Chapter 3

At sunrise the prince left our empire with his servants, news had already travelled all over Minao that the crown prince was engaged to a crown princess of Xinjiang and sooner rather than later our two empires will be joined up by blood to form one powerful empire which won't be weak to invasions by other empires.

Apart from our two neighboring kingdoms there were other kingdoms which Xinjiang had been to war with. My grandfather was not a man who could be threatened or taken advantage with and whenever other kingdoms attacked us, he was able to attack back and always won the war. That's why we weren't in such good terms with other kingdoms apart from Minao.

I woke up as usual inside my cave, only this time there were two female servants on my doorway. I asked them what did they want at such early morning and only to find out they had proper instructions to prepare me for the upcoming wedding ceremony. I kicked them out and told them to come back later, although I wished they would never come back again.

His majesty, my father had gone hunting with his warriors hence there were just few men left to guide the kingdom and guide women who were busy doing their day to day activities like cooking and making herbs from trees. In our empire, all women after they get married they are supposed to know medicines of all kinds so that to nurse the children and take of their men if they fell ill. I knew from the first day that I didn't want that kind of life for myself, to just sit at home and learn medicines, having babies and be a good wife.

When I walked outside it was foggy as usual we could barely see one another, I tried to breath out and small clouds of cold air came out and at that instant I knew I was freezing even with my heavy fur coat which covered me. "Princess…" I heard a voice coming from a small thickets of bushes covered in snow just beside me.

  "Who is it?" I asked nervously.

  "It's me, Lee…"

  "Lee? Wha…what are you doing here, aren't you supposed to be hunting?" I asked, and that's because all men had gone hunting, why didn't he go with them?

  "Yes but I didn't go"

I walked to him, and he pulled me to the bushes so no one can see him or me talking to him. He was still holding the fruit which he claimed it must come from the warm land.

  "What is going on?" I asked him after seeing how excited he was as if he had just found something out.

  "The man that I told you about. He's from the warm land"

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes and he came from there…" He said and then got up, he pointed West. I stood up to see where he pointed but there was nothing other than fog and trees. We stood there for a while looking at the direction but to see nothing.

  "How did you know he came from that direction?" I asked him.

  "Kimjong revealed it to me last night. He said the warriors killed him, they feared he was a warlock and he may have cursed our land"

  "They killed him?"

  "Yes, took off his head. Then burn the body to ashes"

I released two deep breaths which I didn't even know that I was holding at that moment, then I asked Lee questions after questions about how did the man look like. What could he have said that made our warriors fear him to the point they had to chop off his head and Lee said that he looked "warm" and I didn't even know what warm was like. How does a human become warm?

After sometime, I turned to Lee and said "Maybe we can go to the warm land, follow the lead to where he came from" and Lee looked at me as if I was crazy. I can't blame him; anyone would have looked at me the same, I sounded insane even for a young warrior like him.

  "No! Princess, running away from home? From your kingdom, the gods will curse us. His sire will look for us and we will be punished"

  "We can hide, think about it Lee if we find the warm land. We can come back and take our people or learn how to make our kingdom warm too. If I am to be Queen of Xinjiang, then I must make a sacrifice for my people"

  "But you are not Queen yet! That's his majesty task…" Lee said to me, he wasn't into my craziness and he showed it to me as he made his way to the forest. I didn't want to lose the argument; I knew I had to find a way to escape the arranged marriage to the stupid prince that my parents had planned for me.

  "Lee listen, I have to…" I said trying to keep up with his steps, he suddenly grabbed his attention to me and asked "Why?"

  "Because I can't marry him"

  "Prince Yunshan is a good man. And you are a princess"

  "I don't want him" I screamed. 

He kept talking about gods and curses, how we will die before reaching the warm lands because of His Majesty's curse and the horror I will bring to my parents if I left Xinjiang. He didn't understand, and I didn't expect him to.

He was a man with countless opportunities and choices while I, a woman bounded to one choice and that was to get married and be a good wife.

I had to do something, I had to break the chain and as far as I looked at my kingdom, if I didn't do it then no one would. My passion and desire for adventure was just on the other side of my fear, it was either I stayed and get married or escape and find myself.

  "If you won't come with me then don't reveal my whereabouts, to His Majesty. I shall flee first thing at dark" I said to Lee, meaning every word I had just said and there was no coming back from that.

  "Mingzhu this is stupid! And utterly dangerous, you are the heir of Xinjiang. Great Imperial daughter, what will be of our…"

  "I would remind you who you are talking to" I shouted. "I am your princess and you will not talk to me like I am a commoner, I am to be your Queen. I am not out of the circle I am at the center of it, your fate lies with me. Choose your next words very careful Lee Qiang"

Lee grew silent, he knew he had gone too far with his stupid resistance against my decisions so he knelt down and kissed my feet. "Sire…" He said quietly and I made my way to my cave leaving him behind.

When I got inside my cave, I realized I had just made the most terrifying decision in my life. The choice to flee from home while I had never travelled anywhere far from my kingdom before other than to Minao when I was five, but since then I've been to nowhere. Women of Xinjiang Empire were banned from making such long walks far from the kingdom with fear of being lost and freeze to death in the middle of nowhere with no one to help them.

I remembered my mother's bed time stories where she would tell tales about a lost woman who wondered in the woods for over a week trying to find her people. There was a storm and it was huge and there was neither a cave nor a person she could ask for directions, while the wind blew hard she couldn't see what was in front of her. Her lips were dry and cracked, eyes red and her fabric cover had snow all over as she desperately tried to make it out of the woods.

As the wind kept blowing, her steps became slower and weaker. She couldn't move anymore and when she fell down, her soul left her body slowly and the legend has it she was cursed by the gods for fleeing her village. "Will that also happen to me?" I asked myself as I walked around my cave holding my waist and having second thoughts about leaving. I was scared but I knew it was all I needed to do at that time, because if not then I would wed the prince who I never liked and then I had thoughts about my grandfather, his majesty King Wanglei.

I knew my grandfather would've approved the idea of my departure to find the warm land, for he was an explorer himself. Hence I barged out of my cave, covered my head with my heavy fabric and walked to my father's sacred grounds where all the Kings ashes were laid. I needed my grandfather's blessings, good thing I didn't find anyone present so I sat down and closed my eyes knowing it would be the last memory I'll ever have of home.