The first sword rang like thunder.
Steel met steel in the ruined observatory as moonlight slashed through shattered glass. Jiheon's blade caught Daejun's with brutal precision — sparks showering the floor.
Eunha ducked behind a column, tearing open the old parchments as soldiers closed in. Her breath came sharp, heart hammering not from fear — but from fury.
Every line of ink screamed the same truth:
The Emperor had ordered her death to protect his heir.
"Countess!" Jiheon's voice cut through the chaos. He pivoted, parrying a strike aimed for her. His eyes flashed — not as a knight serving a master, but as a man defending his cause.
Daejun shouted, "Stand down! You don't know what you're doing!"
"Oh, I know exactly what I'm doing," Jiheon snarled, slamming his shoulder into Daejun's chest. Both men staggered, armor clashing like collapsing towers.
Blood streaked the marble.
---
⚜️
Eunha's lantern rolled across the floor, flames licking the old maps.
She grabbed the nearest document, scanning the royal cipher scrawled in faded ink:
> Project Dawnfall — Authorization: Haneul Imperium, Year 418
Objective: Eradication of noble resistance through symbolic execution.
Her pulse froze. Project Dawnfall.
Her death had been a political theatre piece — a ritual meant to terrify dissenters.
And Jiheon had been chosen as the executioner not because of guilt…
…but because he was the only knight pure enough for the act to appear righteous.
Her hand trembled. "They used us both."
---
⚜️
Daejun broke away, panting, sweat and guilt dripping down his brow. "You don't understand, Jiheon — I tried to stop this!"
"By pointing your blade at me?"
"By keeping you alive!" Daejun shouted. "The prince ordered your death alongside hers. I took command of the arrest to delay it."
Jiheon froze mid-strike, confusion flickering across his face.
Eunha stepped forward, voice steady. "Delay it until when?"
Daejun's eyes burned. "Until I could get you proof. Until I could finish what Eunho started."
That name hit like a bell. "Eunho?" she said sharply. "You're working with him?"
Daejun nodded once, grim. "He's alive, Countess. Hiding in the northern mines. He sent word — Project Dawnfall wasn't the end. It was the beginning."
The soldiers hesitated, confusion rippling through their ranks.
Eunha's gaze narrowed. "Then who sent the order to arrest us?"
Daejun's jaw tightened. "Seojin. He found out about the observatory. He thinks Eunho's letters were yours."
Her breath stilled.
The prince wasn't just suspicious — he was terrified.
---
⚜️
Outside, thunder rolled again, though no storm lingered. The wind howled through the broken dome, scattering ashes of the burning maps like falling snow.
Eunha moved fast, pulling the last document from the pedestal — a small journal sealed in alchemist's wax. She cracked it open. Inside, faded lines of cramped writing filled the pages:
> "To whoever finds this — the Emperor is dying. His son hastens the rot. The elixir meant to heal him has been poisoned at the root. The cycle will end only when the soul debt is repaid."
Beneath that, a strange symbol: a circle split by a sword, surrounded by six stars.
Jiheon glanced over her shoulder. "What does it mean?"
"It's the Mark of Continuance," she whispered. "The old alchemists believed that when fate collapses, time resets through those bound by soul contracts."
"Rebirth," Jiheon murmured.
Eunha looked up at him — realization dawning slow and cold.
"I wasn't reborn by accident."
Her eyes flicked to the mark glowing faintly on her wrist — the one she'd always hidden beneath her glove.
"And neither were you."
He froze. "What?"
She reached forward, grabbing his wrist. Under the skin, faint silver light pulsed — the same mark, the same circle and sword.
Their fates weren't merely entwined.
They were bound by the same curse.
---
⚜️
Daejun saw it too — and his face turned pale. "Then the legends were true. Project Dawnfall wasn't just political—it was alchemical. The empire's founders struck a covenant with the gods to reset the throne if corruption spread too deep."
Eunha's mind raced. "Meaning…"
"Meaning your deaths ten years ago triggered the cycle," Daejun said. "And Seojin's fear now proves he knows it's unraveling."
The wind howled through the observatory like a scream.
Jiheon sheathed his sword slowly. "Then we have what we came for."
Daejun nodded grimly. "But you'll never make it out through the main gate. The prince's scouts are already inbound."
Eunha looked to the shattered dome above. "Then we don't use the gate."
---
⚜️
The observatory overlooked the cliffs — a drop of a hundred feet into the storm-lashed sea.
The waves below churned like black glass.
Jiheon secured a rope line. "I've done stupider things for less reason," he muttered.
Eunha gave a faint smile. "Then this should feel familiar."
Behind them, Daejun held the rear guard as soldiers stormed the chamber. "Go! I'll buy you time!"
Jiheon hesitated. "You'll die!"
Daejun grinned faintly. "Not if I'm lucky enough to get reborn too."
The Countess hesitated only a moment, then clasped his forearm — the old soldier's farewell. "If we meet again, make sure it's not as enemies."
He nodded once, shoving them toward the edge. "Jump, damn it!"
They leapt.
The night swallowed them whole.
---
⚜️
The sea hit like stone.
Jiheon surfaced first, gasping, searching — then saw her hand break the waves. He pulled her close, holding her against the current. The moon burned through clouds above, painting the ocean silver.
Eunha's voice trembled with exhaustion. "We lost the papers—"
"No," he said, clutching the journal sealed in wax. "I kept the proof."
Her breath hitched, half-laugh, half-disbelief. "You're impossible."
"And yet you keep following me."
Lightning flared far off. The imperial banners on the cliffs burned, devoured by the fire from Daejun's last stand.
Eunha looked back once — not in sorrow, but in promise.
"Let him think we drowned," she said. "We'll build the truth from the ashes."
Jiheon nodded. "Where to?"
"North," she said. "To find Eunho. To end the cycle before it resets again."
They vanished into the tide, two souls bound by a history the empire had tried to erase.
And high above, in the crumbling observatory, the broken symbol of the six stars pulsed faintly in the dark —
as if time itself had just begun to turn once more.