Chapter 57.2

Chapter 57.2

“So, the king still has some bite. You even managed to force your way through and catch my scent.”

Suho flexed his right hand, opening and closing it as though to test the numbness spreading there.

Still, it was a bargain well worth making. To glimpse his prey’s weakness up close was a cheap payment for such a wound.

‘If you so much as touch a single hair on Na Ara’s head…’

Perhaps it was fate at work, this notion of destiny threaded into the world.

“…I’ll burn every trace of you. Not just your foul spirit, but your name in the underworld’s register too.”

And that woman. He didn’t even know what she was, yet he was already bewitched, frantic with desire.

“Love her more. Cherish her deeper.”

Suho lifted his gaze to the dark silhouette of Soya Mountain standing tall in the distance.

“Because only then will you choke to death on your own rapture.”

Muttering the words like a curse, he turned away, satisfaction curling at his lips. The smile tugging there was so chilling it could never have belonged to the living.

***

Ara was dreaming again.

Her third lucid dream.

She knew she was dreaming, but the dream refused to end.

While she remained in this world, she could see and feel everything. She could soar like a bird and take in the landscape from above, then slip seamlessly into the eyes of the dream’s owner and look out through their gaze.

Today’s setting was no different: another structure like something out of a historical drama, a grand building styled in the old ways.

Elegant roof tiles gleamed with gilded trim, and the thick wooden columns were wrapped in brilliant gold leaf. Beneath the eaves, silk streamers dyed in the five traditional colors swayed gently in the breeze.

In the garden below the grand building, a dense crowd had gathered. Judging by their formal attire, they were guests attending a wedding or some great festival.

Amid the crowd, Ara searched for the dream’s owner. The moment she closed her eyes and opened them again, the world shifted-now she was seeing through that person’s gaze.

‘A wedding day.’

The knowledge came without anyone telling her, as if it rose naturally from the heart she inhabited. Her chest beat fast with a nervous excitement.

“My lady, you look so beautiful. Like a fairy from heaven.”

A young maid at her side whispered in awe while adjusting her garments.

The ceremonial robe was woven from violet and crimson silk, clearly the attire for a grand wedding. Across the collar and sleeves, auspicious patterns and long-life characters had been embroidered with painstaking care. Each time the robe fluttered, it released a faint, floral fragrance.

Her fingertips brushed the dangling earrings chiming at her jawline, small and round. When she ran her hand over her neatly pinned hair, she felt the cool hardness of a metal ornament fixed at its center.

‘If this is a wedding… where is the groom?’

Ara let her borrowed eyes wander across the gathering. Her clear gaze darted restlessly until it landed on one spot and held.

Standing just beyond the maid’s shoulder were the same family she had seen in a previous dream.

The middle-aged couple looked older now, their faces carved with deeper lines of age. The boy who had been just a grade-schooler was grown, balanced on the edge between youth and adulthood. The child who had once been cradled in arms now stood tall, nearly as big as his brother.

Ara understood at once.

The owner of this body must be that same little girl she had seen before.

‘Yeongso.’

That was her name.

Ara turned toward the middle-aged woman who approached Yeongso’s mother.

The woman dabbed discreetly at damp eyes with a silk handkerchief, then reached to clasp her daughter’s hand beneath the heavy robe.

“You must live happily. Promise me you will.”

Her blessing trembled on the edge of sorrow.

Ara wondered-was it the same for mothers everywhere, in every age? To send a daughter off to marriage, a day of joy, yet feel only a stabbing ache in the heart?

She smiled warmly, as though to comfort her, and gave the woman’s hand a gentle pat.

“Madam.”

It was then a man’s unfamiliar voice reached her ears.