Chapter Nine

The chamber was silent, except for the breath of flame of the fire burning the woods in the fireplace.

A single candle stood before her untouched and unflickering.

Jang Mi sat cross-legged, palms turned upward, eyes narrowed in focus.

"Do not force it," came the Great Priestess's voice from the shadows. "Let it answer you. Your power is not a soldier. It is a whisper."

Jang Mi exhaled slowly. Her fingertips trembled faintly, a white mist forming at their tips like frost clinging to breath.

But the candle still didn't move.

⸻

She opened her eyes, jaw tight.

"It's not working."

"It is," the Priestess replied. "You just don't see it. Lets take a quick break"

Jang Mi lowered her hands. The mist faded. The air around her remained unnaturally cold. She stood up and dusted her dress. She walked towards the table at her bedside to take water to drink.

"Why must it be a secret?" she asked. "Why must I be a secret?"

The Priestess finally stepped forward, standing beside her. Her voice was calm, but laced with something old and something mournful.

"Because the power of the Snow Moon was hunted once," she said. "And when it reawakens… it will be feared again"

Jang Mi looked down at her hands.

"Then what's the point of training me?"

"If your power is only feared, we wouldnt bother going to such length to protect you because nobody dares someone they fear. The thing is, a lot of people also want to be feared a power like yours draws jealousy and envy, one of the most extreme human emotions" the priestess explained 

⸻

Later That Night

Jangmi wandered through the outer corridors of the temple in silence, she was cloaked and veiled. No one noticed her not even the other Vals. She cames out every midnight, usually, and walked around the parts of the temple she couldn't dare to go to during the day. 

She went to the hall where the other Vals trained and Laughed.

In her mind , she could still hear them laughing in their dormitories — girls her age, dressed in silver silks, training openly in dance and combat. She had no name among them. No place.

She touched her reflection in the window glass. Her silver hair glowing in the dark. 

Behind her veil, she whispered:

"Am I real if no one sees me?"

In the silence, there was no answer.

Only the wind.

⸻

In her sleep 

She dreamt of her mother again.

A warm hand was brushing her hair, a lullaby in a voice she no longer remembered clearly and a woman in white robes holding a sword of moonlight, standing between her and a shadow that roared with red flame.

Then the shadow became a crown.

Then the crown… the crown became blood.

She woke gasping, her hands glowing faintly with snowlight and her heart heaving up and down from anxiety. The air around her bed had turned to frost chasing away the last glimmer of sleep.

⸻

After trying her best to sleep for two hours but failing, she finally stood up and went to the hidden training courtyard outside of the temple. 

She met the Priestess standing at the far end of the frozen courtyard.

A circle was marked in ash and salt.

Jang Mi entered, trembling slightly, dressed in pale robes, eyes sharper now.

"Step into the circle," said the Priestess.

"What's inside?"

"You. You should be inside" She stepped in obediently 

The circle flared white immediately and the cold snapped. Her power answered — wild, beautiful and untamed. 

Her training had truly begun, but the girl who stood in that circle…

was no longer just the lost child of a massacre.

She was a Val of the Snow Moon.

And her story had only just begun.