He Lost His Family in the Snow, He Returned to Save Them novel · Chapter 4 of 24
Chapter 4: The Orchard
The plum orchard at Wolfhold was bare in winter, and nobody walked in it but the gardeners.
Min-jun went there on the fourth morning to be alone. For three days he had watched the guest wing and the man with the wolf-and-plum ring had not come back to it.
He found Ren sitting on the low wall with his boots crossed.
"Your guard let you out," Min-jun said.
"I told him I wanted air. He is a nice boy. He looked away." Ren stood. "I wanted to see you without your husband's hand on your arm."
"Say it, then."
"I came back for you."
Ren said it simply, and for a moment the old ache came up in Min-jun, so sharp and familiar that he almost hated his own memory.
He had been twenty and Ren had been twenty, and there had been a river and a long summer.
Then Ren had taken a bag of coin from the old king and gone.
Min-jun let the ache pass and watched Ren's face instead.
Ren was too still. His eyes were warm, but his hands were calculating.
"You left," Min-jun said. "I did not send you."
"Your father did."
"You took the coin."
"I was twenty and starving, and he told me you would be happier." Ren stepped closer. "Were you?"
He stopped an arm's length away and tilted his head.
"You smell different," he said slowly. "Sweet. You never used to."
Min-jun went cold.
The veil was supposed to fool the world, but Ren had known his scent at twenty.
"It's the new soap," he said.
"Is it?"
Ren raised his hand and brushed the high collar at Min-jun's throat, one finger tracing the hook that held it closed.
"You used to leave this open for me."
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