Chapter 5: The Stable

"Cui, go and see about the trunks," said Ge Zhenyuan.

His voice came out as a growl, and the lieutenant fled.

Ge Zhenyuan stood in the middle of the half-built library with his heart going.

Jing Wenxuan was looking at him.

The scholar did not say anything more.

He only nodded once, slowly, and turned back to the shelf, and ran a finger along the plank Zhenyuan had planed.

That was worse than a question.

By midnight Zhenyuan had lain on the mat for three hours.

He had done what the rules said.

He lay by the wall in the bridal room, with his back to the bed and his eyes open.

Wenxuan slept on the bed with one arm flung out over the quilt.

He slept curled up, with his hair all over the pillow.

He breathed with a small catch at the top of each breath.

Zhenyuan counted the catches.

He counted four hundred and then he could not do it anymore.

He took the spare quilt, walked across the room without making a sound, and went out through the side door.

The stable was dark and warm and smelled of hay.

His old grey mare put her nose over the stall and blew at his sleeve.

"Don't," he said.

She blew again.

He sat in the straw with his back against the post and put his face in his hands.

A hundred battles had not done to him what a scholar in a blue robe had done in one day.

He had stood on the ramparts of Hanlu Pass in a blizzard with the khan's army below, and he had known precisely what to do.

Now he had sat at a breakfast table and been asked to look at someone for three heartbeats, and he had almost died.

Wenxuan's eyes were brown, and very bright, and they moved fast over everything.

When they landed on him, it felt like being read.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Married to the Emperor's Fiercest General, Who Is Terrified of Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.