The Righteous Sect's Discarded Fiancée novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Part You Didn't Read

Yeon-hwa didn't take her hand back.

She didn't say yes, either.

"You don't know who you'd be marrying," she said.

"Seol Yeon-hwa. Discarded by the Azure Cloud. Cuts topknots. Eats three bowls."

"That's her name. It isn't mine."

He went still.

The moon was bright enough that she could see him decide not to let go of her hand.

"Tell me, then," he said.

So she told him.

She told him about a city across a sea he'd never heard of, so bright at night you couldn't see a single star.

About a girl who was good at one thing, a bamboo sword.

Her knee tore in a final with four thousand people watching.

About six years of selling running shoes to strangers.

He did not interrupt at the knee, or at the shoes.

He only asked what a crosswalk was, and she drew one in the dust with her heel.

About waking on a silk cushion while a man in blue ended an engagement she had never made.

"The book never once gave you a name," she said. "It annoyed me so much I missed my stop."

He was quiet for a long time.

"And the real one? The girl who trained in the woodshed?"

"I don't know. She's gone. I woke up and I was here and she wasn't."

"Do you have her memories?"

"Some. Her hands. Her feet. The kitchen door she watched him through." Yeon-hwa swallowed. "I didn't steal her. But I'm wearing her."

"Why tell me now?"

"Because you just asked me to marry you for real. You should know who'd be saying yes."

He looked out over the dark drop below the yard wall.

"When you walked across that courtyard," he said slowly, "you already knew they were going to kill us both."

"Yes."

"You didn't cut me loose out of pity."

"No. I needed the most frightening man in the courtyard on my side."

He laughed, very low.

"That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me."

"I'm serious."

"So am I." He traced the calluses on her palm with his thumb. "You read a book where I died in chapter three."

"Yes."

"And then you came into it and tore the page out."

She hadn't thought of it like that.

"I've been someone's paragraph my whole life," he said. "My father's heir. The Great Elder's problem. A trophy on a post."

"Hey."

"Every one of them knew how my story ended."

He lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to the inside of her wrist.

"I don't care what your name was," he said. "I'm the part you didn't read. Marry me and find out what happens."

Yeon-hwa couldn't speak.

So she didn't.

She slid off the wall, took him by the front of his robe and pulled him down to her.

He came down all at once.

He kissed her.

"Yes," she said against his mouth. "Yes. Now come upstairs."

He lifted his head.

His eyes were very dark.

"Are you giving me an order, betrothed?"

"I'm giving you the only one you'll get tonight. Upstairs."

They didn't make it up the stair without stopping.

He pressed her against the cliff wall halfway.

She pulled his robe off one shoulder and put her mouth on his neck, and he swore softly into her hair.

Her red door banged shut behind them.

The door banged shut, and Yeon-hwa didn't stop.

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