As we kept moving whole day and rest when it was dark. I decided to make our journey a little bit exciting. There were moments where we just slept throughout the cold, and sometimes our horse just couldn't take it anymore. It grew tired and we had to make camp for more than two nights so that it may have adequate rest to take us through the frozen lands.
One thing I noticed about all the lands that we passed ever since leaving Xinjiang was that most of them were abandoned, left out and had me thinking perhaps their people found their true calling and decided to make a journey towards a "better place" as the warrior inclined. But we didn't know what that better place could mean, he could either have meant the warm lands or still the cold lands.
I decided to train Lee in swordsmanship whenever we had a chance to rest and regroup. He needed it because if he was going to protect me, and protect himself, then it was essential, and I was better with my swords than him. One particular night when we made camp under a cave we found on the way, I told him of my plans to train him, and he made fun of it.
"Train me?" He said and chuckled softly, placing his hands over a fire, trying to stay warm.
"I'm serious Lee. Take this seriously"
"My apologies' princess, but no, thank you"
"Why?" I argued.
"Because… I…" He stuttered with his words trying desperately to find the right words. So I finished his sentence for him "Because you are a proud man who wouldn't let a woman teach you what she knows. I am better than you in fighting, if the warriors at the river had invaded us, would you have fought them?"
"Of course Mingzhu! I will fight anyone to keep you safe. You are my Queen"
"And yet you would be dead. A dead warrior isn't worth as much as an alive one, and I want you to stay alive"
"Okay princess, I agree. Teach me what you know, I'm ready to learn" He said looking at me but with a smirk and I knew him, once he smirks then he never takes a thing seriously. So I turned my back on him and pulled my fur coat all over me, then slept.
He moved closer to me, trying to get my attention, "Princess, princess did I say something wrong?" He said, and I still ignored him. Not only that, but he apologized and kept talking and talking, but I was way too cold and too exhausted to keep up with his drama, so I dozed off into a deep slumber.
While I slept, I had a dream and inside my dream I saw my father, his majesty going crazy looking for me. And then the prince of Minao confused and heartbroken by my departure and then there was my mother, I always thought if I were to escape then she would have been very happy. But in my dream she was the most devastated one, I saw her sitting on a stone outside with tears warming her eyes.
I could almost reach out to her, desperately wanted to hug her and tell her that I was fine, although it would be a lie since I was far from being fine.
Homesick hit hard sometimes, and I would go silent for the whole day knowing fully I can't go back, I wished to go back most of the times especially those night Lee and I would go to sleep in an empty stomach after unsuccessful hunting.
"Mingzhu" I heard a voice in my dreams and when I turned back I saw my grandfather standing still holding his sword. I raced to him, and he pulled me closer into a hug. When he looked at me, tears rolled down between my cheeks and I couldn't hold them any longer.
"Why are you crying, child?" He asked politely, cupping my face in his arms.
"I can't go on, sire. I… have failed you, Your Majesty" I cried out to him, taking it all out. All the frustrations I held inside me.
"You have made me proud, Mingzhu. You are more brave than your father would ever be, you will make a great Queen. Now come…"
He held my hand very close to his and then we walked for a few steps before I felt the sky turning into yellow and then a display of what a warm land looks like. There were mountains, stone built houses and the people were wearing only robes with no need of a heavy fabric on top. I grabbed my attention to my grandfather and he smiled at me, I returned the favor and then he whispered. "Your destiny awaits! Good luck Mingzhu" and then he disappeared and so did the dream.
I opened my eyes to find myself inside the cave with a huge fire beside me, and I was warm like I was in a warm land. The heat itself managed to make me smile but I noticed tears on my eyes, I was crying on my sleep and I knew Lee would definitely make a fun of me so I wiped them quickly. Then he barged in;
"She's awake…" He said and as usual with a smile on his lips.
"It's a new day" I replied softly.
"Indeed it is. Get up we have to move, the horse is ready and so is the cart"
I looked at the huge fire beside me and for a moment I wished I could take it with me, only if we could carry fire everywhere we moved it would be too easy but we just couldn't. Lee helped me put it off by covering it with ice and then we were on our way.
Lee got in first inside the cart and then he pulled me aside, together we rode silently as I laid my body on his chest and he embraced me in his strong arms. At that moment nothing was awkward or unusual because we were used to being close to each other. Never did it once occur a situation that made us feel like perhaps we were crossing boundaries or taking it too far.
"So much for I want to train you! You slept half of the day." He said.
I smiled. "Well, it was cold."
"Mmh-hmm."
"But we can always reschedule, it's not like we have anything else to do apart from being with each other."
"Right! Apart from being with each other." Lee looked at me with an innocent look on his face, but I knew he was far from being innocent.
"It's a curse."
"I don't mind. In fact, you wouldn't have made it this far without me." He bragged with a smirk, and I used my small fit to punch his stomach.
He faked the pain and grunted. "You broke my rib" he said and we both laughed at the joke. "Come here…" He pulled me closer again, and I laid in his arms, feeling safe like I had ever been.
I didn't tell Lee anything about my dream, or what my grandfather said to me which was, "Your destiny awaits!" because I just couldn't understand what destiny was he referring to. So I spent that day and the next three days thinking about it, and whenever I was alone I could hear his voice inside my head.
One day, after a long ride in our cart, we came across a village along the way. They were kind and the people offered us water and food. When we asked if they anything about a warm land, none of them seemed to understand what we were talking about.
"A warm land. Totally warm, with no ice." Lee tried to explain it to them. But all the answers we had were that there was no warm land, and it was all a myth.
"No ice?" Asked a woman we came upon. She seemed shocked by that imagination.
"Yes. No ice, the rivers are warm too." I replied, hoping she could at least give us something.
"A land with no ice! The land of warlocks and witches." She exclaimed, looked at us with her jaw dropped, then she took off scared as if she had seen a ghost.
My hopes were down. As we kept going forward towards South, it got colder while we had passed into a place where it was warm. Perhaps we were going on the wrong direction, what if we made a wrong turn along the way which led us to the place where the woman my mother used to talk about died. That woman died because the cold got colder and she couldn't survive anymore.
Just when I thought what the worst could happen, a blizzard happened, and it took us by surprise, and we were outside in the middle of nowhere with no nearby shelter or possibility of finding one. The winds were strong, and it snowed heavily as small cubes of ice fell down, hence blocking our view and made it harder for our horse to pull us. It stuck in the snow and Lee made a mistake of untying it to the cart and that's when it took off and run wildly. "No!" Lee screamed at the horse to come back, but it never did. We were all alone in the coldest place in the whole realm, and even our fur coats couldn't help. We looked at each other, tired, exhausted and nearly giving up.