Two Disguised Heirs, One Heated Floor novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: The Mother Who Came Up the Mountain
They cleaned up in a hurry and ran for the gate.
A small woman stood at the top of the nine hundredth step, with one hand on the stone lion.
Her breath smoked in the lantern light.
She wore a pale blue robe, and her grey-streaked hair was twisted into a low knot.
She was shaking from the climb.
"Mother," Seo-hwan said.
Lady Jo Eun-sook looked from his face to Tae-gang's, and what crossed her own face was not surprise.
It was relief, and grief, and something that had been held back for twenty-two years.
"So it's today," she said. "I counted the days to the Stone, and I could not stay at home. I climbed the last stretch at dusk."
"You knew," Tae-gang said.
"I have known since the night you were born. Take me somewhere with a door."
Room Seven had never held three people.
Lady Jo sat on the warm floor with her back straight, and Seo-hwan poured her tea with a hand that wouldn't hold still.
"Listen to the whole of it," she said, "before you speak.
"Twenty-two years ago your fathers met at the Haeyeon inn to talk truce. The late Lady Hyeon and I went with them, both heavily pregnant.
"We had grown up in the same river village, before the clans married us.
"We were the only two women in the world who liked each other from both sides of the feud.
"You were born on the same snowy night, in two rooms of the same inn. Hers first, a boy, an hour before mine."
She looked at Seo-hwan.
"You were hers. A Hyeon. Black hair, a loud cry."
Then she looked at Tae-gang.
"And you were mine. A Jo."
Neither of them breathed.
"By morning, the truce had failed. Your fathers drew swords in the courtyard, and the innkeeper had to pull them apart.
"Lady Hyeon sat on my bed with her boy in her arms and said, 'It will be war. Whoever wins will hunt the other's heir.'
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Two Disguised Heirs, One Heated Floor are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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