NOVEL NEXT Chapter 294: Love In Any Language
"Eat," I tell him, sliding the bowl closer before he can think of saying no.
Lin Wei's fingers don't leave Yizhen's robe. They never did. But one hand loosened just enough for him to take the spoon. He watched it like it might turn into a knife, then lifted it in small, jerky motion and swallowed down the first bite.
Good. I counted that as a victory. No matter how small it was.
"Second bite," I said, already angling the bowl so he didn't have to reach.
Across from us, Deming put a plate of fruit by my elbow. He didn't make a speech about my appetite; he just nudged the plate an inch closer, just like I was doing for Lin Wei.
After last night, Deming was certainly making his presence known around the palace… and around me.
"You're feeding me like one of your recruits," I smirked without looking away from Lin Wei.
"If you don't want it, leave it," he replied with a shrug. "But you aren't eating enough. And until you do, I'll keep putting it there."
I speared a slice of pear and let him see it disappear. It was crisp enough to make my jaw ache. He said nothing, which was the same as approval, for Deming.
Mingyu leaned shoulder-first into the lattice. He wasn't dressed for court so much as for comfort. "At what point do we start charging the empire admission to watch its heir eat porridge?"
"Pay your own admission," I told him, a bit of laughter in my voice. "You're blocking my light."
He stepped aside without taking offense, and the corner of his mouth slipped up in an unconscious smile. The man has learned when to be silent and when to be foolish on purpose.
It helped.
It was also a lot better than before.
Yaozu slid in on quiet feet with two cups and no tray, steam curling over the rims. He put one by my right hand, one near Yizhen.
The confusion on my face must have been obvious. "It's jasmine," he grunted, his eyes narrowing until I picked up the cup and took my first sip. "You haven't been drinking as much as you should be."
Lin Wei draws my attention away from the guys as he takes a second bite. Then a third. He never looked up, but his grip on Yizhen's robe eases half a finger's width. Yizhen breathes with him, matched and steady, like two strings tuned to the same note.
"Third bell," Deming said, shifting from small bowls to larger problems as if the table were a map. "East wing rotation doubles. I want new call-and-answer drilled until the guards can do it with their mouths shut."
"They'll complain," Mingyu replied, not arguing, just predicting the shape of the day.
"They'll complain to each other," Deming shrugged. "Not to me. They are smarter than that."
"War councils at noon," reminded Mingyu with a sigh. "If the ministers want incense before then, they can chew it."
I made a note to lick him for that line later and take another drink of tea instead.
Today was going to be the fallout for last night and the 'cleansing' that happened. But I wasn't going to be the one to deal with it.
I refused.
Lin Wei's spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl and I couldn't help a sense of pride and happiness knowing that he ate.
"Schedules," I said reminding everyone where we stopped in the conversation.
It looked like I wasn't the only one to be happy that Lin Wei ate everything. I just wondered when we were going to discuss the fact that Sun Yizhen was in the room with us. Deming knew him as the fifth son of the Sun household.
But he didn't know the other mask he wore.
"Tutors?" Mingyu asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
"No tutors," I answer, and look at Lin Wei when I say it.
"Not yet. Two routes for walking, both inside the palace walls, both with exits you can run through if you need to. Wooden sword at dusk, three stances only."
I set my hand on Wei's head and keep it there as I talk so he understands I'm speaking to him as much as about him. "If anyone tries to show off a new trick, they'll lose the hand they used to point with. Anything else I can teach him myself."
Lin Wei's eyes drifted toward the plate Deming brought. I slid a piece of pear into my own mouth, then another toward him, not touching his fingers when he reached out to take it. He ate without moving the rest of his body, like a small animal that learned too early to protect its ribs.
"Yizhen," I say, not looking at him when I do. "Stay."
"I noticed I hadn't been dismissed," he chuckled, his voice carrying the faintest edge of humor, a blade put away, not blunted.
"Good. Keep not being dismissed."
"I'm excellent at that," he reminded me, his eyes sparkling with challenge.
A maid appeared in the doorway of the kitchen we had all found ourselves in before thinking better and turning around. She retreated two steps and then tried again, her bow lower, her voice steadier.
"Your—" She started before stopping. "My lady. The laundries send word the east corridor rugs have been beaten and laid."
"Tell the laundries the east corridor rugs are not to be thick enough to trip a boy or a wolf," I answered with a wave of my hand.
"Yes," she nodded. She disappeared as quickly as she had come, but I knew the quiet time of just us wasn't going to last much longer.
Deming studied my face the moment the servant left. "You haven't slept in a while," he noted. It wasn't a question.
"I'm fine," I replied, not really caring. I could sleep when I was dead… now was the time to get my house in order. Rising to my feet, I was quickly stopped by a hand on my shoulder.
"Sit down, then," he says, and pushes the fruit plate an inch closer again, just in case I forgot it exists between breaths. "Eat while you give orders."
"Bossy," I replied, my nose wrinkling.
"Effective," he counters, a smile on his face.
Mingyu laughs properly this time. It's a good sound on him. The room doesn't crack under it. Nobody flinches. The world narrows to a table, a child, four men who know the shape of my temper and touch the edges of it anyway.
"Market day," I say, changing the subject because softness is a luxury and I intend to spend it on what matters. "Not today. Soon. In plain clothes. Two guards who can wear their silence like a hat. Wei gets to point once at anything he wants. If it's food, he eats it. If it's a toy, it goes on the table and stays there until he decides if he can touch it again. If he can't, it burns and no one will say a line about waste."
Mingyu nodded as if I've just cited a statute. "Done."
The jasmine cools in my cup. I drink it all, because Yaozu was correct and I had forgotten to be human lately. He pretended he didn't notice he won. That was love, in his language.
That was love in any language