The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis
Chapter 66: The Calm Before The Storm

Chapter 66: The Calm Before The Storm

The Crown Prince sent for me just after he returned from morning court, long before the palace women began their chattering walks or the stewards laid the first ink scrolls for the day. There was no ceremony in it—no attendants, no chimes, no fanfare. Just a pageboy, eyes low, who said simply: "His Highness is waiting in his private study."

I didn’t ask why. When Zhu Mingyu wanted to speak, he rarely wasted time with excuses.

The corridors were quiet as I walked. I brought no guards and wore no jewels—only soft forest-green robes, as usual, with wide sleeves that brushed the air like falling leaves. I passed the court ladies who watched from behind carved screens, pretending not to see me. I let them pretend.

He didn’t rise when I entered his study.

Zhu Mingyu stood behind a low table piled with provincial reports, his eyes fixed on a half-drawn map. A brazier burned in the corner, and the faint scent of sandalwood masked the winter chill that lingered even in spring.

He looked up as I stepped inside and gave a single nod. "Close the door behind you," he said sharply, like I was one of the servants.

With a curl of my lip, I did what he asked, but teaching him manners was the second thing on my list after introducing gardening to the bored women of the harem.

"Come," he said, gesturing to the cushion across from him. "There’s something we need to discuss."

I crossed the room, noting the neatness of the space. He always arranged his scrolls by urgency—military matters on the left, domestic on the right, and personal in the middle. The personal pile was the thinnest.

"I want to talk about the west," he said as I sat.

"Yelan?" I clarified. The ’west’ from here included a lot of area, including my mountains.

He nodded his head, his gaze never lifting from the reports in front of him.

"I thought you had officials for that," I mused.

"I do. I also have officials who lie to keep their jobs and report what they think I want to hear. I’d prefer to hear the truth for once," he replied, his voice distracted.

I leaned slightly forward. "And you think I’ll give it?"

"I think you’re the only one who can."

I said nothing, but I reached for the cup of tea already poured and cooling on the table. The scent was too light to be jasmine, too bitter to be oolong. Cheap leaves, given the fact that this was the Crown Prince’s manor. I would have to show the servants how to make a cup properly. They never did know how to steep it correctly.

Plus, I would have to get in touch with the merchants to get better leaves, too.

He waited until I took a sip before speaking again.

"It’s been too quiet out west. For too long."

"Yes," I answered his statement. "You’re welcome."

For the first time since I entered his study, his gaze shot up, and he looked at me. "I’ve gone through three months of reports. The border’s calm. There are no bandits. No major skirmishes. No troop movement from Yelan’s side. And yet..."

"You don’t trust the calm."

"I trust silence the least," he replied. "Especially when the Emperor himself has made it known that the Witch of the West no longer watches the mountain. That she now belongs to the Capital."

He didn’t look at me when he said it, preferring to go back to the reports, but I felt the weight behind the words.

"He wants them to think you’ve been... tamed," he said finally, almost choking on the words. We haven’t been married long, but everyone inside this manor knows that I am anything but ’tamed’.

I laughed once, low and humorless. "He’s playing with fire."

"Then help me put it out."

I set the cup down. "What do you want to know?"

"Will it work? This illusion of safety? Of control?"

I met his gaze evenly. "No. Not for long. Even when I was in the mountains, Yelan liked to test my limits. They haven’t even done that for a few years now, so they must be chomping at the bit."

"Because they don’t believe that you’ve been tamed?" he asked, his head cocked to the side. "Or do they not want you to be?"

"Because it isn’t true," I snarled, putting my tea cup a bit more forcefully onto the table than I probably should have.

He leaned back, folding his arms. "Explain."

"I never guarded the border because the court told me to," I said. "I did it because they kept trying to cross it."

"Yelan?"

"Yes. Always Yelan. They push in every spring. Probing. Testing. But they stopped when I started setting traps in the valleys and the rivers they liked to sneak through. They stopped when their soldiers began disappearing before they even reached the foothills. Do you understand? They sent hundreds of men, and not a single body was found the next day. That is why they gave up on the mountain, on Daiyu. They ran out of soldiers to waste."

His expression didn’t change, but I saw the flicker of calculation behind his eyes.

"Will they come now?" he asked.

"Chances are, they already have," I replied. "They’re just not bold enough to march openly yet. But if your father keeps spreading the story that I’ve been leashed, that the Witch is caged in an Eastern Courtyard, they’ll stop holding back. After all, if I’ve been declawed, then what harm can I actually offer them?"

He was silent for a long moment before he finally spoke again, "Can the traps still hold them? At least for a bit?"

I smiled slightly. "My traps don’t need me to monitor them to work. They’ll do the job they were set out to do—until stupid people stop walking in them."

"And if they stop working?"

"They won’t," I replied, rolling my eyes.

"But if they do?" he repeated, insistent on knowing the answer to a dumb question. The metal in the traps was a living thing. They would never stop working.

I met his gaze. "Then I’ll set new ones."

The brazier popped once, a loud snap in the quiet.

Zhu Mingyu looked back at the map. "There’s famine in the south. Less rainfall than expected. If the rivers drop, the trade routes die. And the farmers blame us, not heaven... then we won’t have a peaceful summer."

I nodded my head and hummed in agreement.

"And if they think that the Emperor is not as much in control as he should be..."

"They’ll see weakness," I said. "And weakness invites war."

Another pause. I studied him as he mulled it over. He was not a man who panicked, nor one who rushed. His danger came in the quiet, cold, deliberate, and thorough.

"You need me," I said finally.

His gaze slid back to mine.

"Not as your wife," I clarified. "As your weapon."

He didn’t deny it. He didn’t even blink.

"I need your mind," he sighed at long last. "And your reach. And your reputation. The mountain feared you long before I ever met you. I want them to fear you again."

I poured myself more tea, slow and steady.

"Then stop calling me your prize," I murmured. "If I am right, your enemies are laughing at you right now... They know you’ve caught a tiger by the tail, and they are just waiting for me to kill everyone so that they can come swoop in and collect the spoils."

"What is your suggestion then?" asked Zhu Mingyu, his eyes narrowing on his face. "And how right are they?"

"They aren’t wrong," I shrugged. "You’re lucky that you are Zhu Deming’s brother; otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If you can, stop telling them that I am your... let them wonder if you’re mine."

His mouth curved slightly—just barely.

"My brother aside, we are in the same boat now," he said. "If it sinks, then neither of us will survive."

I raised my cup in mock toast. "Then you’d better stop drilling holes in it."

This time, he let the smile come. Dark and sharp. The kind that didn’t touch his eyes.

We said nothing more. Outside, the wind shifted slightly, carrying the scent of wet stone and distant ash. It would rain soon.

Just not where Daiyu needed it most.