He Freed the Kings He Once Chained, They Chose to Bind Him novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Reckoning

Ken found Ren at the end of the pier, sitting with his boots in the lake.

The feast hall behind them was still loud with kings shouting at each other, and the guard captain had stopped trying to hush it.

Ren had not said a word since they dragged Mariam out.

Ken sat down beside him, and Ryu and Su Ming came after, one on each side.

Nobody spoke for a while.

"She asked me to ask you," Ren said at last. "What I did to you. Before."

His voice was flat, and Ken hated it.

"I know what I did. I know what I look like. I wear his face every morning in the basin." He drew a breath. "Tell me what you want from me for it. Anything. I'll do it."

Ken's hands curled into fists.

He had a hundred angry things ready, and he looked at Ren's bowed head, and they all fell out.

Ryu spoke first.

"I want you to open every cuff in the land," he said. "Not just ours. I want no man in this country to wear what we wore."

"Done," Ren said at once. "The first law."

"I'm not finished." Ryu looked at the water. "And I want you to stop saying sorry in your sleep."

Ren flinched.

"You do it every night," Ryu said. "I have been listening for weeks."

Su Ming laughed, wet and unsteady.

"My turn. I want you to say my name when you touch me. Not 'my lord', not 'darling', mine. I spent three years being called every name but that one."

"Su Ming," Ren said. "Su Ming."

"There. That's all. That's the whole price."

Everyone looked at Ken.

Ken stared at his own knees.

"I don't have a price," he said. "I had one. I wanted you dead for three years. Every day in the silver, I planned how."

"I know."

"Then you came into the room with a file, and my wrist hurt so much I couldn't see, and you were crying." Ken's jaw worked. "The old Ren never cried. So I stopped planning."

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