This Time, I Stood Up in the Selection Hall novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: Behind the Inner Gate
He didn't move.
"Soyul," he said. "If anyone sees you go in there, they'll hang us both."
"They'll hang you anyway, if he gets his way."
"That's not funny."
"I'm not laughing."
His thumbs moved on her cheekbones.
She could feel how hard he was holding himself still.
"You're the king's," he said, very low. "On paper. For six more days."
"I was the king's for two years once," she said. "He never came. You did. Every night."
His breath went out of him.
"I'm not asking you to take me over the wall," she said. "I'm asking you to take me thirty steps."
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he had decided.
She saw it happen, the same way she had seen it in the hall when he picked up the rolls.
"Wait here," he said.
He went out.
She heard his voice in the yard, quiet and clipped, and another man answering.
When he came back he left the armoury door open a crack and stood listening.
"My lieutenant has the cell," he said. "Two men on the door. Nothing goes in."
"No food, no water, no visitors with seals. I told him I'd have his ears if a cup of anything gets past him."
"And my door?"
"Your door has nobody behind it." The corner of his mouth moved. "So it doesn't need me."
He picked up her wet cloak off the floor and put it around her himself, and pulled the hood down over her face.
Then he walked her thirty steps through the snow, between the dark guardhouse and the wall, in his shadow.
Nobody saw.
Or if they did, they were his men, and they looked at the sky.
His room was behind the guardhouse, up two wooden steps.
It was small.
A warm ondol floor, a rolled quilt, a sword rack with two swords and a bow.
On a low desk sat an ink stone and a stack of guard rosters in big square soldier's characters.
One lamp.
The window paper glowed faintly blue with the snow outside.
He slid the door shut behind them and stood with his back against it.
He didn't come any closer.
"You can still go back," he said.
"I know."
"I'll walk you. Nobody will ever know you came."
"I'll know."
Soyul untied the ribbon at the front of her jacket.
He watched her hands.
He didn't breathe.
Soyul let the jacket fall open, and then she pushed it off her shoulders.
The air in the room was warm from the ondol, but her skin prickled anyway.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of This Time, I Stood Up in the Selection Hall are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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