The Righteous Sect's Discarded Fiancée novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Betrothed by Breakfast
At a roadside inn his huge Left Protector nearly takes her head and then cooks her breakfast, she learns her hostage is the heir to the Red Moon, and news comes that his own Great Elder sold him and will name a new heir in two days.
"Absolutely not," Yeon-hwa said.
"You'd rather die at the gate?"
"I'd rather not be engaged to a man I met an hour ago chained to a post."
"Two hours," he said. "And I wasn't chained for most of it."
By mid-morning they had walked to a ford on the western road, and she was engaged to him anyway.
The inn was a long, smoky room with three tables.
The innkeeper took one look at Mu-hyeon's robes and went pale to the lips.
Mu-hyeon put a gold ring on the counter.
"A room, hot water, bandages. And you never saw us."
The innkeeper took the ring and found somewhere else to be.
Yeon-hwa made Mu-hyeon sit on the bench by the fire and take off what was left of his robe.
He did it without any shyness at all.
His back was a ladder of seven red holes from neck to waist, and the cut along his ribs had opened again.
"Hold still."
"You keep saying that to me."
"You keep moving."
She cleaned the needle holes one by one with hot water and a strip of her own sleeve.
His skin was very warm under her fingers.
Every time she touched a wound, the muscle there jumped, and he didn't make a sound.
"You've done this before," he said.
"I used to tape my teammates' ankles."
"Your what?"
"Never mind."
She tied off the bandage around his ribs.
Her knuckles brushed his stomach and he caught her hand there and held it flat.
He looked down at her over his shoulder, very close.
"Your hands shake when you're not holding a sword," he said.
"Your heart's going fast for a man who was nearly dead last night."
"Is that what you think it is?"
The door banged open.
A man came in who had to turn sideways to fit through it.
He was bald, black-bearded and enormous, in dusty armor, with a heavy sabre already in his hand.
Five more men in red and black came in behind him.
The big man's eyes went to Mu-hyeon, bare-backed and bandaged on the bench.
Then they went to Yeon-hwa, standing over him in Alliance white.
He crossed the room in two strides.
The sabre's edge settled against the side of her neck, cold and very steady.
"Young Master," he said, in a voice like gravel in a barrel. "Step away from the Alliance girl."
"Uncle Pyo," Mu-hyeon said. "Take that off my betrothed's neck."
Nobody in the room moved.
The big man's eyes went from Mu-hyeon to Yeon-hwa and back again.
"Your what?"
"My betrothed. Seol Yeon-hwa. From this morning she outranks you, Uncle, so mind your manners."
"I didn't agree to that part," Yeon-hwa said.
The sabre didn't move.
"She's Azure Cloud," the big man said. "I can smell it on her."
"I'm discarded Azure Cloud," she said. "Since about nine o'clock last night. Ask anyone."
He stared down at her.
Then, without any warning at all, he threw his head back and laughed.
It was a huge laugh.
The cups on the shelves rattled.
"The Seol leech? Jin's boy threw you over and you walked off with his father's hostage?"
"And my dowry."
He laughed so hard he had to sit down.
The bench groaned under him.
The sabre went back into its sheath, and he wiped his eyes with a hand the size of a skillet.
"Pyo Man-seok," he said. "Left Protector of the Red Moon. I carried this one on my shoulders at four, and he bit my ear."
"He still bites," Yeon-hwa said.
Pyo looked at Mu-hyeon's face, then hers, and laughed again.
Then he went into the inn's kitchen.
Twenty minutes later there was rice on the table, eggs fried in pork fat, pickled radish and a pot of broth.
Yeon-hwa hadn't eaten since Seoul.
She ate three bowls.
Pyo watched her do it with great approval.
"She eats like a soldier," he told Mu-hyeon.
"She fights like one too."
"Does she know what you are?"
"She knows," Yeon-hwa said, with her mouth full. "Little Heavenly Demon. Heir to the Red Moon."
"And she's not afraid?"
She looked at Mu-hyeon across the table.
The man the book had killed in one paragraph was eating a fried egg with his fingers.
"Honestly? I keep forgetting he's supposed to be dead."
The table went quiet.
Mu-hyeon set down his egg.
"Supposed to be?"
"The Saintess was going to turn her face away," Yeon-hwa said. "She's very delicate."
"You said that like you'd read it somewhere."
She had.
She couldn't explain where.
"I hear things," she said.
"You knew about the needles, too," he said slowly. "You went for them first, before the ropes. Nobody outside that courtyard knew."
His red-brown eyes rested on her, patient and curious and not at all stupid.
"What else do you know, Seol Yeon-hwa?"
Pyo saved her.
He put down his bowl and his face had changed completely.
"Young Master. You'd better hear my news before hers."
Mu-hyeon looked at him.
"Somebody sold your route into the Azure Cloud vault," Pyo said. "Somebody on our own mountain. The Alliance knew the night and the hour."
"I worked that out, chained to a post."
"Then work this out. Three days ago the Great Elder stood in the ancestral hall and told the whole cult you were dead."
The fire popped.
"He's calling the elders together to name a new heir," Pyo said. "His own man. In two days."
Mu-hyeon's face didn't change, but his hand closed on the edge of the table.
"And the first thing a new heir does," Pyo said, "is kill the old one."
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