The Last Dahlia

011

"Shoya."

"That's not my question!" Yuehwa yelled, looking around for something to throw at him. She picked up a bolt of blue cloth lying on one of the lower shelves and used it to smack him on the head.

"Is that how you treat an injured person?" Shoya rolled his eyes. Picking himself up, he hobbled towards the door.

Yuehwa pointed an angry finger at him. "You stop right there! Where do you think you're going? Answer my question! Who exactly are you and what is that sword all about?" She had already begun to formulate her own speculations in her mind, but she wanted him to confirm them once and for all. The Phoenix had never been one to deal well with ambiguity, and she especially didn't like knowing half the story and not being told the rest of it. "If you were going to tell me that much about the pendant, why don't you just tell me everything?"

Seeing that he was continuing to ignore her, Yuehwa chased after him, but by the time she reached the door, he was already nowhere to be seen. Scowling, she turned to Ember and said, "What is wrong with that fellow? Does he have trust issues? Why is it so hard for him to tell me what's going on so that I can help!"

You just hit him on the head. If I were him, I wouldn't tell you anything either, Ember chirped.

Knowing immediately that she was seeking solace in the wrong bird, Yuehwa slipped her sword back into its sheath and headed back towards the princess's quarters. Along the way back, she couldn't stop trying to figure out the mystery that was Shoya.

"If the pendant belongs to his mother's family and Princess Naying has an exact same one, does that mean they're cousins? But that would make Shoya nobility of sorts, or even royalty, but there's no way..."

When she reached the princess's chambers, the first thing she did was to march straight to Naying's bed and shake her awake.

Startled, the princess sat up in alarm, looking around in a frenzy. "What's going on? Is the palace on fire?" she exclaimed.

Yuehwa held up the snowflake pendant in front of the princess's eyes. "I have a question for you. This pendant, you said it belonged to your mother. Where did she get it from?"

"Why do you have that?" The princess's eyes widened when she saw the piece of white jade dangling in front of her. She reached out and grabbed it out of Yuehwa's hand, clutching it tightly to her chest. "This is the only thing my mother left behind."

"Just tell me where she got it from!" Yuehwa repeated herself in exasperation. "Why does no one want to give me a direct answer tonight for goodness sakes!"

Princess Naying's hands trembled in fear.

Yuehwa was the Phoenix, one of the most skilled assassins across the five kingdoms. Even though she had two guards standing outside her door right now, no one even knew that Yuehwa had entered the room. Even if Yuehwa decided to slit her throat right now, perhaps no one would find out till dawn.

Seeing the fear reflected in the princess's eyes, Yuehwa sighed and softened her tact a little. "I just want to know where the pendant came from. Was it something your mother inherited from her family? Where was your mother even from in the first place?"

"The pendant was given to my mother by my grandmother. These jade pendants are given to every female offspring in the family. It's made of a rare type of white jade that you can only find in the mines owned by my mother's family."

"And where's that?"

"In the northern tip of the kingdom of Feng," the princess replied quietly.

"Your mother was from Feng?"