The Crown Princess Faked Her Death and Married the Mercenary King novel · Chapter 10 of 24
Chapter 10: The Heron Vow
They fought the fire in their shirts.
Ha-rin ran across the courtyard with her coat unbuttoned and her boots untied, shouting orders, and four hundred soldiers ran where she pointed.
"Water chain from the well to the east store! Gwang-ho, pull the thatch off the next roof, now!"
"It's the roof that's burning, ma'am!"
"The next one isn't!"
They tore the thatch off the neighboring granary with hooks and threw it in the dirt.
The fire reached the gap and had nothing to eat.
By dawn the east store was a black shell.
The west store stood untouched, and two thirds of the winter rice was still in it.
Gwang-ho found the arsonist on the north wall with a torch and a rope.
It was the one-eared prisoner from the cellar.
Someone had left the door unbarred, and the man had a coin in his boot.
"Hang him at noon," said Do-gyeom.
"Boss," said Gwang-ho quietly, "he's a kid."
"He's thirty."
"To me he's a kid."
Do-gyeom looked at the man for a moment.
"Send him back to the Governor," he said. "Without his boots. Let the Governor feed him."
That was how he was.
He killed when he had to, and he never made a show of it.
Ha-rin watched him from the black doorway of the east store with ash on her face and her sleeve burned through.
She realized she was happy.
It was an absurd thing to feel, standing in the ruins, with the smell of wet char in her throat.
She was happy because she had saved something.
She was happy because he was looking at her.
At sunrise he took her up to the north wall.
The wind had cleared the smoke.
Down the valley the morning lay gold on the pines, and the whole pass was spread out.
He took off his coat and laid it around her shoulders.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Crown Princess Faked Her Death and Married the Mercenary King are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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