The Goddess Who Sealed Him Is His Maid Now novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Open Door
Luan was told she could leave the palace any day, and walked into the Sovereign's room by choice, where he kissed her, made her come with his hand, and she cried for the first time in her life.
Luan did not sleep.
She lay on her narrow bunk in the maids' courtyard with her wrist held up in the dark.
She looked at the faint gold mark the thread had left on her skin.
She remembered snow, and a white sleeve, and one knot.
Nothing else would come, however hard she pushed.
At dawn Mei found her sitting on the edge of the bed, already dressed.
"Your wages," said Mei, and dropped a cloth purse into her lap. "Two months, in advance."
"Why in advance?"
"Because last night you walked into the Hall of Chains and walked out again, and the whole palace is talking about it."
Mei sat down beside her with a grunt.
"Listen to me, little ghost. The gate is open. Any maid can leave any day.
She goes with her pay and a letter from me for the next house."
"I know."
"Then hear it again, so you don't forget it. Nobody here owns you."
Luan turned the purse over in her hands.
"I'm not leaving," she said.
"I didn't think you were. I wanted you to know you could."
At noon Captain Kuo came to the laundry court in his black lacquered armor.
He was all beard and noise, and he held out a folded card.
"From the Sovereign," he said. "He wrote it himself. I watched him throw out five."
Luan opened it.
The brush strokes were thick and careful.
The door is open. Come if you want. Stay away if you don't.
Underneath, smaller: I will not send for you.
Kuo scratched his beard.
"He's never sent a card in his life. Be kind to him, little ghost."
"I'm not kind," said Luan. "I'm just not scared."
"Same thing, for a lord like that," said Kuo, and went away whistling.
At the Hai bell she climbed the hundred and four steps with no tray in her hands.
The guards opened the door without a word.
Cangjue was standing in the middle of the room in his black robe.
He looked at her.
"You came."
"You said I could."
"I said you didn't have to." His voice was rough. "The thread will start in a moment. I'd rather you weren't in the room."
"Then why write the card?"
He opened his mouth and shut it again.
The gold thread on his chest had begun to turn white.
She watched the first crack run across the stone floor, and she walked to him and took the loose end in her hand.
It went warm at once.
It wound around her wrist, soft as silk, and the white drained out of it.
A shudder ran through Cangjue's whole body.
"Does it hurt you?" he said.
"No."
"Does it hurt you to touch me?"
"I haven't," said Luan. "Not yet."
She put her free hand flat on his bare chest, beside the place where the thread came out.
His skin was hot and hard, and a scar ran through the muscle under her palm.
Under that, she felt a heartbeat.
She felt a second one, too, beating just behind it.
The two beats were slightly apart, like two people walking in step but not together.
"You have two," she said.
"One is mine." He was watching her face. "I've felt the other one for nine hundred years, and I have never known whose it was."
Luan swallowed.
Her own chest was perfectly quiet.
"Is it mine?" she said. "Is that why I don't have any?"
"I don't know."
She believed him.
The thread had gone gold now and lay warm against her wrist.
For the first time in her life something was happening inside her that was not nothing.
It was low in her belly, and it was slow, and it made her thighs press together.
"Cangjue," she said, because his name was in her mouth and she wanted it there.
She had never said it before.
His eyes closed.
"Ask me," he said. "I won't unless you ask."
"Ask you what?"
"Whatever you want."
She had never wanted anything before.
She took one step closer, and then she was standing between his knees because he had sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Kiss me," she said.
He put his hand on the back of her neck, so large it covered it, and he kissed her.
It was slow.
His mouth was hot, and he tasted of iron and tea.
She opened to him without thinking and heard herself make a sound she didn't know she could make.
He pulled her down into his lap.
Her skirt rode up her thighs.
She straddled his hips and felt the hard length of him through his robe against her, and she gasped into his mouth.
"Is that for me?" she said.
"All of it," he said against her lips. "Tell me what you want."
"Your hand."
"Where?"
"You know where."
"Say it."
Her face was burning.
It was the first time her face had ever burned.
"Between my legs," she said. "Touch me there."
He made a low sound in his throat that was almost a growl.
His hand slid up the inside of her thigh, and the thread around her wrist blazed gold.
He found her wet, and her whole body jerked.
"Luan," he said, in a voice she'd never heard from anyone. "You're soaked."
"I've never," she said. "Not with anyone. Not once."
His fingers stopped.
"Don't stop," she said. "I'm telling you I want it. I'm not telling you to be careful."
His thumb circled her clit, slow, and her head fell back on his shoulder.
It was so much.
It was nothing she'd lived in for nineteen years.
She held his wrist and pushed his hand harder against her, and he laughed, low and ragged, and gave her what she wanted.
One finger slid inside her, slowly, and then two.
She was tight around him, and she felt every knuckle, and she rocked on his hand without shame.
"That's it," he said. "Ride my fingers. Take what you want."
"More."
"Here."
His thumb pressed down on her clit and his fingers curled up inside her.
A tight bright feeling coiled low in her belly and climbed.
Her breath came in short pieces.
"Cangjue. Cangjue, I'm going to."
"Go on. I've got you."
It broke over her all at once.
She cried out with her mouth against his neck.
Her whole body clenched around his fingers in long hard pulses, and the room went white.
The thread blazed.
When she could see again, she was lying against his chest, shaking, and her face was wet.
She touched her cheek.
Tears.
She had never cried in her life, not even as a child at her mother's grave.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know why."
"Don't be sorry."
His hand came out from under her skirt, and he held her to him with both arms.
One of his big hands cupped the back of her head.
"I've waited nine hundred years to hear someone cry for a good reason," he said.
She laughed, and it came out as a sob.
Her thighs were still trembling around his hips, and she could feel him hard and heavy under her.
"You're still hard," she said.
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine."
"I can wait."
She pressed her forehead to his collarbone.
She wanted to take him inside her tonight.
She wanted it so much that it frightened her, and fear was another thing she'd never had.
"Not tonight," she said. "I want to remember tomorrow that I chose it with all of my head."
"Then it will be tomorrow."
"Or the night after."
"Whenever you ask."
Something tapped on the window.
They both turned.
A white crane stood on the sill, tall as a child.
A rolled letter was tied to its leg, and its black eyes stayed on the Sovereign.
Cangjue went still beneath her.
He rose with her in his arms, set her gently on the bed, and crossed the room.
He untied the letter and read it, and she watched his face turn to stone.
"What is it?" she said.
"Heaven," he said. "The Jade Court will send a marshal to inspect the seal at the new moon."
"When is the new moon?"
"Twelve nights."
The gold thread on his chest had gone dark.
"They're going to tighten it," he said.
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