The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis-Chapter 389: The Reincarnation of Li Xuejian (Part 1)

"Trust me, and I’ll give you the world," she whispered, her warm breath in the winter room. "All of it. Just take my hand, and I will make sure that you never face any threat to your position as the Crown Prince."

The hand in his tightened on reflex right before memory slammed into his head like ice crashing against the shore.

Li Xuejian opened his eyes.

Not slowly. Not with softness.

He snapped awake to a room he knew well and a voice he knew better. Before the rest of him could catch up, he wrenched his fingers free and struck Bai Yuyan hard enough that her cheek bloomed red against her white skin.

She staggered back a few steps, hand to her face, eyes wide with something between hurt and calculation.

She had the same prettiness. The same tilt to the mouth. The same certainty she could sell him the same future.

Only this time, he wasn’t dumb enough to listen.

"Guards," he said, flat.

The doors opened at once. Two men in Baiguang green stepped in, startled by the hour, the sound, and the fact that the Crown Prince was bare from the waist up and already tying his sash with hands that shook from fury, not sleep.

"Take her out," Li Xuejian said.

Yuyan recovered her poise like a silk veil lifted from a nail.

"Darling," she began, already rearranging herself into sorrow, into patience, into that bright promise she had used like a blade in the last life. "You’re feverish. You don’t mean—"

"Leave her outside the gate of the city," he continued, his voice harsh, not looking at her anymore. "If she returns, break her legs and carry her to the north road. Drop her there."

"Your Highness," one guard ventured carefully, "it is—"

"Winter," Li Xuejian finished. "I noticed." He pulled on his outer robe. "Do as I say."

Yuyan’s mask cracked at last. The eyes went sharp and small. "You don’t know anything," she hissed, too low for the world but not for him. "You only think you do. Without me, you will be dead within three years."

He looked at her then. He let her see nothing but a cold, clean hatred that had learned its lesson once and did not intend to repeat it.

"With you, I’ll be dead in one," he sneered, stepping away from her.

They took her, the Crown Princess of Baiguang.

She didn’t beg.

She only stared at him over a guard’s shoulder as the doors swallowed her.

The snow gusted in through the brief gap, flurried across the rug, melted where it touched the coals. He didn’t watch her go. He didn’t need the sight of it. The sound of the outer doors closing again was enough.

He was already moving, knotting the last tie, shrugging into fur, crossing the mosaic that chilled his feet through the soles of his boots.

A servant stumbled awake in the corridor. Another flattened to the wall. A third opened her mouth and closed it when she saw his face.

He took the west stair two at a time and threw his weight into the mirrored doors of the audience hall.

Gold and lacquer, cold and echo, the throne on its dais flanked by screens painted with cranes that would fly forever and know nothing.

The King and Queen of Baiguang held court at all hours because they liked the sound of themselves in large rooms. Now they were alone but for two senior attendants, two braziers, and the heavy rug they refused to replace because his mother liked the feel of it under her shoes.

"Xuejian?" the Queen said, startled first by the hour, then by the snow glittering on his shoulders. "What—"

"Send an envoy to Daiyu," Li Xuejian said, not wasting a bow. "Today. Ten-year treaty minimum. Prefer twenty. Language: non-aggression, open trade on their terms, respect of borders, no support to Yelan or any mountain clans. I’ll draft it. You put your seals on it."

Silence reached up from the floor and held the room by the throat. One of the attendants flinched like a dog who knew where kicks came from.

His father’s eyes narrowed. "Have you been drinking?"

"No." He crossed the hall until he stood within range of the dais steps but not at their foot.

That old habit—never closer than a blade’s length from the King—was from another life and fit him too well to discard. "I’ve been thinking. A year from now we will wish this had been done tonight."

The Queen’s mouth went thin with offense. "What nonsense is this? Daiyu is weak, their Emperor addled. Their court is a nest of old men. Why would Baiguang bow—"

"Because we don’t have to bow," he said, already tired of the dance, "we only have to avoid being looked at."

His father’s laugh was one short bark. "Afraid of being seen? Have you grown a coward in your bed? You are Crown Prince of Baiguang. You do not ask for peace like a beggar. You take what you want when the banquet is served."

Li Xuejian stepped another half pace closer and met the King’s eyes as if the cold in the hall were a distance to cross, not a weapon.

He thought of a girl in a mountain house, a winter with teeth, a man named Zhu burning his way through bad history.

He thought of the way the world had ended for Baiguang once—in blood and smoke and a woman’s hand on his and a promise that had never been meant for him.

"You made me your heir," he said. "Trust that I have the best interests of my people."

The Queen sat up straight as a drawn bow. "Mind your tone."

"I’ll mind it after you hear me." He let his hands hang open at his sides to keep them from balling into fists.

"We do not raid the southern border this year. We do not ride to the mountain passes to remind the clans they are small. We do not whisper in Yelan’s ear and pretend we didn’t. We do not go looking for anything that can look back. I am asking for ten quiet years. Give me one if you cannot stomach ten. I will make you gold from quiet. I will make you power from not bleeding. But for now, send the envoy and keep our name out of Daiyu’s mouth."