The Poison Master Knocks Every Night With the Antidote novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Gloves Off

Jae-ryeong kneels by choice and gets the gloves off the poisoner for the first time; at dawn his uncle arrives with the Elder Council.

The second night, Jae-ryeong was ready for him.

He had sent Do-yun to bed with a threat and a jug of rice wine.

He had put one lamp in the window.

He had also, he admitted to himself, bathed.

The knock came at the hour of the rat, three soft taps.

Seol came in over the sill with his box and his needles and the same careful face.

"Drink," he said, and held out the cup.

Jae-ryeong drank.

"Robe."

Jae-ryeong took it off.

"Face down."

"No."

Seol's brows rose.

"The needles go in the spine, my lord. They don't go in the front."

"Then they can go in while I'm sitting up."

Jae-ryeong sat on the edge of the bed, facing him, bare to the waist, and looked at the gloves. "Take those off."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because my skin is poison." Seol said it plainly, rolling the needles open.

"I was soaked in poison from the age of eight. My sweat will blister a servant's hand in an hour."

"I'm not a servant."

"No. You're an idiot."

"I'm an idiot who drank your plum wine and your tea and is still alive."

"If your skin could kill me, I'd be dead already."

That stopped Seol.

He looked at Jae-ryeong for a long moment.

"The Frost is in your blood now," he said slowly.

"It may be that it dulls the rest of my poison for you."

"Then find out."

"Jae-ryeong."

It was the first time Seol had said his name.

It went through Jae-ryeong.

"Find out," Jae-ryeong said again.

Seol took off the left glove.

His hand was long and white, with fine blue veins and nails lacquered dark green.

There was a faint grey pattern under the skin, like frost on a window.

He held the hand out in front of him.

Jae-ryeong took it and laid Seol's palm flat against his own chest.

A tingle ran under the hand, like the pins and needles in a sleeping foot.

That was all.

"Oh," Seol said.

His whole face changed.

It opened, startled and unguarded, a boy's face on a man of twenty-nine.

Jae-ryeong thought that nobody had touched this man with a bare hand since he was eight.

"It doesn't hurt," Jae-ryeong said.

"No."

"Does it hurt you?"

"No." Seol swallowed. "It's very warm."

Jae-ryeong turned his face and kissed the palm.

Seol's breath left him in a rush.

Jae-ryeong felt it on his skin, and he felt Seol's fingers curl against his cheek, helpless.

"You said you don't kiss," Jae-ryeong said against the hand.

"I said I don't kiss mouths."

"Then I'll make do."

He slid off the bed and onto his knees.

He was a big man, and the floor of his father's room was hard, and he did not care.

He looked up at the poison master of the Nine Thorns Hall.

Seol stood very still above him, one hand bare and one hand gloved, rigid with tension.

"What are you doing?" Seol said, thin-voiced.

"What did I do last night?"

"You lay there."

"Tonight I'd like to repay it."

"It isn't a debt."

"I know."

Jae-ryeong untied the cord of the green robe and the trousers under it, and his hands were not steady either.

"I want to."

Seol caught his wrist with the bare hand.

The tingle ran up Jae-ryeong's arm.

"Say that again."

"I want to."

Seol's fingers loosened.

Jae-ryeong drew the cloth aside.

Seol was already hard, and he flushed to the ears when Jae-ryeong looked.

Jae-ryeong took him into his mouth before Seol could take back the permission.

Seol tasted clean and warm, with a trace of something bitter and herbal on his skin.

Jae-ryeong's lips tingled as if frost had bitten them.

He liked it.

He took Seol deeper, and the gloved hand found his hair and held on, and the bare hand found his jaw.

"Jae-ryeong," Seol said, wrecked. "Slowly, I haven't."

He didn't finish.

Jae-ryeong didn't ask what he hadn't.

He ran his tongue along the underside, slow and sure.

Seol's thighs shook against his shoulders.

When Jae-ryeong swallowed him to the root, Seol made a sound that Jae-ryeong would have given the whole east cliff to hear again.

"You're good," Seol gasped. "You're very good at this."

"I'm good at everything I do on my knees."

Seol laughed, astonished and breathless, and then his head fell back, and the bare hand tightened in Jae-ryeong's hair.

"Look at me," Seol said.

Jae-ryeong looked up the length of his body.

Seol's grey eyes were black with pupil, and his mouth hung open.

"Keep looking," Seol said, and came down Jae-ryeong's throat with a hoarse cry.

Jae-ryeong swallowed all of it and kept his eyes on Seol's face the whole time.

Seol sagged.

Jae-ryeong caught him by the hips and held him until he stopped shaking.

Then he rose and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Seol was looking at the faint red marks his own fingers had left on Jae-ryeong's jaw.

"I'm sorry," Seol said. "I left a mark."

"Leave another."

Seol's eyes closed.

"You're a menace," he said.

"I'm your patient."

Seol gave a shaky laugh and put the glove back on.

It was a slow business.

Then, without looking up, he said, "You didn't ask me anything in the feast hall. Why I did it."

"You'd have lied."

"I would."

"I'll ask in a month."

Seol nodded.

He set the needles quickly, with his usual skill.

His hands were firm now, and they left a warm trail down Jae-ryeong's back.

At the window he stopped.

"Be careful in the morning," he said. "Your uncle rode out after the feast to meet men on the mountain road."

"My uncle went to bed in the guest hall."

"He didn't. He rode out to meet sixty men, and you've been so busy being poisoned you haven't noticed."

Seol went out.

Jae-ryeong lay down in the grey dawn, with the warmth of that bare hand still printed on his skin.

He slept for an hour.

At the first bell, Do-yun burst in without knocking.

"My lord," Do-yun said, "Elder Pil-gu is back with the whole Council and sixty men. He's raised the white banner."

"What does the white banner mean?"

"It's the sign for a challenge of fitness," Do-yun said. "They say the lord is ill. They want the seal."

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