Married to the Emperor's Fiercest General, Who Is Terrified of Me novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Splinter

"Mine," Wenxuan repeated, to the ceiling, an hour later.

The general had set him on the bed with great care and retreated to the mat without a word.

Now he lay there on his back, eyes shut, pretending to sleep, and he was very bad at it.

Wenxuan lay on his side in the dark and worked the whole thing out.

A boy in the provinces wrote an essay.

It went around the printing houses in the Model Essays books, the ones sold in every garrison town.

A soldier on a freezing border read it, and loved it, and kept copying it for seven years because he had nothing else to read.

Then the soldier, who was also the most feared man in the empire, was handed the writer in a red veil as a joke.

Wenxuan knew how that went.

Some people loved a book more than any person could live up to.

This man was a reader, and he was afraid the real Jing Wenxuan would not match the pages.

That was why he could not talk.

That was why he went red.

It was almost a relief.

It was also, Wenxuan found, a little annoying.

He shifted on the quilt, and something sharp stabbed his heel.

"Ow."

On the mat, six and a half feet of general came upright so fast it was a battle cry.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," said Wenxuan. "A splinter, I think. From the stable."

"Show me."

"It's nothing," said Wenxuan.

"Show me."

It was the voice from the ramparts, the one that moved ten thousand men.

Wenxuan put his foot out from under the quilt.

The general lit the lamp, knelt beside the bed, and took Wenxuan's heel in one scarred hand.

Wenxuan had not known that a heel could be that sensitive.

The hand was huge and rough and perfectly warm, and it held his foot, carefully.

His thumb pressed under the ball of the foot, and the whole length of Wenxuan's leg went hot.

"It's a small one," the general said. "Hold still."

"I am holding still."

"You're not breathing," said the general.

"Neither are you."

The general's mouth opened, and closed.

The tweezers from his field kit came out of a pocket, because of course he carried tweezers.

His hands were not steady.

Wenxuan watched them, and the theory he had built in the dark began to come apart.

A man afraid of disappointing a reader did not tremble like this over a heel.

This was a fine shake from the wrist, and it had nothing to do with essays.

"There," said the general, and held up the splinter on the tweezers.

"Thank you."

"Done."

It was one flat word.

He did not let go of the heel.

His thumb moved once along the arch, slow and absent, and Wenxuan's skin prickled from the ankle to the back of his neck.

"General," he said.

"Yes."

"On our wedding night I sat on that bed for a full hour with a veil on my head."

The hand went still.

"I could hear the whole banquet laughing in the courtyard. They had bet on how long I would last."

"Wenxuan," said the general.

"I thought, this is the worst night of my life, but at least it will be quick."

He kept his voice level.

He had practiced it for five nights, in his head, to the ceiling.

"And you came to the door and saw me and ran. To the horses."

"It was not..." said the general.

"Everyone in the empire was afraid you would break me. And you would not stay in a room with me."

He looked down at the dark head bent over his foot.

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