The village before Hanyang slept uneasily.
Lanterns flickered behind papered windows, casting long, trembling shadows across packed earth and stone. Dogs whined and fell silent. Somewhere far off, a temple bell rang once, and stopped, as if it too sensed that the night had been claimed by blood.
They had not been meant to linger.
Poong Yeon urged the column forward, eyes sharp, hand never straying far from his blade. Fifteen royal guards had entered the village at dusk. Now their formation was loose, stretched thin by unease.
Ji-ho felt it, the pressure at his spine, the wrongness in the air.
"Someone's close," Bella murmured beside him.
Too late.
Steel sang.
The first scream tore through the night like cloth ripped in two.
Black-clad figures dropped from rooftops and alleys, moving with lethal precision. Blades flashed. Blood struck the ground hot and sudden. A guard fell before he could even draw his sword.
"Protect the Crown Prince!" Poong Yeon roared.
Chaos erupted.
The clash of metal rang sharp and endless.
Horses screamed. Men shouted orders that were swallowed by the violence. Assassins moved like shadows given form; fast, ruthless, trained not to hesitate.
Bella drew her weapon, body already in motion.
She fought like fire.
One assassin lunged, she pivoted, slashed, felt resistance give. Another came at her from the side; she ducked, rolled, came up hard with her elbow cracking into his throat. He went down choking.
But they kept coming.
Ji-ho grabbed a fallen branch, thicker than his arm, swinging it just in time to deflect a blade meant for his chest. The impact numbed his hands. He staggered back, but he didn't run.
He swung again.
And again.
Poong Yeon was bleeding now, a gash along his ribs, still standing, still shouting. "Go! Take him, go!"
Bella seized Ji-ho's wrist. "Move!"
They ran.
Behind them, royal guards fell one by one. By the time they broke past the last row of houses and into the brush beyond the village, only three guards remained alive.
Then even that broke apart.
An explosion of motion; steel, bodies, screams, and suddenly Bella and Ji-ho were alone.
Separated.
Two assassins emerged from behind the trees ahead.
Bella shoved Ji-ho behind her.
The first assassin was massive, shoulders broad beneath black cloth, movements terrifyingly controlled. He met Bella head-on, blade crashing against hers with bone-jarring force. She slid back, boots carving furrows in dirt.
He was strong. Too strong.
She adapted.
She went low, fast, ruthless, striking nerves, joints, places meant to break. He caught her wrist, twisted. Pain flared white-hot. She headbutted him, tasted blood, broke free.
Nearby, the second assassin advanced on Ji-ho.
Ji-ho backed away, heart hammering, hands shaking, but his eyes were steady.
He swung the branch.
The assassin laughed.
Ji-ho didn't stop.
He lunged forward, tackled the man, both of them losing footing as the ground sloped sharply downward. They slid; fast, uncontrolled, stones tearing at skin. The assassin struck a rock with a sickening crack.
He went still.
Ji-ho gasped, breath burning his lungs.
"Bella!" he shouted.
She was still fighting.
Ji-ho scrambled uphill, just in time to see Bella drive her blade into the massive assassin's thigh. He roared, stumbled, and fell.
"Are you okay?" Ji-ho called.
"I'm fine!" Bella answered.
Then she saw it.
Another assassin.
Right behind him.
"Ji-ho? MOVE!"
He didn't hear her.
They ran toward each other.
The assassin lunged.
The ground vanished.
Ji-ho fell first.
Then Bella; too fast, too sudden, plunged after him as the earth gave way beneath her feet.
Darkness swallowed them whole.
When consciousness returned, it came in pieces.
Pain. Cold. The smell of iron. Bella forced her eyes open.
They were deep beneath the earth, half cave, half ravine, jagged stone walls closing in tight. Dim light filtered from somewhere above.
The assassin lay dead.
A broken branch had pierced his throat clean through, blood pooling thick and dark beneath his body.
Ji-ho groaned.
Bella crawled to him at once.
His ankle was wrong.
Dislocated.
"No," he gasped, panic flooding his face. "No, you need a physician. I can't, Bella-"
"Hey."
She cupped his face, forcing his gaze to hers, "Look at me."
His breathing was wild.
"Do you trust me?" she asked softly.
"Yes," he whispered.
She didn't hesitate.
Bella tore her cloak, folded it tight, pressed it into his hands. "Bite."
She braced his leg.
"Five," she said.
"Four!"
"Three!"
She reset the bone.
Ji-ho screamed.
The sound echoed, raw and helpless, before he went limp.
Bella tied his ankle tight with cloth and branches, hands shaking now that the danger had passed.
She shouted.
No answer.
Above them, the world remained silent.
Ji-ho stirred once, then passed out again.
Bella sat back, chest heaving, eyes scanning the stone walls.
They were trapped.
Scared and weak.
Bella knelt beside him long after his breathing evened out.
Only when the adrenaline finally drained did the pain find her.
It came sudden and vicious.
Her vision swam.
Bella sucked in a sharp breath and pressed a hand to her side, then froze.
Her fingers came away slick.
Blood.
Not a scratch. Not a graze.
Her breath hitched as she peeled back the torn edge of her tunic. Dark red spread beneath the fabric, slow and steady, soaking into her clothes. The massive assassin's blade, she remembered now, the moment she'd twisted too late, the heat she'd ignored.
"Idiot," she muttered faintly.
Her knees weakened. She sat back hard against the stone wall, chest rising too fast, too shallow. The cave felt smaller now. The air thicker.
Bella pressed her palm to the wound, teeth gritted as pain flared sharp and deep. Not fatal; she knew that much, but bad enough. Bad enough that moving would hurt. Bad enough that climbing out, if it were even possible, would be agony.
She glanced at Ji-ho.
Unconscious. Pale. Vulnerable.
The reality settled heavily in her chest.
I have to stay awake.
Bella tore another strip from her cloak, hands trembling as she packed the wound tight, tying it off with more force than comfort. She hissed, forehead dropping briefly to her knee as the cave spun.
"Can't pass out," she whispered to herself. "Not now."
She forced her eyes open again, scanning the darkness, listening.
Drip.
Drip.
Somewhere above, the world went on, unaware they were buried beneath it.
Bella leaned back against the stone, one arm wrapped around her side, the other resting protectively near Ji-ho's shoulder.
If the assassins came looking…
If the guards never found them…
She swallowed, breath steadying through sheer will.
"Stay with me," she murmured, though she wasn't sure whether she meant him, or herself.
The darkness answered with silence.
Above ground, dawn broke over blood-soaked earth.
Only two royal guards remained with Poong Yeon.
Fifteen had entered the village.
Thirteen lay dead.
Poong Yeon stared at the empty path where the prince had vanished, fury and dread tearing through him.
"Search everything," he ordered hoarsely.
But the trail was gone.
Hours passed.
Nothing.
Poong Yeon clenched his fists until blood welled. "I will not return without him," he said.
Not again.
Not ever.
Somewhere beneath the earth, the Crown Prince still breathed.
And the Prime Minister's shadow crept ever closer.