Chapter 14: A Delay, Not a Lie

Chengxiao sat on the stone bench in the yard with his bad arm in his lap.

Shi An stood in front of him and said nothing for a long time.

"Say it," Chengxiao said.

"I have nothing to say, Highness."

"You have been standing there with your mouth shut for a quarter hour."

"Then you can read my face." Shi An folded his arms. "She said revenge comes first, and you walked out of the room."

"She was honest."

"She was honest at you, an hour after you took her to bed."

"I asked for the second term myself."

"You did."

Chengxiao looked at the plum tree by the wall, which had not yet put out any leaves.

He had been hurt before.

An arrow in the shoulder at Black Ridge, and a knife across the back at the river crossing.

Three years of dark, in which he had listened to his own enemies wash his face.

None of it had gone in as cleanly as one calm sentence from a woman in a borrowed robe.

He could not call it unfair.

She had promised it on the first night, to a husk of a man who could not answer.

"There is something under the east wing," he said.

Shi An's face did not change.

"Four of our best men guard it, three doors down."

"Each of them is paid to say nothing."

"I meant to take her there this week."

"And now?"

"Now she has told me what she'll do with anything that touches her father."

"She will go down those stairs the moment I name it, with her hair loose."