The Man in My Heart (Yu Rael POV)

The ink on the scroll was not yet dry, and Yu Rael had already wished to tear it into halves.

Another stupid request from a clan elder. Another begging to have her mercenaries babysit some pampered little master who couldn't tell the edge of a sword from a shovel handle. She dropped the scroll on the floor, let it roll languidly across the floor beneath her desk, and groaned.

"Fuck," she said, rubbing her temple. "Why the hell do I feel so damn off these days?"

She leaned back in her chair, the worn leather protesting beneath her. Camp outside the tent buzzed the same way it always did—mercenaries sharpening blades, yelling, drunkards whooping at some off-color joke. Business was booming, reputation was solid. No one had jeopardized causing any grief in weeks. Things were square on the surface.

And yet…

Yu Rael pressed her fingers between her eyebrows. Not exactly a headache, no. But a persistent, nagging feeling that something was off inside her chest. A weight that wasn't actually pain. Like the younger cousin of anxiety.

She rose, stretched, and glanced at the jade slip communicator on her nightstand. It flashed once. A call from her vice-captain. She didn't respond.

"Two damn months and twenty-two days," she complained. "Wait! Why do I keep counting the days?"

She emerged from her tent into the sweltering desert wind, the sun hardly dipping toward nightfall. Her loose, long hair streamed out behind her, flowing down her shoulders. She walked through the camp without looking at anyone, ignoring the submissive nods and reluctant salutes.

No one asked her where she was headed. No one dared.

By the time she reached the training grounds, she had walked three laps around the entire camp and still felt no better. If anything, the damn weight in her chest had grown worse.

"Maybe I'm sick," she grunted, crouching by the shade of a boulder. "Or cursed."

But even as the words left her mouth, she didn't believe them.

The problem wasn't her body.

The problem was a man. A blind man. A goddamn mysterious, sword-wielding son of a bastard who moved like he didn't exist anywhere and everywhere all at once.

Yu Rael clicked her tongue.

"Why the hell am I thinking about him?"

She looked up at the blue sky. The sun still shone. Life still went on. But ever since she'd returned from that secret world, things had seemed wrong.

Or someone.

She owed him nothing. She'd even given him a place to live, a cover, put him under her command in name. That was more than she gave most men in her life.

And yet…

"He probably forgot about me already," she whispered. "Fucking bastard."

But her words held no bite.

By the end of the night, she'd made her decision. She called in her vice-captains, told them she was going on personal leave and left the camp before dawn.

---

The journey up the mountain was longer than she had anticipated. A full week of travel—half on her flying sword, half on foot through bent valleys, arid canyons which didn't show on most maps.

She didn't hurry, but she didn't linger either.

Her mind on the journey were subtle, insistent things. Not burning feelings. Just… inquiring ones.

Was he still training?

Had that weird old Qi Scholar snapped him?

Did he continue to think of her?

Had he substituted her with someone else to think of?

"Not that I care," she growled once during the fourth night, glaring at her campfire as if it were in the wrong for not having an answer. "I'm just calling in. As a leader. That's all."

And the fire did not reply. And her heart did not hear.

By the seventh morning, Yu Rael's cloak was heavy with dust, her boots worn down, and her eyelids weighted from riding. The first light of the sun crept over the broken spires of the eastern cliffs as the old mountain finally appeared.

It loomed and austere, wrapped in fog like some forgotten sentinel.

The presence that had awakened her senses and tormented her mind.

Yu Rael stepped forward, her boots crunching lightly over stone.

Her heart, treacherous and thunderous, beat slightly faster.

"Vaen," she muttered to herself. "If you're still the same, you'd better not be sleeping in."