The Prince Who Stole the Ink
The door to the Jade Scribe’s study did not open. It exploded inward, slamming against the wall with a crack that sent a scroll tumbling from its shelf. Shen Weiyu’s brush jerked, leaving a black scar across the half-finished memorial he had been composing for the Minister of Rites. He did not look up.
“Scribe Shen. Finally. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
The voice was too loud, too bright, too full of a warmth that Weiyu had long forgotten how to feel. Prince Zhao Yuning swept into the room like a storm wearing silk robes, his crimson sash trailing behind him like a banner of chaos. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and moved with the careless confidence of a man who had never been denied anything in his life.
Weiyu set down his brush with deliberate slowness. “Your Highness. The door was closed for a reason.”
“Yes, to keep out boring people.” Yuning dropped into the chair across from Weiyu’s desk, sprawling backward with his legs spread wide, one arm draped over the carved dragon’s head on the armrest. “I’m not boring. So the door failed its purpose.”
Weiyu finally lifted his gaze. The prince’s face was handsome in the way of a summer storm—dangerous, unpredictable, and impossible to look away from. His eyes were the color of amber, flecked with gold, and they sparkled with mischief that had probably gotten him beaten by every tutor in the palace.
“What do you want, Your Highness?”
“A love poem.” Yuning grinned. “A good one. The kind that makes a woman’s knees weak and her father reach for his sword.”
Weiyu’s fingers tightened around the brush. “I do not write love poems.”
“You write everything. Prophecies, memorials, imperial decrees, that boring thing you were just working on.” Yuning waved a hand dismissively. “The whole court says you’re the best scribe in a hundred years. The ink you use is enchanted, they say. Makes the words come alive.”
“The ink is a tool. Nothing more.”
“Then lend me some.”
Weiyu stared at him. The prince stared back, unblinking, his grin widening as if this were a game he had already won.
“No,” Weiyu said.
Yuning’s grin faltered. “No?”
“The ink is not for frivolous purposes. It is consecrated to the gods. Every drop is mixed with my blood and blessed by the priests of the Celestial Temple. Using it for a love poem would be—”
“Romantic?” Yuning interrupted. “Passionate? Exactly what a love poem should be?”
“Sacrilege.”
The word hung between them like a blade. Yuning’s expression shifted, the playfulness hardening into something sharper. He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and Weiyu caught the scent of sandalwood and wine on his breath.
“You know what I think, Scribe Shen?” Yuning’s voice dropped, losing its theatrical brightness. “I think you’ve forgotten what passion feels like. I think you sit in this dusty room, writing prophecies of death and doom, and you’ve convinced yourself that the world is only made of ink and paper and cold stone floors.”
Weiyu said nothing. The cold in his chest pulsed, a warning.
“I’ve heard the rumors,” Yuning continued. “They say the Jade Scribe never smiles. They say he’s dying. They say the gods are eating him from the inside out, and one day he’ll just stop breathing in the middle of a sentence.” He tilted his head. “Is it true?”
“It is none of your concern.”
“Everything in this empire is my concern. I’m a prince.” Yuning stood, circling the desk with the lazy grace of a predator. Weiyu tracked him with his eyes but did not turn. “I’m going to be emperor one day. My brother thinks he has it locked up, but he’s wrong. The throne doesn’t go to the cruelest snake. It goes to the man who understands people.”
He stopped behind Weiyu’s chair. Weiyu felt the heat of the prince’s body, close enough to burn.
“And I understand you, Scribe Shen. You’re lonely. You’re sad. You think your life is already over, so you’ve stopped living it.” Yuning’s hand landed on Weiyu’s shoulder, heavy and warm. “But you’re wrong. There’s still fire in you. I can see it. It’s just buried under all that ice.”
Weiyu’s breath caught. The touch sent a ripple through the curse, a tremor of something that was almost warmth. He hated it. He wanted more of it.
He stood abruptly, knocking Yuning’s hand away. “You should leave, Your Highness.”
“Not without the ink.”
“I told you. No.”
Yuning’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, Weiyu saw the prince that the court whispered about—the one who had been exiled to the borderlands at sixteen for beating a nobleman nearly to death, the one who had returned with scars on his knuckles and a fire in his heart that no amount of palace discipline could extinguish.
Then the grin returned, wider than before.
“Fine. I’ll find another scribe.” Yuning turned and strode toward the door, his robes swirling behind him. “But I’ll be back, Scribe Shen. I always get what I want.”
He was gone before Weiyu could respond. The door swung shut, leaving the study in silence. Weiyu stood frozen, his heart hammering against the cold in his chest. He pressed a hand to his sternum, feeling the familiar ache, the slow poison that had been his companion for three years.
The prince’s touch still lingered on his shoulder, a ghost of heat.
Weiyu shook his head and sat back down. He picked up his brush, dipped it in the ink, and tried to resume the memorial. The characters came out wrong—too sharp, too jagged. He set the brush down with a sigh.
He should have known the prince would not give up so easily.
---
The theft happened three hours later, during the evening meal when the palace corridors were empty and the guards were distracted by the shift change. Weiyu returned to his study to find the door slightly ajar, the lock untouched, and the small jade vial of enchanted ink missing from its place on the shelf.
In its place was a folded piece of paper, weighted down by a single gold coin.
Weiyu unfolded the paper. The handwriting was bold, careless, and unmistakable.
*“Borrowed this. Will return it when I’ve written the most beautiful love poem this empire has ever seen. Don’t be angry. Think of it as an investment in my future reign. — Y”*
Weiyu crumpled the paper in his fist. The cold in his chest surged, sharp and angry, and he felt a flicker of something he had not felt in years.
Rage.
He stalked through the palace corridors, his robes snapping behind him, his footsteps echoing off the marble floors. Servants pressed themselves against the walls as he passed, their eyes wide. The Jade Scribe never walked this fast. The Jade Scribe never looked this angry.
He found Yuning in the eastern garden, seated on a stone bench beneath a flowering plum tree, a brush in one hand and the stolen vial of ink in the other. A scroll lay spread across his lap, already half-covered in characters that shimmered faintly silver in the fading light.
“Your Highness.”
Yuning looked up, his expression shifting from surprise to delight. “Scribe Shen! I was wondering when you’d show up. I’m almost done. Want to hear it?”
“Give me back the ink.”
“In a moment. Listen to this first.” Yuning cleared his throat and read aloud, his voice carrying across the garden like a song. *“‘Her eyes are the dawn over the Eastern Sea, her smile the first bloom of spring. To hold her hand is to hold the sun, and I would burn a thousand times just to feel her warmth once more.’”*
He looked up, beaming. “Good, right?”
Weiyu’s jaw tightened. “It’s derivative. You’ve stolen half the imagery from the *Classic of Blossoms* and the rest from a folk song the street performers sing for copper coins.”
Yuning’s grin faltered. “It’s not derivative. It’s *inspired*.”
“It’s theft. Much like this.” Weiyu pointed at the vial. “Return it. Now.”
Yuning capped the vial and tucked it into his sleeve. “I’ll return it when I’m done. One more stanza. Give me ten minutes.”
“You are a prince of the Celestial Empire. You have a dozen court poets at your disposal. Why do you need my ink?”
Yuning’s expression softened, the playfulness fading into something quieter, more honest. “Because your ink is real. The other poets write pretty lies. They tell me what I want to hear. But your ink… it carries truth. I can feel it when I write with it. The words mean something.”
Weiyu stared at him. The prince’s amber eyes held his, unblinking, and for a moment the cold in Weiyu’s chest receded, replaced by something warm and terrifying.
“Please,” Yuning said, and the word sounded foreign on his lips, as if he had never said it before. “Just let me finish this. I’ll return the vial tonight. I swear it on my mother’s grave.”
Weiyu’s mother had died when he was seven. He had not spoken her name in seventeen years.
He turned and walked away.
“Thank you!” Yuning called after him. “I knew you had a heart under all that ice!”
Weiyu did not look back. He returned to his study, closed the door, and sat in the darkness, listening to the silence. The cold was back, stronger than before, and he pressed his hand to his chest, feeling the slow poison spread through his veins.
He would get the vial back tomorrow. The prince would forget about it, as he forgot about everything else, and life would return to its quiet, lonely rhythm.
But that night, as he lay in bed staring at the ceiling, he could still feel the ghost of Yuning’s hand on his shoulder, and the warmth of it refused to fade.
“Scribe Shen. Finally. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
The voice was too loud, too bright, too full of a warmth that Weiyu had long forgotten how to feel. Prince Zhao Yuning swept into the room like a storm wearing silk robes, his crimson sash trailing behind him like a banner of chaos. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and moved with the careless confidence of a man who had never been denied anything in his life.
Weiyu set down his brush with deliberate slowness. “Your Highness. The door was closed for a reason.”
“Yes, to keep out boring people.” Yuning dropped into the chair across from Weiyu’s desk, sprawling backward with his legs spread wide, one arm draped over the carved dragon’s head on the armrest. “I’m not boring. So the door failed its purpose.”
Weiyu finally lifted his gaze. The prince’s face was handsome in the way of a summer storm—dangerous, unpredictable, and impossible to look away from. His eyes were the color of amber, flecked with gold, and they sparkled with mischief that had probably gotten him beaten by every tutor in the palace.
“What do you want, Your Highness?”
“A love poem.” Yuning grinned. “A good one. The kind that makes a woman’s knees weak and her father reach for his sword.”
Weiyu’s fingers tightened around the brush. “I do not write love poems.”
“You write everything. Prophecies, memorials, imperial decrees, that boring thing you were just working on.” Yuning waved a hand dismissively. “The whole court says you’re the best scribe in a hundred years. The ink you use is enchanted, they say. Makes the words come alive.”
“The ink is a tool. Nothing more.”
“Then lend me some.”
Weiyu stared at him. The prince stared back, unblinking, his grin widening as if this were a game he had already won.
“No,” Weiyu said.
Yuning’s grin faltered. “No?”
“The ink is not for frivolous purposes. It is consecrated to the gods. Every drop is mixed with my blood and blessed by the priests of the Celestial Temple. Using it for a love poem would be—”
“Romantic?” Yuning interrupted. “Passionate? Exactly what a love poem should be?”
“Sacrilege.”
The word hung between them like a blade. Yuning’s expression shifted, the playfulness hardening into something sharper. He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and Weiyu caught the scent of sandalwood and wine on his breath.
“You know what I think, Scribe Shen?” Yuning’s voice dropped, losing its theatrical brightness. “I think you’ve forgotten what passion feels like. I think you sit in this dusty room, writing prophecies of death and doom, and you’ve convinced yourself that the world is only made of ink and paper and cold stone floors.”
Weiyu said nothing. The cold in his chest pulsed, a warning.
“I’ve heard the rumors,” Yuning continued. “They say the Jade Scribe never smiles. They say he’s dying. They say the gods are eating him from the inside out, and one day he’ll just stop breathing in the middle of a sentence.” He tilted his head. “Is it true?”
“It is none of your concern.”
“Everything in this empire is my concern. I’m a prince.” Yuning stood, circling the desk with the lazy grace of a predator. Weiyu tracked him with his eyes but did not turn. “I’m going to be emperor one day. My brother thinks he has it locked up, but he’s wrong. The throne doesn’t go to the cruelest snake. It goes to the man who understands people.”
He stopped behind Weiyu’s chair. Weiyu felt the heat of the prince’s body, close enough to burn.
“And I understand you, Scribe Shen. You’re lonely. You’re sad. You think your life is already over, so you’ve stopped living it.” Yuning’s hand landed on Weiyu’s shoulder, heavy and warm. “But you’re wrong. There’s still fire in you. I can see it. It’s just buried under all that ice.”
Weiyu’s breath caught. The touch sent a ripple through the curse, a tremor of something that was almost warmth. He hated it. He wanted more of it.
He stood abruptly, knocking Yuning’s hand away. “You should leave, Your Highness.”
“Not without the ink.”
“I told you. No.”
Yuning’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, Weiyu saw the prince that the court whispered about—the one who had been exiled to the borderlands at sixteen for beating a nobleman nearly to death, the one who had returned with scars on his knuckles and a fire in his heart that no amount of palace discipline could extinguish.
Then the grin returned, wider than before.
“Fine. I’ll find another scribe.” Yuning turned and strode toward the door, his robes swirling behind him. “But I’ll be back, Scribe Shen. I always get what I want.”
He was gone before Weiyu could respond. The door swung shut, leaving the study in silence. Weiyu stood frozen, his heart hammering against the cold in his chest. He pressed a hand to his sternum, feeling the familiar ache, the slow poison that had been his companion for three years.
The prince’s touch still lingered on his shoulder, a ghost of heat.
Weiyu shook his head and sat back down. He picked up his brush, dipped it in the ink, and tried to resume the memorial. The characters came out wrong—too sharp, too jagged. He set the brush down with a sigh.
He should have known the prince would not give up so easily.
---
The theft happened three hours later, during the evening meal when the palace corridors were empty and the guards were distracted by the shift change. Weiyu returned to his study to find the door slightly ajar, the lock untouched, and the small jade vial of enchanted ink missing from its place on the shelf.
In its place was a folded piece of paper, weighted down by a single gold coin.
Weiyu unfolded the paper. The handwriting was bold, careless, and unmistakable.
*“Borrowed this. Will return it when I’ve written the most beautiful love poem this empire has ever seen. Don’t be angry. Think of it as an investment in my future reign. — Y”*
Weiyu crumpled the paper in his fist. The cold in his chest surged, sharp and angry, and he felt a flicker of something he had not felt in years.
Rage.
He stalked through the palace corridors, his robes snapping behind him, his footsteps echoing off the marble floors. Servants pressed themselves against the walls as he passed, their eyes wide. The Jade Scribe never walked this fast. The Jade Scribe never looked this angry.
He found Yuning in the eastern garden, seated on a stone bench beneath a flowering plum tree, a brush in one hand and the stolen vial of ink in the other. A scroll lay spread across his lap, already half-covered in characters that shimmered faintly silver in the fading light.
“Your Highness.”
Yuning looked up, his expression shifting from surprise to delight. “Scribe Shen! I was wondering when you’d show up. I’m almost done. Want to hear it?”
“Give me back the ink.”
“In a moment. Listen to this first.” Yuning cleared his throat and read aloud, his voice carrying across the garden like a song. *“‘Her eyes are the dawn over the Eastern Sea, her smile the first bloom of spring. To hold her hand is to hold the sun, and I would burn a thousand times just to feel her warmth once more.’”*
He looked up, beaming. “Good, right?”
Weiyu’s jaw tightened. “It’s derivative. You’ve stolen half the imagery from the *Classic of Blossoms* and the rest from a folk song the street performers sing for copper coins.”
Yuning’s grin faltered. “It’s not derivative. It’s *inspired*.”
“It’s theft. Much like this.” Weiyu pointed at the vial. “Return it. Now.”
Yuning capped the vial and tucked it into his sleeve. “I’ll return it when I’m done. One more stanza. Give me ten minutes.”
“You are a prince of the Celestial Empire. You have a dozen court poets at your disposal. Why do you need my ink?”
Yuning’s expression softened, the playfulness fading into something quieter, more honest. “Because your ink is real. The other poets write pretty lies. They tell me what I want to hear. But your ink… it carries truth. I can feel it when I write with it. The words mean something.”
Weiyu stared at him. The prince’s amber eyes held his, unblinking, and for a moment the cold in Weiyu’s chest receded, replaced by something warm and terrifying.
“Please,” Yuning said, and the word sounded foreign on his lips, as if he had never said it before. “Just let me finish this. I’ll return the vial tonight. I swear it on my mother’s grave.”
Weiyu’s mother had died when he was seven. He had not spoken her name in seventeen years.
He turned and walked away.
“Thank you!” Yuning called after him. “I knew you had a heart under all that ice!”
Weiyu did not look back. He returned to his study, closed the door, and sat in the darkness, listening to the silence. The cold was back, stronger than before, and he pressed his hand to his chest, feeling the slow poison spread through his veins.
He would get the vial back tomorrow. The prince would forget about it, as he forgot about everything else, and life would return to its quiet, lonely rhythm.
But that night, as he lay in bed staring at the ceiling, he could still feel the ghost of Yuning’s hand on his shoulder, and the warmth of it refused to fade.