The thirteen-year-old Go Hae-gang had always been like this. Not long after swallowing Jujak’s essence, the swell of his yang energy shifted so sharply overnight that keeping up with the symptoms had been grueling work. It was like waging war every day. But once he’d learned the Juyang Divine Art to a fair degree, he’d found considerable stability, so it had been years since anything like this.
So was this the same as the “symptoms” he’d known? Frankly, not quite. It seemed less that he couldn’t bear the yang energy within himself and was in crisis, and more that… a heat cycle was coming. That was the feeling of the lingering scent left along the path Hae-gang had passed.
Seolyong had followed Hae-gang’s scent to the banquet hall. The urgency grew sharper, because there were far too many people here. The *jeongin* might feel only a little odd, but the *hwain* could be seriously affected. Yangin might experience vicious discomfort; eumin, vicious ecstasy. And if things went wrong, it might draw out someone else’s heat cycle and turn the merry banquet hall into a grim hell.
I must find His Highness before that happens.
And once found, drag him to Dan Mok-young. The thought that it might be dangerous lingered, and Seolyong wasn’t keen, but he had to accept it as the best course. He hadn’t known the change would come this fast, but having mated with one who bore Hyeonmu’s essence, this was perhaps the natural conclusion.
Hae-gang had been born an extreme yangin and never once suffered a heat cycle. So consumed with mastering his own yang energy that he’d felt interest in no one. But the first person he had ever gone into heat for, as a yangin, was Danmok—so the very essence of the yangin, buried deep, would have been shaken and more.
That dream Hae-gang had dreamed last night… Seolyong thought it must have been an omen that the flame sleeping within him would soon bloom.
“Minister Hong, where is General Dan?”
Finding no Hae-gang, Seolyong hadn’t left right away. Spotting a familiar face, he hurried over and asked. He’d expected Dan Mok-young to be here even if Hae-gang wasn’t, and his absence too made Seolyong’s heart race. Hae-gang he could track by his energy, but not Danmok—so finding this man first seemed the priority.
“Ah. The General said a moment ago he needed some air, and went out. I don’t know where he went…”
At Hong Jihwan’s answer, Seolyong’s brow narrowed slightly. If he’d only gone for air, he wouldn’t have gone far—but this Yeolliwon was needlessly vast.
“Is something the matter?”
Seolyong’s expression looked poor, so Jihwan asked. Seolyong gazed at Jihwan in silence for a moment, then opened his mouth with a shallow sigh.
“I believe His Highness’s heat cycle has come.”
“What?! Is that… is that true?”
Jihwan blurted a startled *What?!*, then at once caught himself and lowered his voice, still asking in bewilderment whether it was true.
Jihwan was a jeongin. He couldn’t smell the scent Hae-gang gave off, but he’d heard that Hae-gang had never suffered a heat cycle even after coming of age. Should he rejoice that their prince had finally become a proper man? But Seolyong’s countenance was dark, so he couldn’t simply do that.
“I’ll find His Highness—you tell the General, if you see him, to go to the inner quarters.” It might sound embarrassing on its face—*tell the General to go to the inner quarters when you see him.* But Jihwan, who would do anything for His Highness, didn’t feel that way at all and silently nodded.
Imprinting the caution that he must find the General as discreetly as possible, unseen by others, Jihwan left the banquet hall first.
The man who had set Go Hae-gang’s whole body astir, his wife Danmok, was in this urgent moment out in the rear garden for some air. It was a small garden some distance from the banquet hall, and only once he’d gotten away from the noise could he finally catch his breath.
Mok-young drew a deep breath and looked up at the night sky. A slender crescent moon curved elegantly, and beside it countless stars poured down their light—a clear, beautiful night. *Haa*, he exhaled, white breath scattering faintly, and for a long while he couldn’t tear his eyes from the sky.
It was a strange night. In all his life he’d never held so grand a feast. There had been noisy banquets for his parents’ birthdays, or for his brother’s or Cheong’s—but never one with such fanfare for Danmok himself. Not that his parents had neglected him, of course. His mother had been unusually elated preparing this banquet—so much so that he felt, as her son, how thoughtless he had been.
He had changed since meeting Hae-gang. It didn’t yet feel like anything so great a change had come upon him… no, he had definitely changed. Since the day he’d shared music with Go Hae-gang and held their wedding, not a single day had been as before. It felt as though thirty years of accumulated routine had been rendered colorless in a single month.
What… are you, really?
I am… your wife, am I not?
His wife. He’d never imagined such weight could be given to those words. But Dan Mok-young now found himself looking back on what had happened at the end of that conversation. Heat rose to his face unbidden, and strength went into his nape. Without thinking he raised a hand to sweep the back of his neck, but all his hand met was the cold touch of his leather guard.
Hae-gang’s hands… had been so much hotter.
Are you all right?
I’m fine. Finer than ever… very fine.
The day he’d crossed swords with Hae-gang not long ago came to mind. How Hae-gang, dropping his sword in an instant, had thrown himself at him with a feverish body, the pleasant scent of trumpet creepers rising off him, his hands naturally untying the leather guard’s straps as if it were the most ordinary thing. And then his lips coming to rest on Mok-young’s nape.
How was it that Go Hae-gang so well found a man’s weak points? If it were deliberate, it was too infuriating; if not, it was just as vexing.
*General Dan! Your lovely bride has come—come out!* He should have thrown him out then and there, the way he’d so brazenly called himself his “lovely bride.”
Even as he thought it, Mok-young’s hand gripped his nape a little more firmly. Through the leather guard though it was—yet somehow, because of it, it felt as though Hae-gang’s warmth were trapped beneath.
*Why is that one so late coming back from his examination…* Worry poked its head up again for no reason. He wondered if his condition might be poor, and got as far as thinking he’d rather go see for himself than wait.
Just as he turned to go—his hand, which had been gripping his nape, loosened and started to slide down, then stopped mid-fall.
“You were here.”
A tall man appeared before Dan Mok-young.
“Were you looking for me?” Dan Mok-young asked, gazing at Ju Geonyang standing before him.
“Let’s say I was.”
Geonyang’s answer was vague. He hadn’t set out looking for him on purpose, but now that he was here, it felt opportune.
He’d stormed out of his seat in a foul mood after the war of words with Go Hae-gang—he could have simply returned to the palace, but he hadn’t. After a bit of air, his mood had improved considerably, and he’d thought he should at least offer an old friend a warm word before leaving. So he was heading back to the banquet hall when, riding the night air, he caught a faint fragrance, and upon arriving here, found Dan Mok-young.
Too faint to call intense—easily dismissed as flower scent drifting from some nearby garden. Yet, perhaps because he remembered smelling something similar before, Geonyang couldn’t let it pass.
With a flicker of hope, he had followed the scent.
Geonyang’s eyes narrowed slightly as he studied Mok-young searchingly. It must have been twenty years now. Long years, watching him from right beside him—and Mok-young was, in this moment too, the Dan Mok-young Ju Geonyang knew. Stalwart, fierce of bearing, hardly an affectionate nature, but a loyal general with heart.
Yet somehow Mok-young kept feeling different from before. Because he’d married Go Hae-gang? Because he’d bedded him? No—this strange dissonance had begun long before that.
Five years ago, not long after Mok-young became commander of the Black Shadow Army’s First Legion. Geonyang, still a prince then, had received his father’s order to seize his younger brother for treason and joined the pursuit with the detachment Mok-young led. The brother was caught quickly, and Geonyang cut his lifeline short with his own hand.
His wickedness was so great he sought to harm me—I had no choice.
Geonyang’s brother had been seized without understanding why and died all but unable to utter a word of defense in his confusion. But Geonyang had manufactured justification that way, and Mok-young had then learned of Ju Geonyang’s dark ambition. The treason was a lie. If the dead prince had any fault, it was only that he was more beloved than his brother and might soon become crown prince.
That incident had been the decisive turning point. Not long after, Geonyang was named crown prince and soon ascended the throne as emperor, and while Mok-young remained a loyal subject and general, it could not be said his heart faced his sovereign wholly.
He obeyed the emperor’s commands solely to protect his people and his family. Where once he had believed Ju Geonyang had the makings of a sage king, and thought he must become emperor, and tried to be loyal—now he saw no sage king’s future in Ju Geonyang.
And Ju Geonyang knew the difference, and that was precisely what rankled. With His Majesty’s prickly temperament, what else? His old friend of all people ought to be wholly loyal to him.
“You and your wife seem to be getting along quite well.”
Geonyang said it casually, lifting his chin with his eyes relaxed, regaining his ease. It sounded like a friendly inquiry after someone’s well-being, but Mok-young knew it was anything but.
“Is it not the match Your Majesty arranged? I must look after it well, if only in thought of Your Majesty’s grace.”
Mok-young had no intention of mockery, of course. Though he knew why Geonyang had pushed him into this marriage, he was speaking of what was only proper. Still, he wanted to believe—at least a little—that Geonyang, as emperor, had carried out this state marriage in his own way for the peace of both nations. Not merely from private feeling.
But that made Geonyang’s temper all the more unpleasant. What was Dan Mok-young so proud of? It made him want to deal out humiliation, to insult him somehow.
“So that’s why you’ve taken to each other so fast. Honestly, I’m surprised. That you would really spend the night with that one.”
Geonyang spat it without reserve, calling Hae-gang “that one,” speaking of him carelessly. Mok-young’s eyes twitched, but he could not readily answer before the emperor. It had been considerably rude of him to keep commenting on another man’s household since last time—but he was the emperor, and there was nothing he could not do.
“You can’t help being a man either, it seems. No—in this case, should I say that invalid plays the man well enough despite appearances?”
Geonyang’s words grew rougher. Having spat them out, his emotions flared, and thinking of Go Hae-gang holding his head high before him earlier soured his mood further.
If only he’d truly languished like an invalid, he wouldn’t feel this way. But Go Hae-gang, dressed up, looked attractive even to Geonyang’s eyes, and so his ire needlessly rose.
“Your words go too far, Your Majesty.”
“Hmph. What is there I cannot say under my own heaven?” Geonyang snorted, then knit his brow as he spat the words. And true to his word, there was nothing he could not say, so he didn’t stop there.
“Well, enjoy it while you can. How long could it last? Spending your essence will only hasten his end, won’t it? And when he’s dead, who will know how you wept in his arms…”
“Stop.”
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