The Last Dahlia

007

Yuehwa didn't see any sign of Shoya for the next few days, right up till the eve of the sparring championships.

On the eve of the tournament, Yuehwa was sitting in the princess's chambers, popping grape after grape into her mouth. She had just run through a brief plan with the princess (most of it made up within the past couple of minutes), who was now looking pensive as she thought through what she had just been told.

"Are you sure this will work?" the princess asked hesitantly.

"Do you have a better idea?" Yuehwa asked. It was a rhetorical question, because if the princess had some inkling of what to do, she wouldn't have spent hours crying in a corner of her room. The dress that the palace tailors had made especially for the princess's appearance at the tournament was now hanging from its wooden rack, having been brought over personally by Lady Kang's palace maids a while ago.

"What if someone sees through the act? If Father or Lady Kang realise what we're doing, then they'll use it as a reason to ship me off to Gi or Feng on the next available boat!" Princess Naying wailed, her confidence visibly faltering with every passing moment.

Still eating her grapes nonchalantly, Yuehwa replied, "You'll just be watching the tournament from behind a veil because you're not supposed to be publicly showing your face to the rest of the world. If we pull a switch halfway, no one will even realise that you're not you. I'm smart enough to know how to avoid Lady Kang and the king when I need to. Take a good look at all the fellows that are competing and see if anyone catches your fancy. Who knows, maybe you'll end up falling head over heels for one of the two crown princes anyway."

Suddenly, the loud sounds of explosions going off in a distance rang out, almost making Yuehwa choke on one of her grapes. "What the hell was that!" she exclaimed, spitting the grape out of her mouth.

"That's the fireworks," Princess Naying replied miserably, still looking mildly apprehensive about what they were planning to do. "On the eve of the annual sparring championships, the entire capital celebrates with a city-wide street festival, complete with fireworks."

Yuehwa immediately ran out into the front garden, eagerly peering up at the sky. To her dismay, she couldn't see a single thing, even though the sounds of the fireworks were still ringing out.

"You can't see them from here," the princess came out to join her, "I've never seen them either."

"What? You mean you've never been out to see the fireworks?"

Shaking her head, the princess replied, "I'm not allowed to leave the palace grounds. Father says it's not safe out there."

Yuehwa snorted in disapproval, although she was not the least bit surprised. Princesses were typically treated like delicate flowers and assumed to be incapable of withstanding the "harsh" outside environment. Especially for a princess like Naying who was heralded as the most beautiful rose of them all, it was not surprising in the least that the king refused to let her out of his sight.

Grabbing the princess by the arm, she dragged the girl back indoors, saying, "Never been outside the palace before? Well there's always a first time for everything."

#

Disguised in men's outfits, two girls slipped out of the palace masquerading as guards who were running errands on behalf of the princess.

As she watched the palace gates close behind her, Princess Naying's fingers clenched tightly around Yuehwa's arm, beads of sweat seeping through the fabric of the latter's sleeve.

"We still can't get a good view of the fireworks from here," Yuehwa murmured, oblivious to her companion's anxiety. "Come on, we probably need to get a little closer to the pier."