The Taster Who Caught the Regent's Poison novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Mine

"Tell him," the Emperor had said, from the Regent's shoulder, as he was carried down from the roof.

"Tonight. Everything. Or I will."

So that night, in the study, with the door shut and the lamp low, Duan Shiyan told Linyuan everything.

He did not sit behind the desk.

He stood by the window with his back to the room and his hands folded in his sleeves.

"The old Emperor was my friend before he was my sovereign," he said.

"We were boys together at the Academy. He was a bad swordsman and a worse liar, and he laughed at my jokes."

"I didn't know you made jokes," Linyuan said.

"I do not. That is why he laughed."

His voice was level.

"When he was dying, he sent everyone out but me."

"He took my hand."

"He said, Shiyan, keep my son alive until he is eighteen, whatever it takes."

The lamp hissed.

"Whatever it takes," Linyuan repeated.

"Yes. I thought about those words for a long time."

The Regent turned.

His face was composed, with the composure of a man standing very still on a very thin ledge.

"The Hu brothers wanted the boy married to their niece within the year."

"They wanted him to sign a war against the North, because the Hu family owns the grain trade and a war makes them rich."

"A boy of twelve with a pen will sign whatever he is given."

"So you gave him a bed," Linyuan said.

"I took his hand off the pen."

He said it flatly.

"He sleeps sixteen hours a day. He cannot be married, or made to sign, or paraded, or used."

"I told myself it was for two years. Then it was three. Now it is four."

"And now there is a taster who throws out my bowls."

He tried to smile and could not.

"I am not asking you to forgive it," he said. "It was a crime, and I did it knowing exactly what it was."

"The Emperor is a child, and I took years of his life, and I am still not sorry enough to stop."

Linyuan stared at him.

"That is the worst apology I've ever heard."

"It is not an apology. I do not ask you to forgive me."

The Regent looked at him with a candour that hurt.

"I am telling you because he told me to, and because I find I want one person to know what I am."

Linyuan crossed the room.

He did not decide to, his feet simply did it.

He stopped close enough to see the pulse in the Regent's throat, and said the only thing he had.

"You can't stop yet. The Audience is in six days."

"If the Emperor is awake and sharp, the Hu brothers will use him."

"If he is dull and sleepy, they will call him unfit and take him under the Founder's Law."

"That law lets the Emperor's nearest elder rule for him."

The Regent's jaw tightened.

"I am out of good doors, Linyuan."

"Then we find one."

"We?"

"You said it in the tea store, and I said it back. We."

Linyuan poked him in the chest.

"I'm not leaving a sixteen-year-old with that family. And I'm not leaving you with the milk."

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