I Was Sent as Tribute to the Prince I Shot novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Six Years

The physician who pulled the arrow had vanished, and Lin took the news in his study standing, with his good hand flat on the map.

"Gone," he said.

"Not dead, not sent anywhere.

Just gone from every list in the kingdom, a week after I woke."

"Cen?" said Du Heng, from the doorway where he was supposed to be sweeping.

"Cen would have signed the order," said Wen Lanxi.

"That's the trouble.

Nothing here has his hand on it."

"Then we go on," Lin said.

"We have until the solstice.

Lanxi, keep looking.

Du Heng, keep sweeping."

The two of them left.

Jiang stayed.

He looked at the east wall, at the pins and the dates and the careful fine writing in the margins.

Then he said what he had been wanting to say for a week.

"You've been tracking the Ninth Army for years."

Lin didn't turn.

"Six," he said.

"Since the spring you took Iron Pass with four hundred men and a goat."

"It was three hundred and twenty men."

"And the goat."

"The goat was an accident."

Lin laughed, quietly.

Then he turned around and leaned against the desk, and Jiang saw how tired he was.

"I'll tell you the truth, General, because I think you're the only person in Liang I can.

My father's court is a room full of people who tell me what I want to hear.

Your dispatches fell into our hands in the second winter.

A courier died in a snowdrift.

I read them in my tent.

You wrote orders like letters to friends.

You told a company commander to eat before he marched.

You thanked a dead scout by name in the margin."

Jiang's throat was tight.

"You were the only enemy I ever respected," Lin said.

"After that I couldn't stop watching.

I used to stand on the south bank at dawn and look across the water, trying to see which of the tiny riders was you."

"At Stone Ford..."

"I was looking at you.

I swear it.

I was facing straight across at a tiny figure on the north bank, thinking, there he is.

I saw you lift the bow.

Then I turned my head to call to the rowers, for one heartbeat, and the arrow came."

He touched the back of his shoulder.

"I never saw the shot, Zhanyuan.

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