Princess Snow and the Empress

19: Turn Back the Sands of Time

Erden rapped on the wooden door of a low cottage. The mountain wind tugged at his hair and cloak.

"Are you sure this is the place?" Weilong asked.

"This is it, I know it," Erden replied, turning to glance over his shoulder at the soldiers gathered on horseback further down the slope. They had trekked for days to reach the foot of Tiger Ear Mountain based on some vivid dreams that had been plaguing him – though of course he never told anyone of them. If he had gotten it wrong, he wouldn't know where to hide his face. He adjusted the sword at his belt and pulled his cloak closer around him.

The door creaked open, and a forlorn, weather-beaten face of an old dwarf looked up at him.

"Forgive the intrusion, sir. I am Prince Erden, and this is Prince Weilong, the First Prince of the Jade Kingdom. We're looking for someone, a young princess by the name of Snow. Have you by any chance seen her?"

The old man's mournful eyes looked from Erden to Weilong then back at him again, taking in their silk robes beneath thick cloaks. Finally, he pulled the door back and wordlessly gestured for them to enter.

Erden and Weilong glanced at each other for a moment, before Erden stooped to enter the low doorway of the wooden cottage.

It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the dim interior. The first thing he noticed was the group of six other old dwarves gathered around a low table. One had a leg in a splint. Another was sobbing into his hands. All had red rimmed eyes and ashen faces, as if they had been crying for days.

The next thing he noticed was the bunches of herbs hung up to dry on the walls, and the pile of leaves on a low square table that had been pushed against the wall.

And then, he saw her.

She looked thinner and paler than before, and her lips were chalk white. However, there was no mistaking the elegant nose, the long lashes and rounded cheekbones that he knew so well.

Her long hair had been combed neatly around her face and shoulders. Her small hands were folded across her chest. She looked like she had fallen asleep, and he would have believed it so, if not for the fact that she was lying in a rough-hewn, unvarnished coffin on the floor.

Erden was transfixed on the spot at first, but then he willed himself to take a step forward. She's asleep! She's just asleep. She'll wake up when you call her name, he told himself. As he got closer, he noticed faint bloodstains on the sleeve and the front of her robes. He stopped in his tracks.

Whatever happened to you?

"Sister." Erden turned to see Weilong with a horrified look on his face. He had never seen Weilong like this before; Brother was always a picture of calm and composure.

"What happened?" Erden asked.

The dwarves looked at each other, then the eldest of them spoke. "We found her in the forest many months ago... We left her home alone because" – he gestured towards the dwarf with the broken leg – "and she ..."

"She must have thought it was her fault!" another dwarf wailed. Between sobs, he said, "I should never have found that thing! I should never have left her alone!"

He sobbed into his sleeve and the other dwarves tried to console him. The dwarf with the splint on his leg looked on as tears rolled down his wrinkled cheeks.

"What did she do?" Weilong asked, his voice quavering.

A dwarf with long, white eyebrows like cat whiskers, shuffled over to Weilong and pressed a pair of scissors and an empty medicine bottle into his hands. "That bottle was for blood poisoning. Usually, people take a few drops only. Any more than that, it becomes a lethal toxin," the dwarf explained in a flat tone.