the embroidered silks she had worn all her life. “You will not leave me.”

“No.”

“Because you intend to ransom me?”

“No.”

“Because Liang sent you?”

His silence lasted half a breath too long.

Aiko’s grip tightened. “Answer me.”

“I am not Liang’s servant.”

“That is not the same as saying you are not Liang.”

The masked man’s gaze held hers. Rain ran from his hair to the edge of his mask. “You will have answers when we are beyond the ravine.”

“And if I refuse to go with you?”

“Then the men below will find you.”

“That is not a choice.”

“No,” he said quietly. “It is the truth.”

The bluntness struck deeper than any reassurance could have. Aiko released him.

They climbed through the cedar trees. He went first, testing each patch of earth before signaling her forward. When the slope steepened, he reached back without looking. Twice she ignored his hand. The third time, her injured ankle buckled, and she caught his wrist.

His fingers closed around hers.

He did not pull until she nodded.

The gesture was small, almost nothing. Yet it left her more shaken than the attack. No one had asked her permission since the envoys arrived at her father’s palace. Not when they measured her for the wedding robes. Not when they placed guards outside her chamber. Not when they told her she would be safer in Liang than in her own country.

At the top of the rise stood a ruined shrine, its gate split by lightning. The masked man guided her beneath the broken roof just as voices rose from the ravine.

Aiko leaned against a cedar pillar, trying to quiet her breathing. The stranger crouched before her and examined her ankle.

“Do not touch me.”

He withdrew his hand. “You cannot climb on it.”

“I can.”

“You are bleeding.”

She looked down. A thin line of red ran from beneath her sandal. She had not felt it beneath the fear.

The masked man removed a strip of cloth from inside his sleeve. “May I?”

Aiko studied him. “You ask now.”

“Now you have time to refuse.”

The words settled between them.

She extended her foot.

His hand was careful as he loosened the sandal and wrapped her ankle. He worked with the patience of someone accustomed to wounds, though the sight of his fingers - long, scarred, and unexpectedly gentle - made her pulse misbehave.

“You are a soldier,” she said.

“A fighter.”

“Those are not different things.”

“They are to me.”

“Do you kill for money?”

His hands paused.

Aiko regretted the question before he answered. The pause had revealed more than words.

“I kill when I believe the alternative is worse.”

“That is what every killer says.”

“Yes.”

He tied the cloth and lifted his gaze. “And what does a princess say when she is sent to a kingdom ruled by a man who burns villages that refuse his taxes?”

Aiko’s throat tightened. “She says she will endure.”

“Will you?”

The question was not cruel. That made it harder.

She looked through the broken gate toward the ravine, where smoke from the overturned wagons drifted between the trees. “I have endured every decision made for me.”

“Endurance is not surrender.”

“It is when no one gives you a weapon.”

His eyes lowered to the knife still clenched in her hand.

Aiko swallowed. “My father calls this marriage a treaty. Liang calls it tribute. The guards call me cargo. I am not certain what I am supposed to call myself.”

For the first time, the masked man seemed to lose his answer.

He rose slowly. “You are Aiko.”

“My name is not a kingdom.”

“No.” His voice softened. “It is yours.”

The warmth that moved through her was dangerous. She had known him only since the arrow struck the carriage. He was a stranger with blood on his sword and secrets beneath his mask. Yet he had asked before touching her. He had waited for her nod. He had spoken her name as if it belonged to her and no treaty could take it away.

Below, a branch snapped.

The masked man turned toward the sound. “We leave now.”

Aiko stood, testing her ankle. Pain flared, but it held.

“Where?”

“North. There is a mountain pass beyond the old shrine.”

“And after the pass?”

“You will be safe.”

“Your promises are as poor as your directions.”

His gaze returned to her. “Then make no promise. Walk until you find someone you trust.”

The challenge struck its mark. She looked down at the muddy road visible through the trees. The convoy was gone from sight, but Liang’s soldiers - or the men who wanted her to believe they were Liang’s soldiers - would search the ravine. If she stayed, she would be captured. If she went with him, she placed herself in the hands of a nameless fighter who knew too much about her.

Aiko tucked the knife into her sleeve.

“I will go with you,” she said, “until I decide you are more dangerous than the men below.”

The masked man inclined his head. “That is acceptable.”

“And you will not touch me without permission.”

“Agreed.”

“And you will tell me who you are before we reach the pass.”

His eyes held hers through the gray mask.

“That,” he said, “may not be possible.”

Aiko stepped closer, close enough to see a faint scar crossing the skin beside his eye. “Then I may decide you are dangerous sooner than expected.”

For a moment, neither moved. Rain whispered through the broken roof. His gaze dropped to her mouth and rose again, so quickly she might have imagined it.

Then he offered his hand.

This time, Aiko took it.

His palm closed around hers, warm and steady, and he led her through the ruined gate toward the mountain path. Behind them lay the carriage, the escort, and the marriage arranged in her father’s name.

Ahead waited a stranger whose voice stirred an impossible familiarity.

Aiko did not yet know that the man beneath the mask was Prince Ren of Liang - the husband she had been sent to hate before ever seeing his face.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters and about 12,555 words in the full book.