Sent as the Alliance Leader's Hostage Husband novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Ye-han

By morning the three dead men were laid out in the courtyard, and the whole Alliance had come to look.

Ye-han stood beside them in plain black, with no gold on his fingers, because it was a funeral.

Gyeong-wook stood on his left.

His shoulder was bandaged under his robe.

He had taken Ye-han's hand in front of the sect masters when they came down the steps, and he had not let go.

Nobody had said a word about it.

"These men came through the Leader's skylight last night," said the Sealing Elder, reading from a slip of paper.

"They carried Cult blades."

"They carried Cult blades," Ye-han agreed. "I would like to see them."

An attendant brought the knives on a tray.

Ye-han picked one up and turned it in the light.

"It's very good work," he said. "I'm flattered. Nobody in the Citadel has made a blade like this in thirty years.

"It's a copy of a copy of a pattern from an old museum.

"Whoever ordered it wanted it to look Cult, and was rather proud of it."

A murmur went round the courtyard.

"The dying man spoke before he died," Ye-han said. "He said the Hall Elder's steward paid him."

The steward stood at the back of the crowd, a pale, fleshy man in a clean blue coat, holding a tea tray.

He had been carrying the Leader's morning tea for eleven years.

The Hall Elder did not so much as turn his head.

"Slander," he said. "A Cult boy's word against a servant of this Hall."

"It is not my word.

"It is a dead man's.

"But I'm told the steward has a habit I find interesting."

Ye-han turned and looked at the steward.

"Every third night of the month," he said pleasantly, "you leave by the east gate, wearing a grey coat.

"You walk along the lake to the lanterns by the tea house.

"You give a purse to a man with a scar in his ear.

"Two nights ago was the third night."

The steward's tea tray began to rattle.

"I did not..."

"Master Steward," said Gyeong-wook.

He didn't raise his voice.

It was the quietest thing he'd said all morning, and the courtyard stopped to hear it.

"You have served me eleven years.

"I would like to hear you say it was not you."

The steward looked at the Leader, and the Leader looked back.

And the man broke.

The tray hit the stones and the cup rolled away.

"The Elder told me!" he sobbed.

"Master Hall told me to hire them.

"He said the Leader was a fool, and the Cult boy would hang, and the Alliance would be clean of both."

The silence that followed was the most beautiful sound Ye-han had ever heard.

The Hall Elder looked slowly around at the faces of his fellow elders.

Ye-han watched him calculate.

There was not much left of the man's face by the time he finished.

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