46. Iseul
Thirteen mornings later, we sawthe blue sea glittering along the horizon.
“Thank heavens,” I whispered, shuddering.
The merciless journey was nearing its end. We had traveled for as long as there was light in the sky, and twice through the night, determined to reach Mokpo sooner rather than later. Every traveler along the way had attempted to dissuade us, assuring us it would be impossible to reach the port in thirteen days’ time. But here we were.
I watched the changing scenery, from the expanse of green fields and rolling hills to the muddy streets with their endless rows of shops, and gradually, to the southern port that glowed purple under the setting sun. We both dismounted and looked around. The road was empty except for the crush of soldiers loading a string of convicts onto a vessel.
“Do you think we are too late?” I asked.
“Daehyun-gun informed me he would take the last boat out, to avoid the crowd.” Crow glanced up at the sky. “Let me go find a boatsman. You stay here and guard the horses.”
Tethering the reins, I took in deep breaths, trying to steady my nerves. I had come all this way, and I knew what not to expect. Old feelings would not reignite. Familiarity would not rush in. The bond that had tied us together had stretched thin. I had come to bid him farewell. That was all.
“Iseul.” Crow jogged over, shaking his head. “The last of the boats to Jeju have already left. The next one arrives tomorrow. And that vessel there is reserved for the military and for convicts.”
“So he is gone,” I whispered.
“He is gone. But I know where he is to stay on Jeju—with a distant relative, a military official there. Write him a note, and I will find a courier for you. It is too dangerous to travel all the way there yourself. Jeju is a penal island, full of criminals—”
Crow was still talking, but I could not hear him over the disappointment knifing through my heart. I hadn’t realized until now how desperately I had wanted to see Daehyun again. To see living proof that he was alive. To finally see past the haunting fog, to stop hearing the terrifying sound of rushing water.
“You are absolutely sure?” I whispered as we stepped into an inn. “He is truly alive?”
“Who else have I been talking to these past several months? A ghost?”
“I know you are not—”
My shoulder knocked into a gentleman. The brim of his tall hat was lowered, and he stilled as I mumbled an apology.
“I know you are not lying,” I continued, “but I simply cannot fathom that he is indeed alive.”
“Well, perhaps it is better this way, to consider him dead.” Crow waved a hand, then called out, “Jumo! We are in need of a room!”
My face blazed as I glanced around. Heads had turned our way, eyes taking in the sight of my daenggi hairstyle, that of an unmarried woman. I smacked Crow in the chest.
“We agreed to be siblings while traveling,” I hissed, stepping close to him. “We need two rooms.”
“I am not staying here tonight. I traveled for thirteen days to reach Mokpo, so I am not leaving until I taste fresh seafood. And I have a few military friends stationed nearby. I’ll return by dawn.”
The innkeeper appeared, led us to a room, and Crow left shortly after.
Expelling a sigh, I finally collapsed onto the floor and could not will myself to eat the meal Crow had ordered for me. Sadness made me tired. Curling up on the ground, I watched the paper-screened door, stained violet in the setting sun. My consciousness drifted in and out as I watched shadows deepen, and lanterns were lit, casting a warm glow across the door. I must have drifted off, for my eyes opened long enough to glimpse a gentleman’s silhouette, hesitating outside my door. I rubbed my eyes, and he was gone. The fatigue dragged me back into its dreamless depths.
By the early morning, I awoke more tired than before, and the thought of returning to the capital gnawed at me. I had traveled thirteen hellish days to reach Mokpo. I had nearly fallen off my horse in exhaustion multiple times. My knuckles were torn and bloody from scratching myself awake. All for what?
Sunrise painted the sky in vivid shades as I stepped outside. The sea shimmered gold, yet the exquisite sight did not move me with awe. Instead, it saddened me. Of all the islands, why had the prince chosen the farthest one from me?
Footsteps crunched across the dirt, drawing my attention. I turned and noticed a gentleman crossing the yard, his hat tilted to shield his face, his black robe billowing in the salty breeze. As he neared, his steps faltered, our heights almost aligned by the veranda I stood upon. And then, slowly, he looked up. A breath caught in my throat. I had etched his countenance into my mind, painstakingly retracing the contours from memory in a desperate attempt to find comfort in his death… and now, that same face stared back at me.
“Good morning,” Daehyun whispered, dark eyes peering into mine. “It has been a while.”
I nearly laughed, outraged and stunned by the casualness of his tone, as though we were two acquaintances greeting each other after a brief excursion. “I have half a mind to truly make you a dead man.”
He reached out to gather my hands in his, but I snatched them away, agonized and offended by his presence.
“What is the matter with you?” I whispered harshly, wishing I could shake him. To snap him out of the daze he seemed to be in. “You hid from me with such ease for an entire year, and now you come back?”
“With ease?” His brows knitted together for the barest moment, then his face smoothed out. “You cannot fathom how difficult it was.”
“Then you ought to have stayed away,” I snapped, retreating from him. I couldn’t bear to be close. The sight of him filled me with freezing water. “Go on,” I said, trembling. “Go and live your life, and I shall live mine as far from you as possible, as you clearly desire.”
Before I could leave, his gruff voice stopped me. “I will tell you everything, if you wish to know.”
“I do not wish to know,” I lied.
“I was carrying Wonsik’s journal; it was tucked inside my robe,” he said, his voice low and hesitant. “The arrow punctured the book and wounded me, but the injury was survivable. Crow eventually found me.”
“Where did you go after—?” I started to ask, but caught myself. I sounded like I cared for him still.
“My friend Hyukjin had a sister, Court Lady Sonhui. She was released from duty and went to live with her aunt in Wonju,” he explained. “I stayed there for the first few months until I was recovered enough.”
This time I did laugh. A cold, humorless laugh. Daehyun was alive and had hidden the truth from me; this alone had cut off feeling to half of my body. To learn that he had spent all those months with another woman cut off what was left.
“Nothing occurred between us,” he reassured me.
“Of course not,” I replied, and quietly added, “now I understand why you stayed away.”
“You cannot mean that. You cannot truly think that I would—” His voice broke, and a hint of a crack began forming on his mask. “I would waste entire days deliberating over whether to seek you out. You, and you alone, occupied my every passing thought. Have you already forgotten my affection for you? What… what I would do for you?”
“What you would do for me? You abandoned me. You, who know the pain of losing those dear to you. How could you be so cruel?”
“What else was I to do?” The rim of his eyes grew red, his immense control unraveling, thread by thread, revealing his devastation. “I am a wanted man. How could I dare approach you? How could I dare endanger you?”
“What danger? The deputy was angered by your involvement in Suyeon’s escape, but surely not enough to kill you. And Maggot died!”
His jaw tightened, and his eyes lowered, as if avoiding my gaze.
“Maggot was assassinated. He is gone and…” I stilled, watching the way his expression grew taut, the way his hands retreated behind his robe. Suspicion crept in. “You killed him?”
He remained silent, his head still lowered, the brim of his hat obscuring his features. “I killed a high-ranking official, a member of the new ruling power. I would have taken the lives of a hundred more if it meant securing your happiness. Do you understand now?” he said quietly. “That is why I must live as though I am dead. Dead even to you.”
I covered my face briefly, trying to hide the sudden surge of tears. Despite him being just five paces away, it felt like an insurmountable chasm, a raw wound torn open.
“I cannot,” I whispered, my voice barely audible, and retreated into the solace of my room. Once alone, a shuddering sigh escaped me. Daehyun, in his own twisted way, believed that his death was the best outcome for both of us.
And yet…
I found myself remembering the days I had spent by the riverside, by what I had thought to be his final resting place. How many hours had I sat quietly on a rock, my mind tormented by visions of his painful end? I didn’t know how to chase away this lingering grief, this sadness melded into the hollow of my bones.
As tears dripped from my lashes, I looked down, fiddling with a loose strand of my sleeve. None of this was Daehyun’s fault. My sister lived, she laughed, because Daehyun had chosen exile. I owed him proper thanks—and a farewell.
“Iseul-ah,” came his deep voice.
His shadow pooled around me, his broad shoulders blocking out the light. My heart raced as he stepped closer. His pleading gaze burned the back of my neck, and when I continued to remain motionless, I half expected him to leave. Instead, his arms encircled my shoulders, trembling as though shaken by the simple warmth of human contact.
“You need not forgive me, but please understand.” His hoarse voice brushed the tendrils of my hair. “I would have burdened you to choose—between your sister and myself, between a life of a free woman and that of a fugitive.”
“I never wanted your sacrifice.”
“You did not want my sacrifice, and neither did I want yours.”
“And yet here you are now.”
We stood there, locked in an embrace, as the angle of sunlight shifted, casting long shadows that crept toward the corners. In the distance, the cry of seagulls mingled with the rhythmic sound of waves crashing against the shore.
Closing my eyes, I allowed my thoughts to drift amid the ebb and flow of memories, images that felt distant, like they belonged from a decade ago. I summoned them to life: A prince with a silvery blue robe, glowing like moonstone as he’d pointed his arrow my way, and an encounter that ought to have ended in enmity that had shifted like the current at sea, at the whim of fate. He had grown into a friend who carried my burden, and my sister’s, too.
My hand lowered to his sleeve.
“It was not my intention to accost you,” he finally said. “I had planned to depart this morning, but then I wanted a glimpse of you. Just a glimpse. And when I saw you standing there, the woman who haunts every corner of my dreams…” His voice faltered, heavy with unspoken words. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Tell me to leave,” he urged me desperately.
I knew I ought to bid him farewell, yet my hands would not release his sleeve. “And if I do not?”
After a long, tense moment, he leaned in, pressing his forehead gently against the curve of my shoulder. “Then I will be yours,” he confessed, his voice a soft caress, “and I shall be your ruin.”
I turned in his arms until I was staring up at him. He was alive, his heart bounding under my palm, strong and resilient. For the first time in over a year, I studied him. Daehyun was no longer so polished and pristine, but scarred and roughened, blending into the rugged landscape. He was changed and yet not.
“My ruin?” I murmured. “What is it that you would ruin? My life with Suyeon? My sister is happy and well loved at the inn with Yul. My freedom? What is freedom if I cannot share it with my dearest friend? And what bright future? I have long ago stopped caring so much about what could be tomorrow.”
Tomorrow, the kingdom could sink into the sea.
Tomorrow, all the elders we trusted could betray us.
Tomorrow, the fog might consume everything we loved.
But I had him today. And he had me.
“This is your last chance. Tell me to leave, or I will not fool myself into letting go of you again—”
I lifted onto my tiptoes, pressing a kiss to his cold cheek. I watched a wrinkle form between his brows, his eyes widening the slightest bit with surprise. “Do not leave, Daehyun-gun. And do not die again.”
He stilled, searching me for a long moment, then hesitantly caressed my cheek. “Call me Kyung.” His voice had dropped into a raw whisper. “Yi Kyung is my birth name.”
“Yi Kyung…” I tasted his name, a name I would hopefully call for many years to come. “Kyung-ah.”
A small sigh escaped him. His hand held my waist, drawing me closer and closer, until I stood flush against him. When his mouth touched mine, it was the gentlest of pressure, the lightest brush of warmth. Then he moved away.
“Are you quite certain about this?” He hesitated again, his voice a rough whisper. “You would brave a life with me?”
“I would brave this life,” I murmured against him, “and a thousand more.”
A hint of a smile tugged at his lips, then he dipped his head low. His tongue drew across my lower lip, and when my mouth parted for him, he held the back of my neck, angling my mouth closer, and finally deepened his kiss over mine. In that moment, everything disappeared. The walls of the room dissolved into mist, the cacophony of morning birds grew silent. It was only us, Kyung and me. Our hearts melding into one thundering beat, into one impulsive decision.
To Jeju, I would go.
To the island of rock and wind and strife.
It would not be the life I had envisioned for myself, but I felt no fear. Life had taken me to strange and frightening places before, and even in my darkest and loneliest hour, I had always found treasures hidden in the deep. And I knew I would find them again.