Chapter 6: The King's Garden

Captain Kang let go of Soyul's hand.

He did it slowly, one finger at a time.

"Alone," Soyul said to the eunuch. "With nobody?"

"The captain of your gate will escort you, my lady. As far as the garden wall."

So it was Captain Kang who walked behind her through the dark palace with a lantern, three steps back, exactly where a guard belonged.

He didn't say a word the whole way.

She could feel him there like heat on the back of her neck.

The king's rear garden was all black water and lantern light.

A pavilion stood out over the pond on red stilts.

In it a slim young man sat on the railing with his feet up, cracking chestnuts.

His robe was royal red with the gold dragon on the chest.

He had a pale, fine face and heavy-lidded eyes that looked half asleep.

"Lady Baek," he said, and didn't get up. "Come and sit."

"Captain, stay where you are. If she pushes me in the pond, you may fish me out."

"Majesty," Captain Kang said, and stopped at the end of the little bridge.

Soyul went into the pavilion and bowed to the floor.

"Get up," the king said. "You do it badly. You're thinking about something else."

She got up.

He offered her a chestnut.

She took it, because you don't refuse a king, and held it in her hand.

He was twenty-six.

In her first life she had lived two years in his palace, and she had never once seen his face this close.

He never came to the Moon Pavilion.

Not when she was sick, not on the new year, not on the night she died.

Keep reading free with an account. Start This Time, I Stood Up in the Selection Hall from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.