The Dragon God's Bride Asked for a Divorce novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Stakes

Shizuku did not ask his permission.

He was asleep, which was the only reason she could do it.

At dusk of the next day she stood at the north gate of the palace in a pair of Kohaku's trousers.

She had a coil of silk rope over her shoulder and a pick from the garden shed.

"This is a very bad idea," said Kohaku.

"Yes."

"His lordship will be furious."

"Then he can be furious at me while he is alive."

Kohaku sighed, and turned, and became a fat orange koi the size of a cart.

Shizuku took hold of her fins.

They rose through the dark water to the north shallows, where the stake stood.

It was black and hideous, driven into the lake bed up to the first third of its length.

A strip of white paper was wound round the top and sealed with wax.

The water around it was dead.

There was not a fish in it, and the weeds were rotting off the stones.

Shizuku wrapped the rope round the iron twice.

"Do it with your legs," said Kohaku from behind her. "Not your back."

"I carried rice for ten years. I know what my back does."

She braced her feet against a boulder and pulled.

The iron groaned.

She pulled until her shoulders burned and the pearl bounced against her breastbone.

Kohaku took the end of the rope in her round mouth and pulled too.

It came out with a wet crack.

Shizuku fell backward in a cloud of silt, and the stake rolled slowly end over end through the water and settled across her knees.

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