After passing the guards we stopped crawling and stood up, Lee held my hand throughout and he was very consistent that I followed him behind and stop asking questions. But I just couldn't, I went on and on about the guards who we found at the border as I was never told about them. More like I never knew we had a border so to speak, at that particular moment I knew I didn't even know my own kingdom. I was a stranger to Xinjiang and it's borders. Father had never told me anything about the guards or the borders of our empire and I never asked. But it was his task to share with me everything as I was to be his heir, a future Queen of Xinjiang and I merely knew my own kingdom.
"Who did they swear an oath to?" I asked him.
"I don't know princess"
"Could it be to my father?"
"Maybe, after all he is the King"
"If that's so, why is he torturing them? Keeping them outside where it's the coldest?"
"Mingzhu!" He called out turning to me, his breath was heavy and air clouds came outside of his mouth to indicate he was cold. I exhaled and the same thing happened to me and I imagined the worst, I started to remember the tale that my mother spoke of the woman who died after trying to flee her land. I never asked what was the reason for her escape but I feared the same might happen to us and we weren't even that very far from home yet.
That woman walked for moons and seasons to never find a warm land, instead she travelled to the lands way colder and died there.
"What if we are going the wrong way?" I asked him "What if we will die like that woman my mother told me about?"
He looked at me not understanding who I was referring to, I took it he had never heard of the famous tale. "What woman?" He asked.
"The woman who left her people, travelled far away to the coldest lands and died"
"We are on the right passage" He chuckled softly and looked at me as if I was just a young girl who was scared. "It's going to be alright, let's walk for a moment and make camp"
I just nodded and we resumed strolling down the forest engulfed in deep ice as we searched for somewhere to camp and rest until we were safe to continue with our journey in the morning. Luckily for us, we came upon an abandoned small hut and we raced to it, and as we got inside Lee made fire after he found some few dry woods scattered inside. "There was someone here…" He said looking around hanging to his sword, then he walked back outside leaving me inside to get warm.
For all I knew Lee was a bad swordsman, I had beaten him every time we trained. He knew I was good with my sword than him and still he left me inside and acted like he was in charge of keeping me safe. I couldn't take it anymore so I called him inside "Lee…get back here"
He barged inside quickly, "What?" he was stunned, I don't know why would he be shocked that I called him inside, but he was.
"What are you doing?" I asked him looking straight into his eyes.
He stuttered, "I'm…I…I am trying to keep you safe, princess"
"Sit" I commanded him and he slowly took out his sword, shut the door of the hut and sat close to me as the fire warmed us. We were silent for over five minutes and then he started moaning at the warmth that he was feeling as the fire grew bigger and kept us warmer.
I couldn't resist laughing at him as he always does that, whether he tastes a delicious meal or just simply eating a fruit, he always moans at things that makes him feel good even if it's just a fire keeping him warm. He laid down and opened his fur coat and then he pulled me beside him, like he did when we were kids and I slowly hugged him and fell asleep in his arms.
The morning after, we awoke to sounds of birds chirping outside and the fire had gone out, it was colder than last night and we had to move. I reached out to our food supply of meat and fruits, we ate as we kept moving forward still following the west direction where we believed that strange man came from. Along the way, we found a river flowing but it had all turned into ice, although we managed to get some water into Lee's canteen after breaking a few ices and we filled as much water as we could so as to keep us alive.
"Do you think there are rivers in warm lands?" I started a conversation after what felt like an hour of silence between us.
"Yes, and I think the waters are warm too…"
"A warm river?"
"Feels like magic, right?"
"Yes, I want to swim in a river which isn't cold. Or even a sea, think about it Lee a whole sea which isn't covered with ice" I said with excitement, and he enjoyed how excited I was. I kept talking and talking about the results of our journey, which may have felt like a dream to us at that moment, before he placed his hand on my mouth and told me to be quiet.
There were footsteps approaching us, both men and horses, we didn't know if it was my father's men or our enemies. Lee and I ran silently not to cause any noise, but the ice made it impossible for us to move quickly as it got stuck into our feet. "Look for them" I heard a voice, and it was my father's voice, His Majesty. "They shouldn't be far! Kill that boy and bring my daughter back" He continued, Lee and I looked at each other as we hid inside a snow cave that we just found at that moment hoping they wouldn't come our way. I heard a horse's hooves pound heavy towards where we hid, and it stayed there for a moment, as if suspecting something, but we managed to maintain the silence without drawing any attention until it turned back and followed the others.
Lee was so scared, and I could tell he was on the verge of giving up, but I held his hand close to me and I whispered "Stay calm…" and he tried to stay calm even though trembling so hard. My father's men kept searching but they were going on a different direction which diverged from where we were and that gave us an opening to keep moving forward, away from them.
Even though I knew how disappointed my father and mother would be I knew I needed to keep moving. They weren't going to change their minds over my marriage to the prince so there was no need to go back home, there was nothing for me there and I had come to terms with that. So far onto the deep wilderness I ventured. With Lee by my side, both sacred and not knowing what we were doing, but we still kept going blindly.
Along the way we came through a small village which later I learned it was called Xaolin and it's people were very kind to us. None of them knew who I was or ever heard of a kingdom called Xinjiang and at that time I knew we had come far after five days of walking with extreme hunger. I was close to fading before we found them, my eyes refused to stay open and my legs gave up, from time to time I could hear my mother's voice narrating the whole tale of the woman who died after fleeing her people.
We stayed in Xaolin for a fortnight, trying to gather our strength, and get supplies which would last us more days than what we took when we left home. The whole village had only twenty people and ten caves, they all lived as equals with neither leaders nor kings.
We shared some of our ideas concerning the warm land and that we would love if they would join us to our cause because we needed help along the way, Lee did most of the convincing telling them how amazing it would feel to live in a place far away from the cold. He even made fun jokes at the night of fire gathering so as to take them on our side but none volunteered to leave their home and we respected that.
Not everyone despised the cold, how could they if they were born into it. All their lives it's all they knew of, the idea of a warm land sounded like a dream or a myth. They packed for us arrows and gave us two swords to protect ourselves along the way, they also gave us a cart with one horse and I couldn't thank them enough for I was too tired to walk all the way through.