Exclusive Cover Reveal + Excerpt: Molly X. Chang’s Vampire Romantasy The Nightblood Prince
Molly X. Chang’s buzzy debut novel To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods told the story of a magical people oppressed by an an invading army with advanced technological knowledge. Its sequel is slated to arrive next Fall, but that’s not the only book tihs particular author is dropping in 2025. And Chang’s other story couldn’t be more different in both themes and tone. The Nightblood Prince is the first installment in a lush new romantasy series that puts a unique, Chinese-inspired spin on established vampire lore.
Described as perfect for both romantasy lovers and fans of folklore-inspired fantasy tales, The Nightblood Prince mixes swoon-worthy romance with sharp political intrigue and a fearless heroine with a prophesied destiny. Set in a turbulent world where two kingdoms teeter on the brink of war, the fate of all rests on the shoulders of a girl who was predicted at birth to become the Empress of All Empresses. As these kingdoms edge closer to battle, Fei must grapple with her feelings for two rival princes and her longing for autonomy. Haunted by prophetic nightmares, Fei will set into motion events that could change her world forever.
Here’s how the publisher describes the story.
The night Fei was born, a prophecy was made: she would one day become the Empress of All Empresses.
Torn from her family as a child and raised in the palace to one day marry the Crown Prince of the most powerful empire in the land, Fei has only ever known loneliness. When the opportunity arises to seize her own destiny for the first time in her life, Fei sets out to hunt a legendary tiger, knowing it might cost her everything. What she doesn’t expect is to fall under the mercy of Yexue, the beautiful runaway prince from a rival kingdom. Blessed by the night, harboring a dangerous magic, and capable of commanding an army of deadly vampires, Yexue could be the key to Fei gaining more than just her freedom.
But to outrun destiny, Fei must spark a wave of events that will change the world as she knows it. Torn between two princes and plagued by nightmares of bloodshed, she finds that the stars might be more inescapable—and more irresistible—than she ever considered before. . . .
The Nightblood Prince won’t hit shelves until July 1, 2025, but we’re thrilled to bring you the first look at its (gorgeous) cover right now, as well as an exclusive excerpt to give you a taste of what to expect from the story.
The first edition hardcover of The Nightblood Prince will feature stunning decorative sprayed edges!
Prologue
I was born in the midnight crevice between two lunar years.
When fireworks shattered the star-woven sky, it drowned out my first cries. Sadly, not enough to sink the lulling words uttered a thousand miles away by the imperial stargazer.
A fallen goddess who bears the phoenix’s mark is destined to rule a united An’Lu.
A curse disguised as a prophecy that ignited a want so violent inside our great emperor, it engulfed the entire empire by sunrise.
He ordered the girl to be found and brought to him, and three days later, they found me under the roof of a seventh-ranked minister in a forgotten corner of the empire with the phoenix’s mark bloodred between my brows.
“If anyone is to be the empress of a united continent, she can only be the Empress of Rong and rule from the arm of my son,” the emperor announced to his court, days later. His eyes were stained with tears as he cradled an infant close to his chest.
A baby boy born the same lunar years as I was. The only surviving child of the beloved empress, who took her last breath when her son drew his first.
Rumors had it those gilded halls echoed with my scream when the emperor tied a blessed red string of fate between my and Prince Siwang’s stubby infant fingers.
“With her prophecy at Siwang’s side,” the emperor exulted, “my son will achieve what the ancestors before us could not: unite the continent and finally bring peace to these lands!”
The court roared in cheers and applause; no one dared to object to the emperor’s fantasies of victory and glory.
Except me, whose cries refused to quiet.
Part One
The Empress Promised by the Stars
1
I spent my life trapped behind crimson walls, inside this palace where I could dance along golden hallways and grand pavilions and do everything I wanted—except leave.
You are the future empress. You need to be protected, my father reminded me on the last day of each moon.
Since I wasn’t allowed to leave the palace without written permission from the emperor, this was the only day of each month when my parents were allowed to spend rare hours with me.
We often wandered the peony gardens, took leisurely strolls along the koi ponds, and exchanged pleasantries at my pavilion on the rainy days when we could not find other distractions to fill our silence. I had so much to say. I yearned to hug them and laugh with them like a normal daughter, but surveilling eyes of the palace ladies who were here to monitor my every move, not just wait at my beck and call.
Their eyes were always watching, ears always listening.
When my parents asked me about my days, I forced smiles and pretended I was happy. I in turn asked about their days as if I didn’t have their lives told to me like soft-spun folklore by the servant girls whose favorite pastime was gossiping about the capital’s families. Brief rays of sunshine against the vast gray of palace life.
From my gilded cage, I heard about how my sister was growing up and how my parents were aging. I heard about my parents’ nosy neighbors, the noble ladies with whom Mother played mah-jongg, the ministers who disputed with Father, and the men who were asking for my older sister’s hand.
For I didn’t want to hear about that life. I wanted to live it.
But I was the future Empress of Rong before I was my parents’ daughter.
Their words were always few and shallow and their smiles were tense, ever so polite. My parents bowed when they greeted me, and bowed when they said their farewells.
My parents didn’t know how to talk to the future empress, who was torn from their arms before I was old enough to be off my mother’s milk.
I did not know what to say, either. Especially to my father.
Seventeen years, and I could not remember a single moment spent with them when I had not felt like a stranger on the outside, looking in.
A child stolen, raised by servants who knew only to kneel and beg for forgiveness when I cried for my mother, father, and sister.
A girl whose only purpose was to marry a boy, because the stargazer claimed I was destined to rule over a united warring states. But if I was chosen by the Gods and destined to rule, then why did visions of bloodshed and calamity haunt me every time I closed my eyes?2
Premonition tingled at the edge of my senses.
A quick vision, a pulling instinct.
I foresaw the moment before I experienced it.
Magic.
I would have reached for my bow, if not for Father’s warning.
The first kill is not yours to claim.
3
Nobody cheered when Prince Yexue’s arrow claimed the first kill of the season.
The forest held its breath, waiting to see how Siwang would react.
Though Lan Yexue, too, was a prince, he was not a prince of Rong.
To put it kindly, Yexue was a ward sent here by his uncle, to be educated by our great empire.
To put it bluntly, he was a prisoner sent from one of our many tribute states, to be kept on a leash in case his uncle, the current Regent of Lan, dared to rebel.
A prince in name only, unworthy of claiming the first kill.
After two years in the Rong court, surviving under enemy roofs, Prince Yexue should understand 人在屋檐下不得不低头. When living under the mercy of another, one must bow one’s head.
“Is no one going to congratulate me?” Prince Yexue jumped from his horse to examine the prize, not an ounce of fear weighing down his tone.
How princely of him: ignoring what was expected of him to do what he wanted.
Jealousy rattled.
Prince Yexue of Lan was a boy of sculpted angles and porcelain skin. Thick brows, sharp jaw, and the kind of doe-brown eyes that made even the most proper of daughters lose their wits. To make it worse, he was also tall, towering over almost everyone with the exception of Siwang.
All of that beauty, and the kind of arrogant, rebellious streak that only princes were allowed to have—no wonder he’d caused a frenzy when he arrived at the capital two years ago. Every maiden had swooned at the sight of him—and so had a handful of the imperial concubines and the city’s noble sons. Rumor had it that half of the court had tried to marry their besotted daughters off to him, despite his crumbling kingdom and uncertain fate.
Visitors from across the continent came to Yong’An and the city had met plenty of beautiful faces before, though never one quite as haunting. Lan Yexue’s heavenly face was almost enough to make the court overlook his odd name and forget those swirling rumors of dark magic that his family practiced, and how his ancestors were the once-cruel southern rulers who had almost driven Siwang’s ancestors to extinction hundreds of years ago.
Empires rise and empires fall. Now Yexue’s country was our tribute state, and their beautiful prince was our ward.
“You have a sharp eye.” Tension eased slightly when Siwang finally cracked a smile.
“I’ve had practice,” Prince Yexue replied, his voice cold as the terrain surrounding us. “Not everyone can be the pampered heir to the most powerful empire in the land with nothing to fear and nothing to want.”
Caikun, the son of a first-ranked general and Siwang’s personal guard, grimaced. His hand rested on his sword, his eyes on Siwang, waiting for a signal to strike.
Other lips twisted into half smiles, including mine. It wasn’t every day that someone had the courage to make fun of our beloved crown prince, however foolish it was.
This hunting party of fur coats and leather riding boots and bows decorated with gold and silver and bedazzling jewels comprised some of our empire’s most powerful heirs. The children of generals, first-ranked ministers, and the wealthy merchants whose coffers filled the imperial treasury and funded our never-ending campaigns to claim more land, more power.
All in the name of my prophecy.
The one thing these heirs had in common, besides status and wealth and gleaming gold spoons hanging from their mouths?
Their compulsion to worship the ground Siwang walked on as if their lives depended on it.
Because in a way, they did.
君要臣死臣不得不死. If the emperor wanted a subject dead, the subject must die.
Regardless of status, name, or who their fathers were, all of their lives were delicate porcelain to Siwang, suspended on silk cords. If Siwang wished, he could make any or all of us fall to a death of ten thousand shattered pieces. Including me—even if he would never admit it, even if the entire court thought otherwise.
I was the empress-to-be, but an empress still had to bend to the will of a man.
“The imperial hunt doesn’t officially start until tomorrow,” I interjected before this could escalate. “This is an outing of leisure, and a chance for us to scout out the terrain before we hunt the bigger prizes tomorrow.”
Though Siwang’s jaw ticked with slight annoyance, the smile that followed was easy, charming, as princes were taught to be. “May the best man kill the first Beiying tiger tomorrow and bask in true glory.”
Yexue’s lips twitched, though it looked more like a sneer than a smirk. “May the best man,” he echoed.
My gaze shifted to the fallen stag, a small thing not yet old enough to grow a full set of antlers or shed all of its baby fur. The shot had gone straight through its eye to preserve the beautiful pelt. Crimson blood bloomed against the white snow, like winter roses. Like forlorn warnings.
Despite having sensed the stag before both princes, I hadn’t reached for my arrows. Because Father would have scolded me if I had.
Girls were not here to win prizes. Our job was to exist in docile and delicate beauty, while princes like Siwang basked in glory and admiration. Or so everyone had told me.
These visions need to stay secret, I reminded myself for the ten thousandth time.
Magic had not existed on our continent for hundreds of years. If the emperor ever found out that I possessed visions of the future, he would deem it a sign that the prophecy was true and that these visions were bestowed upon me so that I could help Siwang in his wars.
For in his eyes, I existed only to serve the ambitions of his son.
If I was really a fallen goddess, destined to bestow my husband with glory, why did I only dream of bloodshed and a capital in flames, never glory?
I cast a long look at the snowy mountains. Somewhere deep within this terrain hid Beiying tigers with their coveted snow-white fur and midnight-blue stripes that glistened in the light. They were twice as big as regular tigers and three times as strong. Legend had it that they were beasts created by the gods themselves during one of the heavenly wars and left forgotten in the mortal realm.
They were the most dangerous animal to roam these lands—other than humans.
If I could track one down, soak my hands with its blood, and offer its pelt to the emperor, I might be able to reclaim my destiny once and for all.
Or die trying.
“Let’s go!” Siwang called as he kicked his horse, Beifeng, into motion. “The day is still young, and I refuse to believe this is the only stag in this entire forest.”
I was about to follow when I felt something burning at the edge of my senses. Not a vision. I looked up and caught Lan Yexue staring at me.
I did not flinch from his gaze, nor did I look away like some chaste maiden who had never felt the fever of a man’s attention. Too many men looked at me, with and without the phoenix’s mark. Especially after my monthly bleedings came, after my chest began to swell and my hips filled out.
I knew lust. Saw it in the faces of both men and boys. How their eyes lingered a little too long when Siwang wasn’t around. How they licked their lips and hovered close like I was an object their hands itched to touch, or to take. Men like those made me want to cover every inch of my body and never step outside.
But if I did that, if I looked away and hid every time I caught someone staring, I would have to spend a lifetime hidden from sight, with only the silk screens and lacquered walls of my pavilion for company.
Having men stare at me wasn’t a surprising occurrence. What surprised me was that Prince Yexue did not look away when I caught him. And what sparked behind those eyes was something other than lust, something sharper.
Curiosity?
I kicked my horse into a trot before Siwang caught this temporary moment.
The Nightblood Prince will be released on July 1, 2025, but you can pre-order it now.
Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB