The Painter and the Prince Who Cannot Be Painted novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: The Face
The two portraits stood side by side on the main room floor, propped against the wall.
On the left was the face with the round chin, the thin brows and the crooked nose.
On the right was the face with the dead King's straight nose and heavy jaw and long, stern eyes.
The King stood in front of them with his hands behind his back.
He stood so long that the Consort coughed twice from her quilts, to remind him she was there.
"Which one is for the shrine?" he said at last.
"Neither, Your Majesty," Do-yun said. "The left is his mother's picture of her son. The right is only half finished."
"It looks finished."
"It's not signed. And it hasn't been seen in daylight."
The King turned his head and looked at his brother.
Gyeol sat on his heels on the boards with his back straight and his hands open on his knees, and he did not look away.
"You could take the throne," the King said abruptly.
"Every man who saw you on that landing last night knows it."
"They'll say it in the marketplace by the end of the week."
"I know."
"The ministers will say it. Some of them have said it for three years."
"I know, Your Majesty."
"Then why did you walk out into the lane?"
"To save my painter's life."
The King's thin face worked.
"That's no reason."
"It's the only one I have," Gyeol said.
"I don't want your throne. I never wanted it."
"I will say so in the great hall before every minister, with my hand on the register."
"They struck your name from it."
"Then write it back, and I'll put my mark under the words: no claim."
The King stared.
Then he sat down hard on the floor in his brown coat, cross-legged.
He put the heel of his hand to his eyes.
"I was so afraid of you," he said, muffled. "Every night, for three years."
He drew a ragged breath.
"You are the only one who has ever looked at me as if I weren't a copy of someone else."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Painter and the Prince Who Cannot Be Painted are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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