"Fourth brother, are you really going to defend that slave without reason?"
Song Chengyuan's venomous glare met Song Yinghuai's like two silent storms colliding. The kind of tension that had men who'd spent their lives in court falling suddenly mute settled over the boat.
Song Yinghuai looked straight at his brother with an unnervingly calm face. After a moment he toyed with the prayer beads at his wrist and, with a cold smile that barely moved his lips, said, "Yes."
The single monosyllable hit the crowd like a stone dropped into still water. For years now, the Prince of Yan had been the one to yield to the Crown Prince wherever possible. Avoidance had been his rule. Everyone assumed he'd prefer to step aside.
But now, after seven years back in the capital, he'd clashed with the heir apparent at every turn. And tonight, over a mere maid, he had openly accepted the Crown Prince's challenge.
The reaction among the assembled court was immediate. The fight for succession had escalated beyond private jabs; it was becoming a public war.
Song Chengyuan's face registered surprise for a breath before fury cracked through. "Very well," he snapped. "So that's how it is, Fourth Brother!"
He stalked forward, passing between Caiyu and Wen Zilong, letting his words drip with contempt. "Gallant, are we? You actually dare defy me."
He spat at Wen Zilong, the man who'd been made to look foolish earlier: "Did you hear? The Prince of Yan vows to protect his...servant. I am not the one who can rule you now—get out. Do you want to make a spectacle of yourself? Scram."
Wen Zilong scrambled off the boat, humiliated, tumbling all the way to the shore before his senses came back. Remembering the cold fury he'd seen on Lan Jinshu's face, he ground his teeth. "That little bitch," he hissed under his breath. "She dared to set me up."
He climbed into his carriage and barked at the men, "Back to the residence. Now."
Shaken, Xiao Renzhen found an excuse to leave as well. He watched Wen Zilong's carriage vanish and made a quick decision. "Follow the Wen household's carriage," he told his driver. "Stay close."
Wen Zilong had a habit of nursing grudges; having been humiliated by his sister-in-law's circle, he might go after Lan Jinqin. Better to be near.
The wind off the Qinhuai River picked up the night air and the lights along the banks blurred into a smear of color. No one on the riverbank could guess what was happening inside the pleasure boat.
Song Chengyuan, oddly enough, seemed satisfied with how the scene had unfolded—he had ordered Wen Zilong off the boat and appeared ready to return to his seat. Caiyu remained on her knees, bewildered by how oddly the matter had been settled.
But then the tip of a boot stopped in front of her. She felt a cold, appraising gaze settle on her like a weight.
She kept her eyes down as Song Yinghuai's voice, low and steady, spoke up behind the Crown Prince. "Elder brother."
"What's the hurry, Fourth Brother?" Song Chengyuan replied, pretending not to hear the threat in the other man's tone. He bent and pinched at Caiyu's delicate jaw with a possessive hand.
Caiyu was forced to lift her head and meet his inspection. He studied her as if she were an object of curiosity, his fingers trailing over her cheek to test whether the face before him was genuine. The touch was cool and clinical; it made her shiver all the way to her bones.
She had seen this prince once before in the imperial city when they were children. Later, his men had brought her from the capital to Yangzhou. Since then they had been strangers who shared a history threaded with mystery. Up close now, she felt the malice in Song Chengyuan's eyes as something solid and sharp.
Song Yinghuai tightened his fingers on his prayer beads, but he did not step forward. There was nothing the Crown Prince had done, yet, that could justify violence—only the obscene fondling of a servant. So he allowed the prince to go further for a moment, watching without moving.
Song Chengyuan lingered, amused. "Well now. Beautiful, aren't you? No wonder my fourth brother would risk disturbing me for her. Tell me, is this maid yours?"
"Yes," Song Yinghuai said, lips compressed. "So do not trouble her, elder brother."
As if to punctuate his next words, Song Chengyuan's fingers slid from Caiyu's cheek down to her neck and then over her chest. There was the sound of tearing cloth.
Caiyu started back as if struck. What was he doing?
Song Yinghuai's body stiffened; his foot stopped. She realized too late what the Crown Prince meant to do. With a single motion, Song Chengyuan had ripped the sleeve from her left shoulder, exposing pale, smooth skin. On her arm—brilliant and shocking—was the red bloom of a chastity mark.
A ripple went through those near the doorway. Sheng Jiangli by the hatch froze, his expression unreadable but suddenly tangled. Even Xu Buyue's eyes shifted, the look in them sharp and prickling.
Song Yinghuai wrapped his outer robe around Caiyu as if shielding her. His face went cold and the anger in his voice finally cracked open. "What do you mean by this, elder brother?"
Song Chengyuan laughed, ugly and high. "Oh ho! Look at that—she's still a virgin!" He let the words hang in the air like a blade. "Fourth Brother says this maid is yours? But she's marked—she's kept her chastity. What kind of 'woman' is she to you?"
The Crown Prince's tone chilled Caiyu. She drew the robe tighter around herself, bewildered and angry. Why did the fact of her chastity matter so much? Why was it any of his to parade?
Song Yinghuai's gaze sharpened to a knife. He tightened the wrap around her as if to make himself a barrier. "You have no need to concern yourself with what the woman's status is, elder brother. If you must make inquiries tonight—I've not the leisure to entertain them. We will take our leave."
He tried to turn and leave with her.
But Song Chengyuan's taunts slid through them from behind, barbed and deliberate. "Fourth Brother, I hear you were wounded at the Battle of Nawu'er Sea seven years ago. Maybe something inside you was harmed—perhaps you can no longer touch a woman?"
Caiyu felt Song Yinghuai's broad frame tense until it was as if a drawn bow had snapped. His step faltered and then stopped altogether. She understood, with a growing dread, what the Crown Prince was aiming for.
Song Chengyuan was about to pry open a wound and smear it across the court for all to see. He intended to brand the Prince of Yan as a man who could not produce heirs—a man unfit to contend for the throne.
She felt the fingers on her shoulder tighten, veins standing out against the back of Song Yinghuai's hand. The simmering anger in him threatened to tear free.
"Only on the say-so of a maid's mark would my status be decided?" Song Yinghuai said, voice low as frost as he turned toward his brother. Even so, the tremor in his body was not lost on the woman he protected. He was trying to hold himself together for her sake.
Song Chengyuan pressed on, forcing Lady Lü—Lü Baiwei—forward with a mocking grin. "You see, Fourth Brother? When Lady Lü entered the household, the battle hadn't even finished. You weren't injured then. So apart from Lady Lü, the only woman you ever acknowledged is the maid at your side."
He let that hang before sweeping the assembled faces with a contemptuous glance. "This is a strange thing indeed—to declare someone your woman and never touch her. Listen to yourselves—how absurd."
In a dynasty like Daye's, a servant's body belonged to her master. For Yan Wang to insist on protecting a maid he refused to take as his own would sound to many like some kind of lie—or a sign of something worse. Song Chengyuan wanted just that reaction: shock, gossip, and the seeding of doubt.
Song Yinghuai's eyes roved the court like a blade, cutting through the murmur and exposing the true intention behind the Crown Prince's sick smile. Tonight's spectacle wasn't about a maid at all. It was a calculated strike meant to strip him of his few reliable claims, to annihilate his reputation, and to frighten allies—especially Xu Buyue—into withdrawing from any match or alliance.
Caiyu stood in the middle of it all, wrapped in borrowed cloth, and suddenly the burden of her presence felt like a weapon pointed straight at the Prince of Yan's heart. She had boarded this boat only hours ago; she had never imagined her body could be turned into the hinge on which a man's fate would swing.