Ch 11

Night in the lower palace was not quiet—it was merely hushed by exhaustion. The groans of iron gates, the clatter of half-sleeping rats, and the breathing of men too tired to dream still echoed like ghosts beneath the stone.

But tonight, beneath the sickle moon, someone moved through the labor fields with silent purpose.

"Only the moon needs to see you bleed," Geomryu whispered.

Muyeon followed in silence. His breath fogged in the cool air, but he dared not speak. The tall man with scars beneath his collarbone and a sword-callused grip was no ordinary mentor. This was the first true night of their pact.

The field was wide and cracked, once used to store siege carts. Now it was abandoned—forgotten even by rats. A perfect place to train shadows.

"Stand still," Geomryu said.

Muyeon obeyed.

A bag was thrown over his head. Something like warm soil and wet cloth filled his nostrils. He flinched.

"Wrong," Geomryu muttered.

A strike came—swift and soft, like a slap of wood against his thigh. Then another, to the shoulder.

"Feel the air. Not the pain."

Again. A strike.

Then another.

Muyeon gritted his teeth and tried to read the sound of shifting gravel, the hint of breath just before a blow.

Another hour passed. Or a lifetime.

When the bag was pulled off, Muyeon was drenched in sweat.

"That was the first lesson," Geomryu said. "Stillness. Until you learn not to flinch, you cannot learn to strike."

Then came the second.

He led Muyeon to a half-buried log swarmed with ants. Wordless, he gestured.

Muyeon lay flat on it.

Ants crawled into his sleeves. Onto his cheeks. One entered his ear.

"Breathe," Geomryu said.

"Why?" Muyeon whispered through gritted teeth.

"Because death will often come slower than this. If you can't endure ants, you won't endure the fear of waiting to kill."

Muyeon shut his eyes. Stillness returned—not from peace, but from necessity.

Later, they sat on broken steps where firelight could not reach.

Geomryu said nothing for a long time.

Then, as if plucking a ghost from the air, he spoke.

"I once trained a prince."

Muyeon turned.

"Not Yulian," Geomryu said. "Another. A bastard child born to a maid. He had fire. Like you. The King ordered his execution when he was ten. Said fire should be kept in the hearth, not the blood."

He looked down at his hands. "I refused."

"And they exiled you?"

"They broke every finger in my sword hand first."

Muyeon stared.

"But I relearned," Geomryu said. "You will too. And faster."

Later that week, Dowon found Muyeon limping back into the pit quarters with a bruised shoulder and dust on his lips.

"You look like a sack of rice thrown off a mountain," the old scholar muttered.

Muyeon dropped beside the small fire. "I thought learning to fight would feel like strength."

"It's not," Dowon said, stirring soup made of boiled roots and crow bones. "It's subtraction. You lose softness. You lose fear. You lose sleep."

He handed Muyeon the bowl.

"And eventually, you lose something you never name. A blade sharpens the soul—but also severs it."

Muyeon sipped slowly. "Then why do you let me learn?"

Dowon stared at him long. "Because something worse will come if you don't."

That night, Muyeon trained longer. Geomryu set up sound traps—clay jars balanced on rope, dried leaves scattered across the stone. Muyeon learned to breathe through the soles of his feet, to move without shifting wind.

Only once did Geomryu crack a grin: when Muyeon vanished into the shadows and reappeared behind him without a sound.

"Well," he said, "even ghosts aren't this quiet."

But they were not alone.

Atop the ruined balcony that overlooked the courtyard, a figure in gray robes stood behind a lattice screen. Motionless.

It was Ryena's steward, the same eunuch who had followed her into the lower palace days ago.

In his gloved hands, he held a wax-sealed scroll and a parchment sketch—of Muyeon's face.

He did not speak. But he watched.

And in his eyes, there was no malice. Only calculation.

The chapter closed with Muyeon crouched beneath the moonlight, hands coated in dust, heart steady.

Geomryu dropped a real blade beside him.

"Next time," he said, "you will bleed someone else."

Muyeon didn't flinch.

He simply picked up the sword.

The training was no longer just for survival.

It had become the first act of war.