The Crown Princess Faked Her Death and Married the Mercenary King novel · Chapter 11 of 24
Chapter 11: The Loft
The Governor's camp lay empty in the morning light.
Tents stood open in the mud, with cooking pots still hanging from tripods and cots still unmade.
Ha-rin walked between the cold fires with Do-gyeom at her shoulder and twenty riders spread out behind them.
Nobody spoke.
"They left fast," said Do-gyeom.
"They left in the night, and in a panic."
She crouched beside a fire pit and put her hand into the ash.
It was cold, but the ground beneath was still warm.
"Six hours. Maybe seven."
"A man doesn't leave his dinner pots because he lost a battle. He leaves them because someone told him to run."
"Who?"
"Someone he's more afraid of than you."
She stood and looked south down the pass road.
Pines, a long grey sky, a thin line of dust on the far ridge that might have been wind.
An unpleasant idea knocked on the back of her mind, and she refused to open the door.
"We should go back," she said. "Double the walls."
"We'll go back."
"Now."
"In a moment."
Do-gyeom turned her toward him with one hand on her elbow.
She looked up at his face, and the worry on it was not about the Governor.
"You've gone white as paper, wife," he said, very quietly. "What do you know that I don't?"
Her mouth went dry.
She had a hundred answers, and every one was a lie.
"I don't know," she said, which was the truest lie she had ever told. "I only know I don't like it."
He studied her for a long second.
Then he nodded and let her go.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Crown Princess Faked Her Death and Married the Mercenary King are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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