Chapter 230

Late-winter snow mixed with the fragrance of cold plum blossoms fell across Jiaofang Palace, and as I knelt on the blue bricks, my knees had long since lost all feeling. The agarwood in the gilded beast-shaped burner crackled softly as dark robes swept past my crown, a piercing breath of dragon-saliva incense rushing straight toward me. "Get up." Xiao Yan's voice was as cold as tempered ice. He reached out to pull me up, but I stepped back half a pace. His fingertips froze in mid-air before clenching into fists and withdrawing into his sleeves. The wind outside the courtyard swept snowflakes into the hall, making the candlelight flicker and casting the surging dark tides deep within his eyes into even sharper relief. I lowered my gaze to fixate on the gilded cloud patterns embroidered across the toes of his python-patterned boots. "I beg Your Highness to grant the dissolution of our engagement." Before the words had even faded, a piercing pain shot through my wrist. Xiao Yan grabbed my arm and yanked me straight back into a kneeling posture. As he leaned over, the Eastern pearls adorning the jade crown in his hair brushed against my forehead, frighteningly ice-cold.