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twstedfreak · 2 days ago

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When The Moon Remembers | jinu kpdh part 1

A princess cursed to forget. A warrior doomed to remember.

Synopsis: A princess dreams of a man she’s never met—until he walks into court as a mysterious envoy. Haunted by echoes of a forgotten past, she’s drawn to him by a pull she can’t name.

Content: ANGST, early joseon dynasty themes, grief, past life death, reincarnation trauma, NOT BETA-READ BY OTHERS!! (only me), implied violence, psychological distress, dissociation, loneliness, isolation, forbidden romance, memory loss, unreliable narration, power imbalance, mild body horror, identity crisis, OPEN ENDING(?)

wc: 16.8k

A/N: ok so hi this is my tribute to jinu, thank you for reading my work,, i've been making this for 3 days straight... my back fcking hurts mannnn... just like how it hurt when jinu...... but yeah (spoiler alert: i'm not that good with endings i'm sorry...) this will only be a 2 chapter or 3?? fic idk,, it depends... it's supposed to be just a standalone fic but.... "dang only 1000 blocks allowed per post tumblr!" says tumblr LMAO so yeah,, thanks to my friends who supported me in making this,, they contributed to my dellusions LMAO<3 I love you jinu,, imma mke a smut fic soon so bye y'all,, pls patiently wait for the part 2 i'm working on it ToT (as well as the other fics,, I had in stored collecting dust LMAO) BYEEEEE HOES LOVE YLLL

The palace was silent in the hour between night and dawn. Not the stillness of sleep, but a breath held—as though the very walls were listening. Even the cicadas had gone quiet, their nightly song swallowed by something ancient in the air. Outside, the moon hung low and red, veiled by mist, casting long, skeletal shadows across the garden. Jade tiles shimmered with dew. The lattice doors of the women’s quarters remained shut, their painted blossoms fading in the dark. Lanterns had long burned out, their wax cold. Even the wind dared not stir the plum blossoms resting like offerings on the stone paths.

You moved barefoot through the garden, your silk hem damp and trailing behind you, whispering secrets to the stones. Your hair, unbound for the first time in days, hung loose down your back, its weight unfamiliar. The court would call it reckless. The guards, irresponsible. The court ladies would hide their gasps behind sleeves, calling it shameful. But in this hidden hour, with no one to witness, you were not the princess. Not the daughter of kings. Not the nation’s quiet pillar of grace and restraint. Not the bride-in-waiting, raised to be a symbol carved from jade and silence.

You were simply a girl. A girl aching for breath that wasn’t perfumed with politics. A girl who longed to feel the cold of stone beneath her feet, the damp of the world on her skin, to exist—if only for a moment—untouched by titles.

The Queen Mother’s Garden was your sanctuary, though no one called it that but you. To the rest of the palace, it was sacred ground—an ancestral space preserved for ritual offerings and seasonal rites. But to you, it was a secret world carved out of duty. A place where the weight of names dissolved into shadows and wind. The stone paths curled between groves of plum and bamboo, the air sweetened by moonflowers. A stream murmured softly through the heart of the garden, its koi sleeping beneath lily pads that shivered when touched by starlight. Small bridges arched across the water, unused at this hour—silent guardians of your solitude.

This was where you could breathe. Where the silence did not judge. Where the stars did not care for your lineage.

They called you wise, and said it like it was your greatest virtue. They spoke of your grace, your stillness, your beauty. A granddaughter of emperors, trained since birth to smile without speaking too quickly. You were praised for never stumbling, for weeping only behind screens, for knowing which words to say and which to swallow.

But no one ever asked what it was like to be watched always. No one asked how it felt to walk hallways lined with bowed heads, to sit beneath silk banners stitched with your future as though it were already sealed. No one asked if the wisdom they admired had cost you your voice.

Sometimes you dreamed of the world beyond the palace walls. Not in vivid details—but in feelings. Wind in your face. The roar of a river. Laughter not muffled by propriety. The kind of laughter that burst from the chest, unshaped by etiquette. You dreamed of color and noise, of dirt on your hands and no one scolding you for it but dreams were not for princesses. They were indulgences. Dangerous. Unbecoming. And so, you carried your yearning like you carried your name—quietly, with perfect posture. Yet tonight, something felt different. The silence wasn’t quite empty. The shadows seemed to bend differently. As though something—or someone—was watching.

Not a servant. Not a guard.

Perhaps, in that strange, fragile moment between night and dawn, when even the sky hesitated, you allowed yourself to believe—just for a breath—that this garden wasn’t empty.

That perhaps, you weren’t alone.

You drifted across the flagstones, the hem of your white under-robe soaked through with dew. Your slippers had been left behind, somewhere near the veranda, forgotten in your haste. A thin breeze tugged at your sleeves and cooled the warmth of your skin. You should have felt peace in this place. You had, on other nights. But tonight… Something was different.

The stillness felt too deliberate. Too heavy. As if something waited.

Your steps slowed as you passed beneath the archway leading toward the lotus pond. The usual murmur of night creatures… The frogs, the crickets, even the rustling birds—had gone silent. In their absence came a soft, rhythmic sound. Not natural.

Metal.

It was the distinct sound of a blade being drawn across its sheath, a slow, deliberate hiss.

Then came the growl.

Low and deep, like it rose from the belly of the earth. It did not sound like any beast you knew. Not a tiger. Not a wolf. It was… wrong. It stirred a primal part of you, an old fear buried in the marrow of your bones.

You stopped.

The wind held its breath.

From the corner of your eye, movement—something slipping between two stone lanterns, too tall and too bent to be human.

And then you saw it.

A creature—if such a word could apply—emerged from the shadows. Its form was skeletal, but bloated in places, like something had worn the skin of a man and never quite learned how to fit inside it. Its fingers were claws, each joint stretched and cracking. Its mouth was a jagged split, yawning impossibly wide, as though it had no end. The entire thing shimmered, black smoke rising off it in threads that pulsed and curled like burning incense.

Its eyes locked onto you—no irises, only molten red, like embers burning in a kiln.

You could not move. Your body refused to obey you. It was as if the very air around you had thickened, turned to tar. Your breath caught in your throat, chest rising in small, shallow gasps. You tried to scream. Nothing came.

The creature took a step forward, its limbs dragging behind like shattered branches.

And then—

Wind.

But not natural wind.

Something tore past you, so fast it sucked the air from your lungs—a streak of motion cutting through the garden, silent but precise. You turned, stumbling back, just in time to see him.

A man. Not a palace guard. Not a courtier.

He moved with such deliberate grace it made the world feel slow. His robes were dark, almost black, but close-fitting, like armor made of cloth. His hair was tied back tightly, and in his hand gleaming, curved, and lit by moonlight—was a blade.

Not like the ones you had seen in royal ceremonies. This one was old. Hand-forged. Marked. He did not hesitate. The creature lunged and he was there.

His sword moved like a whisper. A gleam. A blur. Then another. A step forward. A twist. A low grunt as the demon shrieked, staggering back, black smoke erupting from its chest as the blade found its mark again. He was not merely fighting it. He was like dancing with it, leading it in some ritual.

You tilted your head with disbelief and watched, heart pounding, unable to speak, unable to move. The final blow was almost silent. His blade sliced through the creature’s neck in a clean arc.

The demon froze, mouth open in a silent scream, then cracked, splintered, and dissolved into ash. The smoke curled, shimmered, and faded.

Silence returned.

The man did not look at it. He turned, instead, to you.

Even in the dark, you could see the sharp cut of his jaw, the sweat beading along his temple, the slow rise and fall of his chest. But it was his eyes that stopped you: dark, steady, and strange.

He said nothing at first. Neither did you.

He took one step forward. “You weren’t supposed to see that.” His voice was low. Even. Like someone used to hiding what they felt.

You found your own voice, thin but clear. “You’re no palace guard.”

“No,” he replied. The word was quiet, yet final. A single syllable that seemed to carry the weight of lifetimes, slicing through the silence like a blade through silk.

You stared at him. In the pale light, his face was partly shadowed, but you could still make out the sharp angles of his jaw, the tension around his mouth, the way his eyes—dark and deep as midnight ink—refused to leave yours. He looked at you not like a stranger caught in wrongdoing, but like someone searching for something he'd almost forgotten. Something fragile. Familiar.

“Then what are you?” you asked, your voice steadier than you felt. It wasn’t a demand. It was a whisper edged with wonder and fear. Not just about the monster he had slain, but about him—this man who had appeared from nothing, fought like a ghost, and stood now as if caught between worlds.

He didn’t answer right away.

A wind stirred, brushing through the garden with soft fingers. Your hair lifted around your shoulders. His robes fluttered at the edges, but he remained still, as if time held its breath just for him. His eyes narrowed slightly. Not in suspicion—no. In something gentler.

Recognition, maybe. Grief.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again.

Seconds passed.

He looked away, just briefly, as though the truth were too dangerous to speak aloud. And when he looked back, his expression had changed. Composure returned. Whatever vulnerability had surfaced was gone, locked behind a wall built by years of silence.

His voice was quiet when it came.

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing you should remember.”

You blinked.

He stepped back, already beginning to turn, and something in you surged forward—an instinct, a knowing, a longing that made no sense.

“Wait—”

But the word barely left your lips before he was gone.

Not running. Not leaping.

Gone.

Like a breath exhaled into cold air.

As if the garden itself had imagined him.

All that remained was the whisper of the wind, and the faint scent of burned ash where the demon had vanished.

He returned three days later, not as a shadow that night, but as an honored guest stepping through the palace gates in broad daylight.

You heard his name before you saw him.

Whispers moved like ripples through the outer court that morning. Word spread fast in a place like this, where secrets were traded like silk and silence was only ever temporary. A foreign envoy had arrived from one of the southern border provinces—one long isolated by both mountains and tradition. His house had been loyal for generations, said the ministers. His presence was no more than political courtesy, said the scholars.

But your breath stopped the moment the court herald spoke his name.

Jinu…

Just that. No clan. No house lineage offered. No title beyond “messenger in service of the southern warlord.” It was a name spoken without weight, but it fell upon your ears like a stone into still water.

You stood beside your father’s throne, head bowed, hands folded neatly in front of your layered sleeves. A ceremonial fan hung at your wrist, a delicate thing of white silk and gold-leaf paint. You clutched it harder than necessary.

Then the doors opened.

He entered as the rest did. Through the tall central gates reserved for honored guests of the royal court. The midday sun poured in behind him, framing his silhouette in white light. For one impossible moment, it was like the dream had followed you into waking. Like the air changed shape to accommodate his presence.

He walked slowly, with the quiet grace of someone used to scrutiny.

And yet, he did not bow his head in reverence the way others did. He bowed only once, fluidly, with the precision of a man trained in old customs but untouched by vanity. The hem of his robes brushed the red silk mat before the dais. His eyes stayed low.

“Your Majesty,” he said, voice steady. “I come on behalf of the southern province of Naeul. My master offers peace, and his gratitude for your enduring protection.”

You barely heard the formalities. You were too busy watching the way his shoulders were tense but fluid, like a swordsman out of place among politicians.

He did not look at you.

Not once.

But you felt him.

His presence was like a string pulled taut across the space between you. Not visible, not tangible but unmistakable. It resonated through your ribs, your spine, the backs of your teeth. Like a bell you could not hear, but whose vibration you felt in your marrow.

You nearly stepped forward.

You nearly forgot the protocol drilled into you since childhood.

But instead, you inhaled slowly, carefully—and tilted your chin just slightly toward your father, as if your only concern was the formal script of receiving guests. The court watched your every movement, but no one noticed the way your fingers trembled against the fan.

Not even when you turned your eyes away from him too quickly.

The next morning, a hush fell over the inner court as the Council of State assembled.

Dawn’s light filtered through the tall latticework windows, casting the hall in a softened gold. Pale beams stretched across the lacquered floors, pooling at the feet of court ministers as they filed into place, their robes whispering like the hush of wind through reeds. Beyond the carved columns, incense smoke curled in slow, deliberate spirals, heavy with the scent of pine and frankincense. The day had not yet begun for the outside world, but inside the hall, the kingdom was already breathing its politics.

You stood behind the painted screen in the upper gallery—a place where royal daughters could listen, though never speak. Women were not meant to linger in council, not openly, and certainly not attentively. But you had always lingered, silently absorbing every syllable spoken in these chambers.

Today, you waited not for decisions, but for a name.

Jinu…

He arrived with no fanfare.

There was no trumpet to herald his steps, no servant trailing his robes. And yet, the moment he entered, the temperature in the room shifted. You felt it first in your chest—a slight tightness, like breath caught before the descent of a storm.

He wore dark robes again. Simple but striking. The kind of simplicity that was chosen, not forced. The fabric undyed silk or finely brushed hemp hung cleanly from his shoulders, cinched high at the waist in the southern fashion. A silver clasp gleamed at his throat, unadorned save for a faint engraving worn smooth by time. It caught the light briefly, like a memory flickering into view.

His hair was neatly bound not in the looped knots of noble sons, nor the rigid topknot of military men. It hung low, gathered in a black ribbon, a few strands escaping to graze his cheekbones. No sign of vanity, no jewelry, no house sigil.

He might have seemed unremarkable to the others.

But to you, he moved like someone misplaced by time.

His steps were neither rushed nor cautious. Each was exact. Balanced. There was no hesitation as he took his seat two rows back from your father far enough to remain silent, but close enough to command attention when needed. He did not scan the room. He did not shift in discomfort. He simply sat, spine straight, hands resting lightly on his knees, the picture of restraint.

When the council began, the room filled quickly with debate, First the harvest, then the tension with the eastern tribes, then the matter of fortifying the southern ridges before winter. Ministers argued with polished voices, their sleeves trailing as they gestured, voices weaving praise and strategy with veiled self-interest.

Jinu said nothing.

Not at first.

Then the Minister of the Interior, an older man with silvered brows and a mouth like a drawn string, turned to him.

“You, envoy. From Naeul. What does your lord say of the border? Are your watchtowers still standing, or have the mountain spirits finally swallowed them whole?”

A few chuckled.

You leaned forward slightly, waiting.

Jinu didn’t bristle. He didn’t flinch. He simply inclined his head—precisely once—and answered.

“The towers still stand, Minister. The rivers flooded early this year, so supplies were delayed, but the passes remain clear. The tribal scouts were seen five nights ago. They haven’t crossed the ridge, only watched.”

His tone was quiet, but not timid. Calm. Even.

He neither flattered nor flinched.

When asked about reinforcements, he answered plainly: “The southern lords have begun stockpiling grain and salt. They await your command.”

When prompted to speculate on whether the tribes would move before the snows came, he responded, “Perhaps. But fear clouds good planning. Naeul will prepare either way.”

You saw it—how the words landed.

No excess. No embellishment. Just the truth, tempered like steel.

Where another man might have taken the chance to curry favor—to lavish praise on the king, to humble himself before the ministers—Jinu did not.

He did not speak to be remembered.

He spoke because it was necessary.

And yet he was remembered all the same.

A few of the older ministers glanced at each other. One frowned, tapping the end of his ink brush against the wooden ledger with more force than necessary. Your father did not react, but you saw the way his fingers paused against the sleeve of his robe, just briefly, as though absorbing something new.

Jinu sat unshaken.

His hands rested calmly in his lap, long fingers lightly curled, the sleeves of his robe slightly parted to reveal his forearms. It was there that your gaze lingered—upon the scar.

A thin mark—faded, but deliberate—ran along the edge of his right arm, too clean to be an accident. Not self-inflicted, not ceremonial. A blade’s kiss. A wound from a different time.

And still he remained composed, every inch of him a study in stillness.

You couldn’t help but wonder how long he had practiced that kind of control.

You, hidden behind the filigree screen, felt exposed in contrast. Your fan had long since drooped in your hand, forgotten. Your pulse thrummed against your throat, beating in time with something you couldn’t name.

And then it happened.

A moment.

Small.

The room shifted—attention turned to another minister, a scroll unrolled, a disagreement erupting over a tax law that had little to do with demons or blood or truth.

And his eyes moved.

Not to your father. Not to the throne. Not to the scrolls or the gold or the empty flattery pouring from tired mouths.

But to the left. To the gallery. To you.

Only for a second.

Not long enough to be called a glance. But not short enough to dismiss.

There was no expression in it. No challenge. No softness. Just... awareness. A weight.

He knew you were watching.

And not once—through the long hours of that council, through every question and answer and silence—did he seek you again.

But he didn’t need to.

The silence between you had already spoken.

The hall had quieted.

Voices that once rose in elegant argument had settled into muttered agreement, the tension having drained with the afternoon light. Dust motes hung in the air like ash. Another hour and the servants would arrive to draw the screens, to offer tea and fruit to drowsy ministers nodding off between scrolls and silence.

But before the assembly could be dismissed, your father, seated tall in his crimson robes, shifted his weight—and the room returned to stillness.

“Send word to the western garrisons,” the king said, his voice low but firm. “Begin preparations to fortify the southern ridges before the first frost. I want updates from Naeul before the week ends.”

He turned slightly then—just enough to make it clear who was being addressed.

All eyes followed.

Jinu met the king’s gaze without pause. He bowed his head slightly, but did not lower his eyes.

“The southern ridges are already being watched,” he said. “But your Majesty’s concern is not misplaced.”

The Minister of War gave a soft scoff. “They are only mountain passers. Starved tribes and outcasts. They bark, but rarely bite.”

Jinu did not flinch. “Not all who pass through the mountains are tribesmen.”

That silenced the room.

Your father tilted his head. “Speak plainly.”

Jinu hesitated.

Only for a moment. But you saw it—like something inside him weighed whether truth belonged in this room.

“They are not all men,” he said, finally. “Some of what moves in the passes does not carry names. Or needs.”

A low murmur stirred through the court like wind across tall grass. The scribes looked up from their inkstones. One of the younger nobles narrowed his eyes, voice touched with disbelief.

“What do you mean?”

Jinu remained still. Measured.

“The locals call them mountain spirits,” he said. “Whispers. Shadows. They speak of things that do not leave tracks. Things that drain the heat from a man’s bones long before snow falls. Things that do not bleed when cut.”

The War Minister frowned, voice taut with scorn. “Tales meant to frighten children.”

Jinu’s voice remained even. “Then you haven’t sent enough men.”

Silence.

A single breeze stirred one of the high windows. The incense, long since burned down to glowing embers, released its final breath.

Then your father spoke again—soft, but cold.

“And you’ve seen these… things?”

Jinu looked up then, truly looked. His expression did not shift. But something in his voice did.

“I have fought them.”

A pause.

“And they are growing bolder.”

He did not elaborate. He did not need to.

There were no more scoffs. No more questions. Only a silence so complete it felt alive. Some in the chamber looked away. Others frowned—not in disbelief, but in discomfort. In knowing. These were not the words one said aloud in a hall like this.

But they lingered all the same.

And for the first time that morning, no one answered him.

That night, sleep did not come easily.

You lay awake long after the palace had gone still, your mind haunted by the memory of what you had witnessed in the garden. No amount of ritual tea or deep-breathing chants could dull the image—the blackened creature, hissing and clawed, melting into smoke under the sweep of a stranger’s blade. Nor could you stop thinking of the man himself: the calm of him, the silence, the unnerving steadiness of his gaze as he told you to forget. There had been something in the way he looked at you—something familiar and foreign all at once, like a name on the tip of the tongue. And yet, you knew, with a certainty that defied reason, that it was not the first time you had met him.

Eventually, exhaustion overtook your thoughts, dragging you beneath the silk sheets and soft shadows into sleep. But it was not the kind of slumber that brings peace or numbness. It was deep and weightless, as if your soul had slipped into a world not quite your own.

You dreamed of a lake.

It stretched endlessly in every direction, a vast surface of frozen black glass that mirrored the star-choked sky above. Snow fell gently, in slow spirals, but the air did not feel cold. It was still, not lifeless, but suspended—like the entire world was holding its breath. You stood at the lake’s edge barefoot, wearing robes you had never seen before, layered and crimson, too ancient to belong to the present. And across the expanse of ice, barely visible through the pale haze, was a figure.

A man.

He stood facing you from the opposite shore, distant but clear in your mind. His outline was softened by the mist that hovered above the lake, his cloak stirring slightly in a wind you couldn’t feel. He made no move to approach, but you could feel his presence as keenly as your own breath. Something about him filled the air—an ache, a weight, the gravity of an old bond stretched across the void of time.

You couldn’t make out his features. His face was cloaked in shadow, but you could sense the sharp lines of it, the solemn set of his shoulders. He didn’t move, didn’t speak. But you knew him.

Not from life. From something deeper.

Recognition flared in your chest, sudden and inexplicable. It was like stepping into the ruins of a house you didn’t remember building and finding your name carved into the doorframe. The pain that bloomed in your heart wasn’t fear—it was longing. The kind that only comes when you find something you’ve been searching for without knowing it.

You took a tentative step toward him, and the snow ceased to fall. The world seemed to narrow to the space between you, impossibly wide and unbearably close. His hand rose slowly—palm outward, not to beckon but to offer. There was no desperation in the gesture, only patience. As if he had waited for this moment longer than any mortal should.

Your hand twitched at your side, but you did not move.

Your voice caught in your throat. You wanted to ask who he was, why this dream felt real, why you felt as though your heart would break if you looked away—but the words would not come. And somewhere in that deep, quiet place inside you, the answer pulsed like a heartbeat.

You’ve been here before.

The silence around you shifted. You could almost hear him speak, his voice brushing the edge of your thoughts. He said your name—not the one used in court, not the title passed down by blood and duty, but something older, softer, secret. A name buried beneath the layers of lifetimes. A name only he would know.

You felt your breath catch again. And then, as you finally moved to step forward, to speak, to reach for his hand—

—you woke.

The sound of your own breath filled the room as you sat upright, heartbeat thundering in your ears. The embroidered blanket tangled around your legs. The silk cushions were damp beneath your palms. Outside, the horizon was beginning to pale with the earliest breath of dawn, and your chamber was steeped in the cold hush of pre-morning stillness.

You stared at your hands, trembling slightly.

Your chest still ached, like you’d been holding something too heavy, too sacred to carry. You didn’t speak for a long time. Only when the silence in the room became too much did you whisper aloud, voice barely more than a breath.

“What was that…”

It was a dream, you told yourself. Nothing more.

But your soul knew better.

This was not the first time you had stood at the edge of that lake. Not the first time you had seen him. The image, the pain, the weight of it—it was too real, too familiar. You had dreamed of him before. Many times. Maybe even countless times.

The only difference was: this time, you remembered.

And that terrified you more than forgetting ever had.

The royal court gathered under the morning light, as it did every week, with the same rhythm, the same rigid protocol—sun streaming through the high lattice windows, incense curling from brass bowls set along the stone floor, ministers bowing as they approached the platform where the king and his court sat. A harmony of tradition. Ceremony choreographed like a dance.

You had performed this role so many times you no longer needed to think about it. Your posture was flawless, hands resting gently atop one another in your lap, face carefully composed into the serenity expected of a royal daughter. The stiffness of your ceremonial robe—layered silk in golds and crimsons—did not discomfort you anymore. The weight of your jewelry, the tight coil of your hairpins, the unyielding etiquette: these were your armor.

And yet… something in the air felt different today.

You noticed it before your mind could name it. A quiet shift. A stillness in the air just before the wind stirs. Not danger, exactly. But awareness. A subtle pull at the edge of your senses.

Then, the foreign envoy was announced.

You heard the name—Jinu—spoken in the subdued tone reserved for minor visitors. He was introduced without flourish. No grand lineage, no royal crest, no temple blessing. He came, the official said, on behalf of a border province plagued by strange disturbances, seeking spiritual consultation. The court barely paid attention. Their eyes glazed with disinterest. One more traveler with one more meaningless story.

But not yours.

Your gaze, unbidden, found him as he entered.

And for a moment—only a breath—you forgot how to breathe.

He stood near the side of the chamber, away from the dais, his robes plain but immaculately kept. There was nothing in his posture that demanded attention. He bowed modestly. His hands remained folded behind his back. But something about him stilled the space around him—as though the world became quieter where he stood.

He did not look at you. Not immediately. But even without meeting your eyes, you felt his presence as surely as you felt the weight of your crown.

Your fingers tightened slightly in your sleeve.

You didn’t know this man.

You were sure of that.

And yet the sight of him sent a ripple through your chest—quiet, invisible, but deep. Your breath hitched, and your gaze faltered. You turned away, forcing yourself to focus on the scroll being read before the king. You had duties. Responsibilities. You were a daughter of royal blood, seated before the highest council of the land.

And still...

You looked again.

He hadn’t moved.

He stood quietly in the filtered sunlight, half his face in shadow beneath the high ceiling. And then, just as your gaze lingered too long, his eyes lifted.

He met your gaze.

Not with arrogance. Not with curiosity. Simply—certainty.

Your heart stuttered.

There was no gesture. No expression. He looked at you, and the world seemed to tilt slightly, as if something within it had suddenly clicked into place. Not shock. Not confusion. Just that strange, quiet pull.

Like a forgotten promise finding its voice again.

You looked away, quickly, hoping no one noticed. You felt your heartbeat in your throat. You pressed your palms together in your lap to hide the faint tremble in your fingers.

You didn’t know him. And yet… it felt like you did.

You told yourself it was imagination. Court fantasy. A passing fascination with a stranger who, by sheer chance, possessed a face that stirred something unnamed in you. But you knew better. The feeling was too sharp, too immediate.

Like waking from a dream you didn’t know you’d had.

You dared another glance.

He was still watching you—but not in a way that felt improper. He wasn’t studying you, wasn’t trying to read you. He looked at you the way one looks at something long lost and finally found. Quiet awe. Sorrow. Reverence.

And something else.

That same aching familiarity that burned in your chest burned in his eyes, too.

You looked away again—this time not from fear of being caught, but from the ache. From the sudden heat behind your eyes. From the undeniable truth that something inside you had moved, shifted, cracked open in his presence.

And yet you didn’t remember him.

Not truly. There were no images. No stories. No names to cling to.

But the feeling was there. Restless. Longing. As though your soul had recognized something your mind could not.

You stayed quiet for the remainder of the court session. You listened to the debates about border tensions and sacred omens and temple resources. You answered when addressed. You nodded at the proper moments. But your body moved like it belonged to someone else. Your thoughts drifted—again and again—to him.

Jinu.

You turned his name over in your mind like a prayer. Or a question.

By the time the meeting ended, and the ministers began to file out with the rustle of silk and murmurs of satisfaction, your heartbeat had not slowed. You stood with practiced grace, stepping down from the dais with your ladies-in-waiting close behind. You walked slowly, carefully, as tradition required.

But before you exited the chamber, you dared one final glance over your shoulder.

He was watching you again.

No smile. No sign of invitation.

Only that silent, steady gaze.

Your steps didn’t falter, but the rest of you did. Your heart. Your breath. Something pulled inside you, deep and invisible, as though the space between your body and his was not empty but full—tied by something you didn’t yet understand.

You passed through the painted doors, the court fading behind you.

But that strange ache—deep in your chest, low and pulsing—stayed.

The corridors of the inner palace were hushed as you left the audience chamber. The echo of court voices faded behind you—syllables clipped and formal, dissolving into the polished stone floors. Your attendants trailed at a respectful distance, but you did not acknowledge them. You moved forward in silence, eyes fixed ahead, posture flawless. On the surface, you looked composed. Regal. Untouched.

But your hands trembled slightly within your sleeves.

You dismissed the court ladies with a wordless flick of your fingers the moment you reached the marble walkway that led toward the garden pavilions. They bowed quickly and retreated, leaving you alone. As always, they obeyed without question. You were a princess. You were not expected to explain your solitude—only to make it look intentional.

You stepped past the carved doors and out into the garden.

The air was warm with early spring. Plum blossoms stirred gently in the trees, their petals falling like soft, scattered prayers. You let the scent of them fill your lungs, as if breathing deeply enough might quiet the restless ache inside you.

The garden was quiet this time of day—too early for poets and too late for priests. Just the wind and the birds and the slow hush of water trickling through the stone basins beneath the flowering trees. You walked slowly, your slippers barely whispering against the path of worn stone, your silk sleeves trailing behind like ripples on still water.

And still, you could feel him.

Not his presence, exactly. Not his footsteps behind you, or a shadow hiding among the trees. No—it was more abstract than that. A pull. A thread. A quiet knot of tension beneath your ribs.

You didn’t know his face before today.

You were certain of it.

And yet, when you saw him... something in you had moved.

It wasn’t attraction. At least, not in the way your court tutors had described it in whispered warnings. It was deeper. Heavier. A quiet sense of knowing, like standing in a ruined temple and realizing you had once prayed there long ago.

You paused at the edge of the pond, where koi glided beneath the lilies in lazy circles. Their scales shimmered gold and red in the light, their movement hypnotic. You stared at them without really seeing.

Who are you?

The question bloomed unspoken in your mind, over and over again.

Why do I feel this way?

You had met many men before—envoys, scholars, distant noble sons presented for approval. You’d seen beauty, heard flattery, danced with politics. And yet none of them had made your heart tighten the way this stranger had by simply standing still.

His eyes...

Even now, the memory of them made your fingers curl tighter into your sleeves. They hadn’t been soft. Or kind. Not even curious. But they had looked at you like they had known you. As if your presence was expected. Remembered.

That was the part that terrified you most.

Because you didn’t remember him.

And still, part of you ached as though you’d lost him.

You lowered yourself onto the edge of the pavilion bench, your skirts spreading like ripples of silk around your legs. Your shoulders sagged slightly—not with exhaustion, but surrender. It was difficult, being someone else all the time. The princess. The example. The daughter of heaven.

But now, in this quiet moment, you weren’t sure who you were anymore.

You stared at your reflection in the pond. The woman staring back at you wore your face. She sat straight, elegant, draped in gold and scarlet. But her eyes...

They were filled with a strange longing.

A yearning that had no name.

And the more you tried to ignore it, the stronger it became.

The stillness of the garden wrapped around you like a second robe—soft, warm, protective. You remained seated on the pavilion bench, watching the water ripple with each passing breeze. Yet your thoughts had drifted so far from the koi pond that you barely noticed when the wind picked up, carrying with it the faint scent of woodsmoke and pine.

You straightened.

It was nothing—just the wind, you told yourself. But your heart disagreed. That invisible thread tugged again, pulling from somewhere just out of sight.

And then—there it was.

Footsteps.

Soft, deliberate. The kind that did not wish to intrude, and yet could not help but be heard.

You turned your head just slightly, eyes lifting past the flowering tree at the corner of the path.

He was there.

Jinu.

He walked slowly, his steps as silent as breath, his hands tucked behind his back in the manner of one deep in thought. He was alone, which you hadn’t expected. No court escort, no attendant. Just him, weaving through the garden like a shadow that belonged to the light.

He didn’t see you at first. Or if he did, he pretended not to. His gaze was cast slightly downward, thoughtful. His posture—calm. But even from a distance, you could sense it: the tension coiled within him. Controlled. Contained. But always present, like a bowstring drawn tight but never loosened.

You stayed still, your breath quiet.

He moved closer.

Not toward you exactly, but in your direction—along the same curved path that wound around the reflecting pool, past the stone lantern, beneath the arch of the plum tree just now shedding its blooms.

And then, as he passed within several paces, he looked up.

His eyes met yours.

There was no startle. No surprise. Only stillness.

A pause in time.

He stopped walking, just for a breath. The two of you locked in that strange, silent space—neither of you speaking, neither daring to move. You felt your pulse surge beneath your ribs, not from fear but from the overwhelming familiarity of him. Not his face. Not his name.

Him.

Something behind your ribs ached. You could see it in his eyes, too—that same restrained unrest. Like something within him recognized you, not with certainty, but with sorrow. As if he were witnessing the shadow of something he had once loved and lost.

You parted your lips. You didn’t know why. You weren’t going to say anything—you didn’t have the words. But the weight of the silence was unbearable.

Then, quietly, he gave a slight incline of his head.

It wasn’t a bow. It wasn’t courtly or rehearsed. It was something simpler. More personal. A gesture of acknowledgment… as if to say, Yes. I see you. I feel it too.

You returned the motion with the barest tilt of your chin.

And just like that, he moved on.

No words passed between you.

No names exchanged. No explanations offered.

But as he disappeared down the path, your eyes lingered long after his footsteps faded.

The silence he left behind was not empty.

It was full. Heavy. Stirring.

Like the breath just before a name is remembered.

Or a promise is broken again.

You did not see him again for three days.

Not among the lacquered pillars of the royal court, where officials and nobility moved like clockwork—smooth, rehearsed, distant. Not on the walkways of the garden, where spring had begun its slow bloom in soft blossoms and fragrant winds. Not even in the corridors between dawn and dusk, where you sometimes passed scholars and foreign envoys with a nod that meant nothing.

You looked, without meaning to but he was nowhere and still, his presence lingered in your thoughts like perfume—light, haunting, impossible to forget. You tried to dismiss it as a momentary fascination, the result of a long court session and a strange glance. A passing thread. Something foolish but the mind forgets. The body remembers.

Your body remembered how your breath had caught. How your gaze had clung to his as though it were some distant memory returned in flesh. You remembered the weight of his stare, not oppressive, but undeniable. As though it had reached past your skin and recognized something inside you before you even knew to resist.

You told yourself it meant nothing but moments, you were learning, could bend the fabric of things.

Could unmake silence.

Could rearrange the world without a single word.

On the fourth night, sleep did not come.

You lay beneath layers of embroidered silk, the sheets cool against your skin. Above you, the ceiling gleamed with gold-painted clouds, dragons frozen mid-flight across the lacquered beams. Your hair had been loosened from its ornaments, your maids dismissed hours ago. The palace was wrapped in silence—thick, total, endless.

And yet you were not at rest.

The moon was full that night. Not soft and silver, but low and gold, casting molten light across the polished floor. Its glow stretched in long, quiet ribbons—touching the corners of your chamber, slipping through the slats of carved windows, turning the air into something ethereal.

You breathed in and the ache was still there.

It sat beneath your ribs—not sharp, but constant. A tension. A pull. As though a thread had been tied somewhere deep in your chest, and now something far away had begun to tug it gently, insistently.

You rose without thinking.

You did not ring the bell.

You did not call for your ladies.

You left the bed like a ghost shedding its bindings. You moved through the room on bare feet, the cold wood grounding you. There was no lantern in your hand, no slippers on your heels. You stepped into the corridor as you were, silk brushing softly around your ankles, hair falling like ink down your back.

There was no fear. Only certainty. That something waited.

The halls were hushed, lit only by moonlight. The lamps had long since been extinguished. Shadows stretched from every alcove, still and solemn like silent sentries. You passed beneath the painted beams without looking up. Past the shrine room. Past the winter garden. Toward the plum grove.

The doors to the outer garden yielded to your hand with no resistance and there—beneath the flowering trees—you found him.

Jinu.

He stood at the far edge of the reflecting pool, his back to you, his posture still but not tense. One hand was clasped loosely behind him, the other resting against the small of his back. He was not dressed for an audience—no formal sash, no fan, no ribboned adornments. Just simple black robes that rippled faintly with the wind.

He did not move as you stepped into the garden but you knew he had heard you.

You hesitated. The garden was nearly silver beneath the moon, every leaf aglow with soft fire. The scent of plum blossoms was heavy, dreamlike, falling in slow spirals to the stone path. There was no sound—only the quiet trickle of water from the carved basin, the faintest creak of tree branches shifting overhead.

And him.

You moved forward, slowly, steps careful. Measured. As if approaching a memory. You said nothing. Nor did he. Only when you drew near—near enough to feel the warmth of his presence—did he turn. Slowly. Deliberately. And then your eyes met.

There was no surprise in his expression. No smile. Just stillness.

His gaze was steady, dark beneath the moonlight, as though he'd known you would come. As though he'd been waiting—not out of impatience, but something quieter. Something deeper. Recognition. He didn’t bow. You didn’t speak.

And yet, somehow, everything in the world narrowed to the space between your gazes.

You had faced nobles and generals, monks and sages. You had sat above the court in your layered robes and heard confessions of sin and pride. You had danced the politics of a nation with perfect grace. But in that moment, you forgot all of it. Because he looked at you—not like a princess. Not like a sovereign's daughter. But like something sacred.

Known.

Found.

When you finally spoke, your voice was quieter than you meant it to be. “I thought you had left.”

The words hung suspended in the moonlight, delicate as a breath. He did not look away. “I was told to remain in the city. The disturbances haven’t ceased.”

Your hands remained folded inside your sleeves, the picture of royal composure, though your pulse had begun to race.

“I see.” You turned slightly, angling your gaze toward the still water of the pool, unwilling to meet his eyes for too long. You felt unsteady beneath that stare—not weakened, not embarrassed. Simply… exposed.

As though every mask had been gently removed, one by one. Then his voice came again—low, graveled slightly by something you couldn’t name. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

You tilted your head slightly, spine still straight, voice soft but sure. “I’m not.” you replied with confidence.

His expression changed at that. A breath, no more and then, quietly, he smiled. Not the smile you were used to, those polished things nobles wore like veils. This was different.

Faint. Quiet. Honored. As though he understood what your words truly meant and what it had cost you to say them.

You looked at the still pond with a heavy expression. “Jinu.” Your voice was quiet, but it carried.

He turned toward you not with surprise, not with haste. Just quiet readiness. As though he had been waiting for your voice, not expecting it, but welcoming it all the same.

You studied him in the moonlight. The way he stood, unmoving, hands folded behind his back, the fall of his robe gently stirred by the wind. He looked like someone out of time, like a statue carved from shadow and memory.

You let the silence linger a moment longer.

And then, with no more ceremony than a breath, “You saved me.” You said with certainty.

He didn’t deny it. His eyes flickered downward, briefly, before finding yours again. “You were alone,” he said softly. “Something waited in the dark.”

You felt it again, that cold stillness from the other night—the way the air had shifted, how your body had known before your mind. The way fear had curled its claws beneath your skin before vanishing into the wind the moment he appeared.

“What was it?” you asked.

He didn’t answer right away.

“Something old,” he said finally. “And hungry.”

A pause. You tilted your head slightly, keeping your expression composed despite the knot beginning to form in your throat.

“And you knew it would come?”

“I knew something would.”

You didn’t let yourself react. Not outwardly. You were still a daughter of the court. Still the blood of kings. Your face remained smooth, still. But your gaze sharpened—narrowed, searching his face for something hidden.

He didn’t flinch beneath it and that, more than anything, unnerved you.

“Why didn’t you tell the court?”

His eyes lingered on you for a moment longer before he replied. “Would they believe me?”

You didn’t answer because you both knew they wouldn’t.

The following days, the palace slept but you did not. You walked beneath the high eaves of the eastern corridor alone, moonlight slipping through the carved screens like lacework over stone. Your sleeves whispered as they trailed behind you, the silk glinting faintly in the silver glow. You walked slowly—not with hesitation, but with intention. Every step you took was as measured as a poem. Composed. Controlled. As you had been trained to be from the moment you could stand in the throne room without wavering.

But tonight, for all your practiced grace, something inside you was not still. It had started days ago, this strange shift. A change so quiet it might have gone unnoticed by anyone else. But not you. And not him.

That morning, your royal duties had passed in a blur. Your voice had echoed in the council hall, your hands had signed scrolls, your eyes had read names and numbers and omens. But your mind—your heart—remained elsewhere. Always returning to this hour. To this path. To him.

You found him where you always did now—by the pond, beneath the old plum tree that had not yet finished blooming. A few petals clung stubbornly to its branches, defiant against the late spring wind.

He was already seated when you arrived. Not on the stone bench, but on the low step before it, his posture relaxed in a way that no courtier would dare assume in the presence of royalty. His arms rested loosely on his knees, hands clasped together. He was facing the water, but you knew he had heard your footsteps long before you reached him. He didn’t rise.

And you didn’t ask him to. You paused a moment before approaching, your shadow brushing the edge of his.

Then, carefully, you lowered yourself to sit—deliberately keeping space between you, enough to preserve the unspoken distance that always existed between a royal and… whatever he was.

You folded your hands neatly in your lap, back straight, eyes trained forward. You didn’t speak right away. Nor did he. The silence between you was not discomfort. It was something else. Like a breath held between notes in a song, waiting for the next phrase to begin.

And finally, you gave it voice. “What province do you come from?”

Your tone was smooth, formal—not out of coldness, but habit. You didn’t look at him as you asked. You looked at the water, where the moon shimmered in long ribbons across the surface.

He answered after a pause, his voice quiet. “Near the mountains.”

You tilted your head slightly. “There are many.”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—not a full expression, but something ghosted and dry.

“The northern range,” he said. “Where the sky touches the stone. And the wind forgets its name.”

You turned to look at him then.

Not sharply. Not openly.

Just enough to see.

He did not meet your gaze. His eyes remained on the pond, distant, thoughtful.

“There were temples there once,” he said. “Before the fires. Before the silence.”

You studied the line of his jaw in profile, the way the light caught the edge of his cheekbone. His voice did not carry sorrow. Nor nostalgia. It simply was. Steady. Unvarnished.

“And your family?”

The question hung in the air longer this time. You weren’t sure why you asked it. You had not meant to.

He shifted slightly, hands tightening just once before releasing.

“Gone.”

One word. Bare. Clean. Without ceremony but not without weight.

There was no tremor in his voice. No mourning curled behind it. But the stillness that followed it was not empty. It was heavy. Like an altar long abandoned, but still sacred.

You wanted to ask how. When. Why. But something in you told you not to.

So you didn’t.

You turned your gaze forward again, your face calm, still as a painting. The wind moved through the garden gently, rustling the leaves above you.

A petal drifted down from the tree and landed near his hand. He did not brush it away.

“I never knew mine,” you said after a time, quietly. “Not truly. I was raised by wet nurses and tutors. Bowed to by strangers before I learned to speak. My brothers call me sister, but they do not know me. The court calls me a jewel. A daughter of heaven. But none of them see me.”

You weren’t sure why you said it. The words surprised you as they left your mouth, unfiltered, unpolished.

He turned to look at you, finally and for the first time, you let yourself meet his eyes fully.

There was no pity there. No flattery. No attempt to comfort or impress. Only the kind of attention that feels like a mirror. Not reflecting your face—but your soul.

You looked away first. Not because it was too much—but because it was too known. The silence returned. But it felt warmer now. Fuller. Like a cup being filled, slowly.

You stayed longer than usual. Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Neither of you counted them. At last, when you rose, you did so slowly, every movement practiced but unhurried. He stood as well, though not because he had to. Because he chose to.

You turned slightly to face him, hands folded, chin lifted in the poise of a royal daughter. Even here, even in this strange softness, you remained composed. You always had.

But your voice was different this time.

Softer.

More you.

“Good night,” you said.

The words were simple. But they came from somewhere deeper than you expected. A place untouched by ceremony.

He looked at you.

And though his face did not change drastically, you saw it—clearly. The pause. The shift. The breath.

As though those words were something he had not heard in a very long time.

Something small.

But deeply human.

“Good night,” he replied after a moment and then, quieter… “Princess.”

But the title did not feel distant, not this time. It felt reverent. Not because of what you were but because of who you were. You held his gaze a moment longer. Not with command. Not with coldness.

Just… recognition.

Then you turned and walked away, each step echoing faintly against the stone. You did not look back. But you felt his eyes remain on you and you carried the warmth of them with you long after the moon had disappeared behind the eaves of the sleeping palace.

On the following nights, It rained endlessly. Not a storm— no. No thunder, no sudden violence. Just a steady curtain of silver, falling from the eaves of the palace in long, unbroken strands. The sound was soft and endless, a quiet rhythm that seemed to blur the edge of waking thought. Most of the court remained indoors. Servants hurried to draw shutters closed, to cover the walkways in tarps, to ensure the braziers were not snuffed out by wind. Even the lanterns in the side halls had been dimmed, their lights softened by paper already damp at the edges.

But you?

You went anyway.

You walked the garden path in silence, the world around you softened by the rain. It clung to your hair, to your sleeves, beading against the outer silk of your robe like dew on petals. The hem of your skirt darkened where it brushed the stones, the weight of it dragging just slightly, just enough to ground you. The corridors behind you had grown hushed. Even your guards—never far, always watching—had retreated under the excuse of the weather. You had not called for them.

There was no fear in you tonight.

Only this ache again. Low in your ribs. A thread pulled taut.

You drew your robe closer around you as you crossed beneath the arching gate that led to the plum grove. The old tree rose at the center of it, as it always had, its blossoms scattering like soft prayers in the wind and beneath it—

He was already there.

You slowed to a stop, barely a breath from the pavilion's edge. Your heart, which had been steady the whole way here, stumbled.

He stood with his back to you, but not in disregard. His presence acknowledged yours the way the sky acknowledges the sea—wordless, but inextricable. He did not startle, did not turn with haste or surprise. Instead, as though he'd felt the rain shift with your arrival, his posture lifted. His head tilted slightly.

Still.

Steady.

Even in the rain, he was unmoved.

His robe—plain black, trimmed in ash grey—clung lightly to him in places, heavy at the hem, darkened by water. His hair, unadorned tonight, had come loose slightly from its tie, a few strands clinging to his temple. Raindrops traced the line of his jaw, shimmered across his collarbone where the fabric had slipped low.

But his breath…

That, you could see.

Slow. Deep. Even.

He was calm.

But not untouched.

You stepped forward at last, one careful footfall at a time, the sound of your approach swallowed by the rain. “You always come,” you said softly.

It was not a question. Not a complaint. Just truth—gently spoken.

He turned, only slightly, enough to let the moonlight catch the edge of his face. His gaze met yours without hesitation.

“I told you I would,” he answered.

His voice—low, gravel-soft, threaded with something weightier than mere words.

It wasn’t a vow. And yet it sounded like one.

You moved toward him, each step deliberate, not because you feared him—but because the moment felt fragile, as if rushing might shatter something not yet spoken into being.

You stepped beneath the tree’s sheltering boughs.

The rain softened there, caught in branches, falling more slowly like the breath of something divine.

You stood beside him—close enough to feel the warmth rising faintly from his form, from where his robe had soaked through, from where his body waited just beyond reach.

But you did not touch.

You didn’t even let your sleeves brush his.

Your hands folded neatly within the length of your robe, knuckles tight with the restraint you had practiced since childhood. That was the discipline of a princess. The art of stillness. The dignity of silence.

But your heartbeat. It betrayed you. It fluttered. Quietly. Unwillingly and yet, you spoke.

“You speak so little,” you murmured.

He did not look away.

“You carry so much,” he replied. “I didn’t wish to add to it.”

The answer struck you like the echo of something you had once known and forgotten.

So often, the court silenced you with expectations. With polished words, with praise laced in demand. You were not supposed to speak of burdens. You were not allowed to show them but he had seen them anyway and what’s more for that he had chosen silence not because he feared your power, but because he honored your weight.

You turned your gaze fully to him. Carefully. Openly. Your voice came quiet, but strong. As though you had known the words long before you ever gave them shape.

“I would rather share the weight than carry it alone.”

It was not an invitation. Not fully.

But it was the closest thing you had offered anyone in years. You felt the truth of it leave your mouth like warmth from your lungs and then, he looked at you. Truly looked. Iin his eyes, something ancient stirred.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t blink. He simply stood, breath held as though the memory of your words touched something he didn’t know still lived inside him. The way he looked at you then…

Not like a soldier before royalty. Not like a man before a woman but like someone hearing the same line of a forgotten song after centuries in silence and recognizing the singer.

You.

He bowed his head slightly. A slow, reverent tilt—not of deference, but of acknowledgment. Not of who you were but of what you meant.

The space between you shimmered dense, warm, and alive and yet still untouched. No more words passed between you that night. You remained beneath the plum tree as the rain fell softer and softer, until the garden stilled and the moon slipped free of the clouds overhead. The petals that fell from the tree landed around your feet and his and for one long moment, you stood in silence, as if neither of you dared breathe too loudly for fear of breaking whatever strange, fragile thing had begun to bloom between your hearts.

So it began… night after night, beneath the hush of moonlight and the watchful silence of palace walls, you and Jinu met in secret. Always the same hour, when the world seemed to pause. Always the same garden, veiled in shadow and scent.

No words were spoken at first. Only glances. Only the soft echo of your steps as you found each other again and again, as though drawn by some ancient thread neither of you dared name.

It became a rhythm.

The garden, once merely a place of solitude, turned sacred. There, the ache of the day was shed, and in its place bloomed something fragile and burning. You would sit in stillness, sometimes near, sometimes apart, but never unaware of the other’s presence. His gaze would find you like a whisper in the dark. And yours would linger on him like a question you were too afraid to ask.

You returned as you always did, though you told no one where you went. Not your ladies-in-waiting. Not the guards who were always three steps behind. Not the eldest court minister who watched you like a fragile relic meant for worship, not for life but still—you came.

Drawn not by duty, not by desire, but by something older. Something wordless and constant, like the way tides know the moon and he was already there. Jinu stood beside the reflecting pool, still as stone, eyes lowered. He didn’t turn when you approached. Not immediately. But you knew he felt you. He always did.

You paused a few steps from him, allowing yourself that moment. The ritual of distance before closeness. The quiet tension of nearing without reaching.

He turned then. Slowly. And his eyes found yours. The ache in your chest returned at once—immediate, uninvited, yet so familiar. Like a bruise beneath your ribs that never quite healed. One glance and it bloomed again. You hadn’t spoken since yesterday’s rain. You hadn’t dared ask why the sorrow in his voice had settled deeper that night. But tonight, the silence between you felt different.

Not charged.

But weighted.

“Your eyes,” he said softly.

You blinked. “What of them?”

He studied you as though you were something fragile and holy.

“They’re the same.”

You frowned. “The same as what?”

He didn’t answer. Not at first. He turned from you, looking down at the still water, the reflection of the moon warping around fallen petals.

“It doesn’t matter,” he murmured.

But it did. You felt it in his voice. You stepped closer. Not much. Just enough that your sleeve nearly touched the edge of his. Close enough to feel the warmth of him, not from body, but from memory. A memory you didn’t own.

“I don’t understand you,” you said quietly.

“I know,” he replied, barely a whisper.

You waited.

And then—finally—he turned to you again, and for the first time since your first meeting, he looked tired. Not in body. Not in spirit.

In the heart. As though he had carried something heavy for far too long.

“You look at me,” you said, “like you know me.”

He didn’t deny it.

“You speak to me as though I’ve spoken to you before…..” You hesitated before you uttered more quietly “...As though I’ve broken your heart...”

A silence stretched long between you.

Then… “You did.” He spoke.

The words weren’t bitter. They were reverent. As if even that pain had been something precious. Your breath caught. Your throat tightened.

“What are you saying?”

He looked at you now with a gaze that belonged to another time. Another life. Another you.

“I’ve known you before,” he said. “Not in name. Not in title. But in the way your soul moves. In the way your voice softens when you speak truth.”

You felt your spine stiffen, not out of offense—but out of fear. What truth? What memory did he carry in those steady hands of his? You shook your head slightly. “I would remember something like that.” you scoffed in disbelief.

His voice was gentle. “Would you?”

Your jaw tightened. “What do you remember?” You pushed on.

He didn’t answer for a long time, from what felt like ages with you looking at him with expectant eyes, daring to know the answers. Maybe because of this ache? For this longing? For this…regret? You do know… You can’t somehow pinpoint what it is.

“A temple. A crown. A night of fire. Your hands in mine.” He stated simply, looking through you gauging your reaction.

And with a stuttered breath, he exhaled slowly. “Your death.”

You stepped back. Just one step. Just enough to break the warmth between you. You hadn’t meant to but the word struck something deep.

“I think you’re mistaken,” you whispered. Your eyes broke contact with him.

He didn’t follow. He let the space between you grow. “I wish I were,” he muttered.

Your voice trembled. “I don’t remember… This.. What– What you’re talking abou–”

“I know,” he murmured, not daring to look you in the eye.

And that was the worst part. The kindness in it. The grief of someone who had waited lifetimes for your voice to remember his name and accepted, without anger, that it never would.

You didn’t speak again that night. You only watched him as the wind shifted through the trees, carrying petals into the dark.

He bowed, low and reverent, not as a courtier, but as a man laying something sacred at your feet. Then he turned and left you beneath the plum tree.

Alone.

With the ache of something lost you could not name and a memory not yours… but that still made your eyes burn with ache.

That night, the palace walls felt heavier.

The garden’s stillness clung to you even as the moon rose over the curved rooftops, its pale glow stretching long shadows across the floor of your chamber. You bathed. You prayed. You drank the calming tea the court maidens left by your bed. But none of it quieted your thoughts.

You lay beneath silken covers, eyes closed, hands folded over your chest as if in mourning.

But your mind would not let you rest.

And eventually, sleep came—not gently, but all at once.

You fell.

Into silence. Into snow.

The dream was not a place at first. Only sensation. Cold air against your cheek. The muted hush of falling snow. The scent of cedar and smoke. Then slowly, images formed like ink spreading through water.

You stood beneath a pale sky, the light bruised violet, clouds like smoke curling around the edges of the world. Before you, a temple stood in ruins. Its once-red gates charred black. The prayer stones along its path shattered, half-buried in frost.

Your breath curled in the air, though you felt no cold.

And then—you saw him.

He stood with his back to you at the far end of the ruined path, his long dark robe stirring faintly in the wind. His shoulders were broad, but something about the way he stood looked… tired. As if he had been waiting too long. As if he didn’t dare turn around.

You took a step forward.

The snow beneath your bare feet didn’t crunch. It didn’t resist. The world felt muffled, distant, dream-thin. Your voice caught in your throat, but something in you cried out to him all the same—Don’t disappear.

And slowly, he turned.

You couldn’t see his face clearly. It shifted—light and shadow playing across it like ripples on water. But his eyes… those you saw. Deep and dark and full of something sharp. Longing. Grief. Recognition.

He opened his mouth to speak.

You leaned forward. You needed to hear him.

But the dream fractured.

The temple split. The ground beneath you cracked with a sudden roar, like thunder underwater. You reached out. He did too. The world between you shattered like glass—light and smoke and ash spiraling up around your hands before they could meet. And in the last sliver of the dream, you heard a voice.

Not his. Yours.

A whisper, spoken across lifetimes.

“Come back to me. Even if I forget—come back.”

You woke up with a gasp.

The room was quiet, bathed in early pre-dawn blue. Your pulse throbbed in your throat. You sat up slowly, hands trembling, sheets damp with sweat. The sound of your own breath filled the silence.

You pressed a hand to your chest. The ache was still there. You couldn’t remember what you had dreamed.

At least not fully.

The details slipped through your mind like sand. But you remembered the voice. The cold. The reaching. And the eyes. Always the eyes. Yours—and his.

Different in every dream, but always the same. And somehow, as the sky outside your window began to lighten, you knew with sudden clarity that this was not the first time you had dreamed of him.

Only the first time you had wanted to remember.

You told yourself you wouldn’t go tonight. The ache had grown unbearable—slow, consuming, like the flame of an incense stick that left no visible wound, only smoke that clung to your skin long after the fire died.

You had tried, for the sake of your composure, to stay in your quarters. You sat beneath the polished glow of your chamber’s lanterns, the same scrolls spread across your lap, the same courtly petitions laid before you and yet your eyes had passed over the characters without reading, your fingers numb against the paper, your body still—but your thoughts miles away.

Worse than longing was uncertainty… and this… this thing between you and the envoy—had begun to unravel the careful architecture of your world. He had never touched you, not once. Had never stepped too close, had never whispered anything that could be held against you in a court of law or tradition. And yet he had undone you more completely than any sword might have.

By merely standing in your presence. By looking at you like he remembered. And worse still—by saying it.

You hadn’t answered him when he spoke those words under the rain. When he said he remembered your death. That you had been his. That he had lost you once.

It had unsettled something too deep to reach. Not because it sounded false—but because it didn’t.

…and that terrified you.

Still, you went. You told yourself it was only a walk. A short one. Nothing more.

You crossed the stone walk in silence, ignoring the guards’ subtle glance, the tilt of your lady’s head, the quiet ripple of unease that followed you like a whisper. You said nothing. You didn't need to. You were a princess. You owed no one an explanation for the direction of your footsteps. But the truth was that you were not walking to clear your mind. You were being pulled.

Drawn by something invisible. Old. Sacred.

The wind stirred faintly through the plum trees, now nearly bare, their petals strewn across the garden paths like the remnants of an old prayer. The air was heavier tonight. Damp. Cool. The moon above is half-shadowed by clouds. You moved slowly, as if the night itself demanded reverence. As if your presence here, at this hour, was not a chance—but a ceremony.

And there he was.

Jinu stood beside the pond again. Jinu stood by the edge of the reflecting pool, the pale arc of the moon behind him, casting a halo across his shoulders and silvering the dark fall of his hair. His robes stirred lightly in the breeze, loose and unbelted, like he too had been drawn here by instinct rather than will. His posture was still, deceptively at ease, yet there was tension in the way his fingers flexed once—barely noticeable. His posture was as still and silent as the surface of the water, but there was something about him tonight—something quieter. Sadder. As if his silence had become a weight.

He didn’t turn when you first appeared. He did not look up when you approached, which alone struck a sharp note inside you.

You stopped, just a few paces behind him, your hands buried in the folds of your sleeves. The moon cast a faint silver sheen on his shoulder. You could see the rise and fall of his breath, steady but low. As if each inhale required effort.

Then, you moved closer. Wordlessly. Slowly.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, voice low, almost too soft to be real. Still had his back turned.

You swallowed. Your throat was dry.

“No,” you said, after a beat. “I dreamed.” He didn’t budge to turn around but the flinch that was barely ignited some sense in you.

The silence returned, stretching between you like a thread pulled taut. The moon reflected dimly in the water, a fractured glow that danced with every ripple, just like the unsettled feeling twisting in your chest.

You didn’t speak again. Neither did he and yet the air between you thrummed—thick with the weight of unspoken things. Like something reaching across time, across lifetimes, straining to be remembered. Something more than mere coincidence.

Jinu’s turned his head and gazed at you. Flickering—not in surprise, but with quiet recognition. “You remember it, then?”

“I remember... the cold. And your face. Or part of it.” You wrapped your arms more tightly around yourself, though the air wasn’t cold. “There was a temple. A voice.”

Jinu looked down for a moment. Then back at you. “You’ve dreamed that before. Many times.”

The words made your skin prickle. You stared at him, uncertain. “How would— how do you know that?”

He exhaled slowly, as if he hadn’t meant to say so much. “Because I’ve been there, too.”

You took a small step backward. Your voice trembled.

“Who are you, really?”

You stared at his back for a long time before you spoke.

“Jinu.” The name came unbidden.

You hadn’t planned to say it. You hadn’t even meant to. But it was the first time it had passed your lips aloud. And the moment it did, something shifted.

He turned to you, slowly, his expression unreadable. But it was his eyes—always his eyes—that betrayed the ache behind the calm. He met your gaze, and something in you fractured.

You felt it.

A thrum. A shock of emotion, as if the sound of his name in your voice had stirred something buried deep in both of you. And gods—it hurt. Not like a wound. But like recognition. Like coming home after centuries in the dark.

He didn’t speak and neither did you, for a long while.

But you stepped forward. One step. Then another. Until the space between you had narrowed to only a breath. You could feel the warmth of him now. The nearness. The heartbeat that pulsed in time with your own.

“I…” You faltered, unsure why you had come, what you meant to say. The words stuck like thorns behind your ribs. “... Feel like… There’s something I should ask you, but I don’t even know how.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t interrupt. He waited. Always, he waited.

You forced yourself to meet his eyes again. “When you said... that you remembered me. That I had died in your arms.” You swallowed hard. “That wasn’t… metaphor, was it?”

His eyes closed, only briefly. As if the memory pained him too much to hold all at once.

“No.”

Just one word. Quiet, Unyielding, and the world tilted.

A strange pressure built behind your eyes. Your hands clenched in your sleeves. You could feel something inside you shatter and reform all at once. Because you had felt it too. The pull. The ache. The way your chest had seized the first time your eyes met his in the audience chamber.

And now—

Now there were fragments rising to the surface.

Not images. Not names.

But sensations.

The weight of your head in his lap. The scent of blood and burnt wood. The feel of his hand pressed against your ribs, trying to stop something. Your own voice, trembling, saying his name—not Jinu. No, it had been something older. Something softer. Something yours.

You staggered a half-step back, breath caught in your throat.

“No,” you whispered. “No, that’s not real. It can’t be.”

But your body didn’t believe you. Neither did your soul. You could feel it—like the echo of a scream in an ancient hall. Like a scar long healed, aching with the weather.

His voice was low when he spoke again. “You don’t have to remember, Princess.” His eyes burned with grief that did not belong to this life.

“Your soul already does.” And that—that—undid you.

Your knees nearly buckled. Not from fear, not even from disbelief, but from the weight of it all. That you could walk through this life blind to what your soul had carried through death. That he had remembered you, mourned you, found you again—only to face you without the warmth of recognition returned.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “I don’t remember. I want to—but I can’t. And it hurts. It hurts, and I don’t know why.”

He stepped forward, slowly, deliberately, but stopped just short of touching you. His hand lifted—hesitating in the space between you—then lowered again. He would not reach for you. Not unless you asked him to.

“I came here for you,” he said, softly. “Every night. In this life, and the last. Whether you remembered me or not.”

Tears burned behind your eyes, unfallen. You didn’t know why. “No,” you whispered.

Jinu didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He only watched.

“I don’t remember,” you said again, but the words trembled now. Hollow. Because part of you did. It lived in the deepest part of you, beneath thought, beneath language. A thread of gold sewn through your soul that pulled tighter every time he stood too near.

“You died in my arms,” Jinu said softly, “and I have carried the silence of that moment for lifetimes.”

You flinched.

“I don’t—” You swallowed. “I don’t believe in such things.”

He stepped forward then, slowly, carefully, his voice a hush meant only for you.

“You don’t have to believe. Your soul already does.”

Gods help you—you did believe him. You believed him in the way the tide believes the moon.Your heart was racing now. Your hands trembling in your sleeves. You turned away, desperate to hide the rising chaos inside you. “It’s not possible.”

He didn’t reach for you. He didn’t try to prove it. Instead, he said, quietly— “Then why do you come to me every night?”

You froze. The wind stirred your hair. The petals from the tree fell around you like snow and still, he waited. Not demanding. Not even hoping. Just knowing.

You stood still for a long, shattering moment. And then—Your voice cracked when you answered

“I don’t know.”

But you did. You both did.

Only that his voice struck you with a sorrow so old, so familiar, it felt like a wound being reopened by the one who once tried to heal it.

“I think,” you whispered, “I once loved you.”

A pause. His breath caught.

Then, barely above the sound of the wind—

“I never stopped.”

And just for a moment, the space between you vanished.

Not with a kiss.

Not with a touch.

But with something far more sacred.

A memory.

Shared.

Felt.

And in your chest, your soul whispered a name you still could not speak—but would never again forget.

For a long while, neither of you moved. You stood in the garden as though the air itself had thickened around you—charged with memory, aching with the weight of everything unsaid. The night had deepened, but neither of you marked the hour. It didn’t matter. The palace might as well have fallen away, the moon disappeared, the world stilled. There was only the distance between you and how unbearably sacred it had become.

Jinu did not look away. His expression didn’t change. He stood like stone—and yet not cold. No, never cold. He carried the stillness of someone who had waited a very long time without demanding anything in return. He had always left it to you.

The choice. The pace. Even now, as your fingers trembled within the shelter of your sleeves, as your heart pounded like something wild against your ribs, he made no move to close the gap. No whisper of invitation. No reaching out and somehow, that broke you more than anything else.

Because he didn’t assume he was owed your touch. He didn’t believe he deserved it. He was waiting—with the quiet, soul-breaking patience of someone who had held you once, and lost you forever.

You swallowed hard, the sound deafening in your ears. Your breath shook and then—Your hand moved. Barely at first. A slow, quiet shift within the sleeve. The subtle flexing of fingers against silk. You took a step forward, the motion small but deliberate. And you looked down—past the folds of your robes, past the petals scattered at your feet—to where his hand rested at his side, still and open.

He hadn’t hidden it. He hadn’t offered it. He had simply… left it there. In case you ever chose to return to him. Your hand lifted, unsure at first, suspended in the space between doubt and desire. You hovered there—your fingers trembling inches above his. He did not move and that gave you the courage to go further.

You touched him. Just the lightest brush of your fingertips across the back of his hand. And the moment you did— Your breath caught. Not because it startled you, but because something deep within you stirred, like a bell struck in the marrow of your bones. A warmth bloomed beneath your skin, quiet but all-consuming, like sunlight reaching into the corners of a temple long abandoned.

You felt something click into place. Something that had been missing.

You curled your fingers around his slowly, as though the memory of it lived in your body already. You didn’t think. You didn’t speak. You just reached.

And he—He didn’t gasp. He didn’t flinch. But something in him changed, subtly, devastatingly. You felt it in the way his fingers slowly closed around yours. In the silent exhale he released, like a man who’d been holding his breath across lifetimes. In the way he bowed his head just slightly—not in deference, not in fear—but in quiet gratitude.

As though your hand in his was a prayer answered after a century of silence. You didn’t let go. Not right away. You couldn’t. Because the moment your hand touched his, the ache inside you shifted. Not gone—but quieter. Bearable. As though your soul, so long exiled from something it once called home, had found its way back to the threshold.

Neither of you said a word. You stood there—your hand in his, fingers barely curled, heart unraveling—and let the moment stretch, wide and eternal.

He looked up at you again and this time, when your eyes met, there was no fear.

Only knowing and beneath it—something deeper still.

Something not yet spoken, but already true. Love.

His fingers wrapped around yours with unbearable gentleness—careful, reverent, as though you were something sacred and fragile, a living relic pulled from the ruins of time. There was no hunger in the touch, no urgency. Only quiet certainty. A recognition that pulsed between your joined hands like a heartbeat shared.

The garden stilled around you. Even the wind, which moments before had stirred the petals beneath your feet, fell into silence. No birdsong. No rustle of leaves. Just the soft rush of blood in your ears, the tremble of your breath, the world folding inward.

Then something shifted. Your vision swam. Not like faintness. Not like fear. It was deeper than that. As if the very air had cracked, and something inside you—the oldest part—had split open to pour through. Your breath hitched and the breath you drew was not your own.

It came sharp and ragged, thick with heat, choked with the scent of burning pine and smoke-soaked stone. You smelled it before you saw it. Felt it before you understood. Your lungs filled with ash. Your skin prickled with phantom heat. And before you could cry out—

The garden was gone. It didn’t vanish—it simply peeled away, like paint flaking from ancient murals, revealing the true layer beneath.

The moon above you burned red. Not from beauty—but from flame. The sky was split open, thick with black smoke, curling from rooftops half-collapsed and glowing at their edges. Screams echoed from far-off courtyards. You could hear the panic in every bell that rang—loud and unrelenting, not in ceremony but in alarm. The kind that never stops. The kind rung at the end of things.

You were barefoot.

Your feet bled, though you hadn’t noticed. The ground beneath you was stone slick with water—or maybe blood—you didn’t look too closely. Your robes, once embroidered with silver moons and lined with soft mink fur, hung from you in torn ribbons. The silk was scorched along the seams. One sleeve had burned away entirely. The other clung to your arm, soaked through with something warm. You were cold, despite the fire. But not alone. He was with you.

Jinu—no. That wasn’t his name here. Not yet. He was younger, or maybe older, his face thinner, sharper, streaked with soot and blood. His hair was longer, tied hastily with a red ribbon that now hung loose, as if it too had given up its purpose. His hands were blistered. A blade was strapped across his back, dark with runes and old iron. Not a royal envoy. Not a demon hunter.

A soldier? A guardian? No.

A protector. Of you.

He stood with you beneath the temple ruins, the shattered archway above still glowing faintly where fire had not yet reached. His eyes—those same eyes that held the weight of centuries—were fixed on you, wide with grief.

Not fear.

Grief.

As if this moment had already happened a hundred times, and he had tried to change it in every single one. His hand clutched yours. Tight. Not crushing, but grounding. Desperate.

“I promised I’d protect you,” he said.

His voice was hoarse, dry from ash and pain, and yet it cut through the roar of fire like a blade through silk.

“And I failed.”

You turned to him—weakly, barely able to hold yourself upright. Your legs trembled. Your mouth tasted of copper. The edges of your vision swam red. But your hand in his stayed firm, even as your knees buckled.

And somehow, you smiled.

Not with joy.

But peace.

“You didn’t fail,” you whispered. “You found me.” The words weren’t conscious. You didn’t decide to say them. They poured from you like breath. Like memory. Like something your body had memorized long ago.

He drew closer, his brow pressed to yours. His shoulders shook—not from pain, but from the weight of loss already known. You felt it in the way his hand trembled against your wrist. In the way he pulled you close, even knowing he could not keep you.

“I tried,” he whispered. “I tried everything. I begged the gods. The stars. Anything that would listen.”

You rested your forehead on his. The temple burned behind you. You didn’t flinch.

“I know,” you said softly. “You always do.” Your voice was faint now. Your pulse slowing but you weren’t afraid. You weren’t alone. He kissed your knuckles. Just once. As gently as one lays a prayer on a shrine.

“I won’t forget you,” he said. His voice cracked. “Not in this life. Not in any other.” You smiled again. Slower this time. Sadder.

“I’ll find you,” you whispered. “Even if I don’t remember. Even if it takes a thousand years.”

His eyes closed and as your body gave out, your soul lifted— Not away.

But forward and just as your last breath left your lips—

A vow passed between you, silent and binding.

Return. Remember. Love. Again.

Then, The vision tore away.

You didn’t return to your quarters that night. Not right away. The garden stretched long and quiet around you, bathed in the soft hush of midnight. The plum blossoms had begun to fall in earnest, scattered like snow across the stone paths, and your hand still lay within his—warm, trembling slightly, but unwilling to let go.

Neither of you spoke at first.

You sat together in silence, his shoulder against yours, the edge of your sleeve brushing his robe. It should have felt forbidden. Improper. You were royalty, after all. He was nothing more than an envoy, a guest, a shadow at court. And yet—out here, in the dark, with only the moon as witness—none of that mattered.

You had seen a part of the truth.

You had felt it in your bones.

Still, it wasn’t enough.

Not yet.

You turned your head slightly, just enough to glance at him—his profile calm, his gaze distant, fixed somewhere beyond the garden. His features were drawn tight in thought, jaw clenched not in anger, but in restraint. Like he was trying not to speak. Like he had held something back for too long.

“Jinu,” you said quietly.

He blinked once, slowly, as though waking from a long sleep.

You hesitated. “Tell me. All of it. Please.”

For a moment, you thought he might refuse. He turned his face away, his lips parting slightly—then pressing into a thin, quiet line. But after a long pause, he nodded Not out of obligation but out of exhaustion because some truths can’t be buried forever and this one had waited long enough.

He began slowly, his voice low, barely above the wind.

“It started long before you were born. Before any of us were. In a life I no longer remember clearly—only in fragments. I wasn’t born into royalty. I wasn’t chosen by the heavens. I was… a guardian. A keeper of old paths. I walked between this world and the next.”

You listened, heart quiet, breath steady.

“I made a vow,” he continued. “To protect a temple of the forgotten gods. Not out of piety. Out of love. It was sacred to you. And I… I would have followed you anywhere.”

You turned toward him slightly, your gaze catching the faintest shimmer at the edge of his lashes. Not tears. Not yet. But the promise of them, held back by pride or grief.

“I broke that vow,” he said. His voice cracked, just barely.

“I failed. You died. And I lived.” He swallowed hard. “I begged the gods to take me instead. To undo time. To change the ending.”

You could feel your heart aching now—not in confusion, not in pity, but in terrible, helpless understanding.

“And they answered,” he said.

He finally looked at you then. Not as the envoy. Not as the stranger. But as the man who had been yours once, long ago.

“I was cursed,” he whispered. “Not to die. Not to forget. But to remember. Every time you returned to the world—I would remember. Who you were. Who we had been. How I failed.”

You stared at him, breath caught.

“And I would remember,” he added, “even when you didn’t.”

The words struck like a blow, not in their cruelty, but in their truth. You had seen only fragments—one vision, one night. But he had carried the whole of it. For lifetimes.

“Why?” you whispered. “Why would they do that to you?”

He looked up at the sky. Not bitter. Not angry. Simply… resigned.

“Because I asked them to,” he said. “Because I begged to remember you, no matter what. Even if it meant suffering. Even if it meant being born into every lifetime as a stranger to you. I chose it.”

Your chest tightened.

A rush of heat stung behind your eyes. You reached for his hand again—not out of obligation, but out of instinct. As though your body remembered what your mind still struggled to name.

He didn’t resist.

“I didn’t want to forget your face,” he said softly. “Not again.”

A silence fell between you, deep and fragile.

You sat beneath the flowering branches of the tree, hands entwined, lives entwined, the past curling around the present like mist. The wind stirred faintly, lifting the scent of old petals, and with it came the truth you had no language for.

This man had loved you through death.

Through time.

Through every cruel rebirth.

And he had carried the weight of that memory alone—all for the chance to see you again.

And you had.

At last.

You exhaled slowly, your thumb brushing over the back of his hand.

“I’m here now,” you said.

He looked at you.

And for the first time, a flicker of something softer passed through his eyes.

Hope.

The moment lingered.

You sat together beneath the plum trees—his hand in yours, the scent of blossoms like incense in the night, soft petals collecting in the folds of your robes. For a heartbeat, there was only silence. A silence that felt full, not empty. You felt it in the warmth of his fingers, the aching steadiness of his gaze.

Your soul had begun to understand him.

Even if your mind still chased questions.

But then—

A sound. Sharp. Hollow. Distant. Bootsteps on stone.

You both froze.

The rhythm of it was unmistakable. The hurried march of armored feet, five or six men at least, coming from the eastern corridor. It echoed through the garden like thunder, chasing away the stillness like wind scattering prayer scrolls.

You looked at him, your fingers tightening around his instinctively.

Jinu’s jaw tensed.

He stood without a word, hands already releasing yours, his posture shifting with uncanny calm—like a shadow returning to its shape. He no longer looked like the man you’d just bared your heart to. In an instant, he was once again the envoy. The outsider. The one who did not belong.

You rose more slowly, brushing your hands down your robe to steady yourself. But your pulse was racing. You knew the guards would be looking for you by now—curfew long passed, your presence long missed.

And yet—

You had never heard them move this quickly.

A crack of voices cut through the air.

“Secure the perimeter!”

“Over there!”

The guards' silhouettes appeared between the flowering arches—dark shapes in lacquered armor, blades drawn. Their torches flared orange and angry against the soft hush of the moonlit garden.

Then one of them saw you. “Princess!” The guard claimed.

You flinched. His voice wasn’t one of relief.

It was panic. Urgency.

He rushed toward you, the others not far behind. “Your Highness, we must return you to the palace immediately. There’s been a breach near the outer gate.”

You turned sharply, eyes darting to Jinu. He remained still beside you, but his eyes… they had gone sharp, distant, alert. A familiar tension rolled through him—like a hound scenting smoke before fire.

“What kind of breach?” he asked quietly.

The captain didn’t look at him. Didn’t even acknowledge him.

“The monks at the outer shrine sent a hawk—they say something clawed tried to cross the river ward. It didn’t make it across… but it was fast. Strong. Not human.”

Your heart dropped.

The guards didn’t see it, but you did. The way Jinu’s shoulders stiffened. The flicker of heat beneath the calm in his gaze. It wasn’t surprise that crossed his face.

It was recognition. He knew what it was. He had seen it before— you. Had seen those things before, it was the ones who tried to pry on you… to eat you, and now, it was close.

“Escort the princess,” the captain barked. “We’re locking down the entire palace. No one leaves the inner grounds until sunrise.”

Another guard stepped forward, reaching gently for your arm not to touch but merely hovering over it. “Forgive us, Your Highness, but you’re not safe here.”

You opened your mouth to protest—but before you could speak, Jinu took a step back, away from you, hands at his sides.

He was vanishing again. Not literally—but behind the mask. Behind the role. The man you had just touched—the one who held centuries in his eyes—had retreated.

As if he could not be seen beside you now. As if this moment, this truth, would be burned away by the torches of men who did not understand.

“Go,” he said quietly, not looking at you. “Your highness, it is not safe here.”

You look at his eyes with reckless abandon. It hurt more than it should have.

You stepped forward, unwilling to let it end like this. “Wait—Jinu—”

He looked at you finally and the pain in his gaze—masked though it was—struck you like a blow.

Just like the blow of a wind it was redirected immediately. He looked at the captain of the guards. “I’ll find it,” he said. “Whatever crossed the wards tonight… I’ll deal with it.”

You knew what he meant.

Not ‘I’ll help.’

Not ‘I’ll try.’

He was already hunting it.

Even now.

Your chest ached.

Still, the guards surrounded you. You couldn’t stay. Not without drawing suspicion. Not without risking him.

So you let them guide you away.

But as you turned back once—just once—you saw him standing beneath the tree, petals falling around his shoulders like snow.

Alone.

Watching you leave again. The way he always had. The way he always would.

It was not the first life. Not even the second. But it was the first time he failed you in a way the gods would not forgive.

It began with fire. Not the kind that rages and burns—but the kind that waits, patient, breathing smoke beneath the floorboards of the world. It crept in slowly, like rot. Like a whisper. The skies had turned red days before, the moon swollen and rusted like a dying eye. The monks had muttered about omens, drawn talismans in vain. The people had begun to pray louder, to offer more.

But it wasn’t enough. Nothing ever was. That night, he had been late.

He remembered the details with agonizing clarity—the scent of lantern oil, the cold sweat along his back, the way the forest had gone too quiet. The stars had vanished behind a veil of cloud, and still he had pressed forward, not yet knowing what he would find.

You were already gone from the palace by the time he arrived.

He’d warned the king. Pleaded. Begged. Told them something was coming. They hadn’t listened.

You had insisted on leading the ritual yourself—brave, stubborn, always trying to carry the weight of your people with dignity. You never should’ve been there. You never should’ve been alone. He found the field outside the temple gates in ruins.

Blood soaked the grass, mingling with crushed blossoms. The shrine’s wooden arch had splintered, talismans torn from their posts. The sacred circle meant to repel demons had been defaced—scratched through by claws that gouged through stone like silk.

And in the center of it— You.

Collapsed at the base of the offering altar, your ceremonial robe torn, your arm streaked red. A wound to the stomach, deep and glistening, like something had tried to claim you.

He dropped to his knees beside you, breath leaving his lungs in a single broken sound. “What… did you do!”

You were still breathing.

But not for long.

“Stay with me,” he had said, over and over, his voice raw with disbelief. “Stay. With. Me.”

Your eyelids fluttered.

And in that brief moment of clarity, you looked at him—not with fear. Not with confusion.

With recognition.

As if, even dying, you knew him.

As if your soul remembered what the body had barely begun to understand.

He tried to lift you.

Tried to carry you to the healers, to the monks, to anyone who could undo what had been done.

But you reached for him weakly, fingers brushing his cheek.

“No,” you whispered. “I’m sorry—”

He shook his head.

“I can fix this. I can—I’ll offer anything—”

You smiled.

It broke him more than the blood.

“You always do, my lov…” you muttered.

And then—Your eyes looked at him. A shortness of breath. And you were gone. The Gods did not come with thunder or wrath. They did not scold. They watched and when he screamed at the heavens, when he bled into the shrine’s soil, when he swore he would give anything—his soul, his name, his next thousand lives—to undo this, they answered in silence.

And then they bound him. To time. To memory. To you. You would return. In another form. Another face but he would remember.

And he would be made to walk beside you again and again—always too late, always too far, always unrecognized—until he had paid the price.

And so he did.

He woke from the memory with a start, not in sleep but in the garden.

Now.

Your scent still lingered on the breeze. The warmth of your hand still ghosted against his palm and yet the ache in his chest burned like it had that night because something had crossed the wards and this time—he would not be late.

Not again. He stood, turned toward the shadows, and vanished beneath the plum trees.

Silent.

Deadly.

Ready.

taglist: @sparky2020sworld. @enerofairy.

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