The Princess Weiyoung: Out of The Darkness

Prologue: In Darkness

Tuoba Yu glanced around the dusty room, and realised that he and Weiyoung had made a big mistake. This was not the best place to hide from a handful of Liu Song soldiers. He turned back towards the entrance way, and leaned against the door frame. Burning ribbons of pain were rippling out from the place where an enemy arrow had pierced his shoulder. The burning made him feel feverish.

Soon it would be harder to keep a clear head. His sword clattered as the blade's tip trailed along the floor. Tuoba Yu let it. Best conserve his energy for later: he and Weiyoung would need to keep moving forward until the soldiers were forced to drop back. Hopefully that would not be too long as soldiers like that wouldn't have supplies on them, and would soon be forced to re-join the rest of the troops. Tuoba Yu turned back to Weiyoung.

"This place isn't ideal. Let's move on." He said lightly, hoping that she hadn't noticed the wardrobe, or rather, what was behind the wardrobe.

She stepped towards him, ready to move on. From the far side of the house's external wall a soldier's voice called out.

"Traces of blood here. They should be close by! Quickly!"

Steeling himself for a bitter fight, Tuoba Yu started to step forwards to meet them. He distantly registered a wooden creak behind him before Weiyoung's voice cut through his thoughts.

"I've found somewhere to hide! Quickly!"

So she had found the entrance to the semi-hidden room behind the heavy wardrobe. The thought of cowering like a wounded animal in the darkness, waiting for the enemy soldiers to leave caused a different sort of feverish pain to break out in the rest of Tuoba Yu's body.

Weiyoung had stopped trying to push the wardrobe and turned to face him, fear etched across her normally preternaturally calm face.

"What are you waiting for? Do you want to die?" She hissed angrily at him.

At this moment, death seemed preferable to the alternative but Tuoba Yu was not about to reveal his deepest fears to anyone, least of all one of his pawns. With an anguished grunt, he pushed himself away from the wall and helped her to move the wardrobe so that they could get inside the room.

A small window was set impossibly high in the wall. 

At least there's light. 

He feebly tried to reassure himself. His footsteps stirred up small piles of dust from the rushes on the floor. The dust made the air suffocatingly heavy, just like another room he wished he could forget.

A cloud passed over the sun, and the thin sunbeam that threw the room into a dingy half-light winked out. In a heartbeat, the darkness surrounded and smothered him. The feverish pain had spread to his mind now, clouding his thoughts. Without warning, he was reliving the worst scenes from his childhood.

Consort Lu had used any excuse to have him locked him in the dark room for as long as she saw fit. Tuoba Yu wanted to scream to be let out, but knew that would only make things worse for him later. Consort Lu had insisted that the eunuchs beat Tuoba Yu once for every plea to be let out, twice for every time he cried.

Maybe I can break out this time. 

Tuoba Yu thought as his attention was drawn back to the present day. He rushed to the thin crack of light that crept in where the wardrobe did not fully cover the doorway. A sword glinted in a soldier's hand from the next room, and Tuoba Yu crept away from it to a far corner where he could curl up and try to hide from the dark. There were only so many fronts a man could fight on at one time.

One way or another, I am going to die here today.

He told himself as his heart pounded so hard that he felt it would explode.