He Freed the Kings He Once Chained, They Chose to Bind Him novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Night Before

The Lake Palace lay on a long gray water with a white causeway running out to it.

Mariam had put them in the guest wing, with a servant at every door and a pot of tea on every table.

Nobody touched the tea.

By dark all four of them were in one room, with the shutters closed and the lamp turned low.

Ken had arrived that afternoon with two hundred Eastern riders and a black temper.

He sat on the bed with his boots on, cleaning his nails with the tip of the dagger.

"She'll have the marshal's men in the hall," he said. "Forty, maybe. Every one of them in Western steel."

"And three hundred guests," Su Ming said. "Four courts, all at her table."

"Which is what she wants." Ryu stood at the window with his arms crossed. "A room full of witnesses to a coup."

Ren sat on the floor, with the letters spread around him.

He had not slept properly in a week.

"Then she gets her witnesses," he said. "But she doesn't get the coup."

They looked at him.

"I read it out. All of it. The drafts, the schedule of the boy, the letter to the marshal. In front of every court."

"She'll say forgery," said Su Ming.

"She will. So you tell them the dates." Ren looked at him. "Three years of dates, in her hand, from before the king's tremor. You know every king and queen at that table. They'll listen to you."

"And me?" Ken said.

"You smell her. Whatever she's brought into that hall, you find it before I stand up."

"And me," Ryu said.

"You stand behind me." Ren's mouth moved. "You do that very well."

Ryu almost smiled.

Su Ming pulled the last of the shutters across and turned to face them.

"That's the plan, then," he said. "Four men and a stack of paper against an army."

"It's a good plan."

"It's a terrible plan."

"It's the one we have."

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