Chapter 23: The Last Judgement

The hall was exactly as he remembered it.

It was long and black and cold, with a floor that gave back no reflection.

Lu Chen stood in the middle of it, in his ink-blue coat.

His knees knew what to do before he did.

He knelt.

Beside him, Su Ye stood in his gray suit, one hand around his left wrist.

"You do not have to kneel," Morbius said.

He sat on the high bench with a book on his knee and his dark hair tied back.

There was no one else in the hall.

"I did the last time," Lu Chen said.

"The last time you were dead."

"I'm still a man who owes something."

"Yes." Morbius turned a page. "That is why you are here."

He looked down at Lu Chen for a long while.

"You have kept the rule," he said. "You have told no one of this hall. I broke it once myself, by showing Su Ye. That does not count against you."

"Thank you."

"You have not used the chain to buy him. You gave it up to prove it. You stopped a poisoning and a bribe and a forgery, and you took no credit."

"I didn't do it alone," Lu Chen said. "He did half of it."

Morbius's mouth curved.

"So I saw. Now answer me, and do not answer quickly."

He leaned forward.

"I asked you this once, on this floor. Do you regret what you did?"

Lu Chen drew breath.

The words came slowly.

"Yes. Every morning. I regret the pen and the dinner and the cell, and the faces of the people at that table. I regret that he trusted me."

"And if he forgave you tomorrow?"

"I'd still regret it."

"And if he never did?"

"Then I'd still be here," Lu Chen said. "I wouldn't have a right to ask for more. I'd stay because I wanted to."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Betrayed the Heir, Then Returned to Save Him from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.