The world tilted on its axis, and suddenly, the library floor was no longer beneath my feet.
"Put me down!" I shrieked, the sound of my own voice ringing hollowly against the vaulted ceiling.
Kai-Zin did not even acknowledge the command. With a fluid, terrifying strength, he had hoisted me over his shoulder like a hunter carrying a prized kill.
My stomach pressed against the cold, hard plate of his pauldron, knocking the wind from my lungs. I kicked, my silk slippers striking uselessly against his armored chest, and began to rain down a desperate flurry of blows against his back.
"You monster! You coward! Is this how the Great General treats a Princess of Haneul-Bi?" I swung my fist, hitting the heavy fur of his cloak. "Let me go! My commander will have your head for this!"
He remained a statue of moving iron. He did not grunt; he did not slow his pace. He simply walked, his long strides eating up the distance as he carried me out of the library and into the freezing night air of the palace courtyard.
"I am speaking to you!" I screamed, my dignity fraying into raw, jagged panic. "If you have any honor, you will let me walk! I am not a sack of grain!"
"You are a loud distraction," his voice finally rumbled, the vibration traveling from his shoulder through my entire body.
"And you are far too slow. We have a debt to settle, Little Light. Quiet yourself before I decide your tongue is more trouble than it is worth."
The threat was delivered with such clinical coldness that for a second, my heart stopped. But the sight that met my eyes as we cleared the palace gates burned away my fear, replacing it with a cold, agonizing horror.
We were approaching the village square.
Through the veil of my hanging hair, I saw them. The remnants of my people. Hundreds of them were huddled together in the mud and ash, surrounded by a ring of Iron Empire spears.
I saw mothers clutching weeping infants, and the elderly kneeling with their heads bowed in the dirt. At the edge of the crowd, I spotted Min-Ah and a bloodied Commander Joon, held back by two Shadow-Wolves whose low growls kept them at bay.
"Look at them," Kai-Zin commanded, though he still had not put me down.
"I see them," I choked out, my voice thick with tears. "I see what you have done. My father's blood is still wet on your hands, and you bring me here to watch you finish the job? Kill me now. I would rather die with them than be your trophy."
"Death is easy, Sun-Hee," he said, finally coming to a halt in the center of the square.
He did not set me down gently. He shifted his weight and let me slide down his body until my feet hit the uneven cobblestones. I stumbled, my legs weak and trembling, but I did not fall. I could not. Not in front of them.
The square went deathly silent. Every eye, some filled with hope, most with despair, fixed on me. I saw the way they looked at Kai-Zin, the way they flinched at the mere shadow he cast. He stood behind me, his hand resting heavily on the hilt of his sword, his presence a dark shroud that seemed to snuff out the light of the nearby torches.
My eyes darted to the ground. There, just inches from my foot, lay a discarded Imperial dagger, its blade chipped but still sharp.
Before he could react, I lunged.
I did not go for him. I knew I could not hurt him. Instead, I spun around and pressed the cold edge of the blade against my own throat.
"Sun-Hee! No!" Min-Ah's scream pierced the silence.
Joon surged forward, but the Shadow-Wolves snapped at his throat, pinning him back. Kai-Zin did not move a muscle. He simply watched me with those glowing amber eyes, his expression unreadable.
"Stop this," I commanded, the blade nicking my skin. A single bead of blood began to roll down my neck. "Order your men to stand down. Give my people safe passage to the Western Valley. If you take one more step, or if another drop of Haneul-Bi blood is shed tonight, I will end this here. You said you waited two hundred years for me, General. Are you willing to wait another two hundred for my ghost?"
A flicker of something, anger, or perhaps a twisted kind of respect, crossed his face. The air around us began to hum with the density of his power.
"You would die for them?" he asked, his voice low. "For these peasants? For a kingdom that is already ash?"
"They are my soul," I hissed, pressing the blade deeper. "And I am the only reason you are here. Make the bargain, Kai-Zin. Their lives for mine. Their freedom for my absolute submission."
The silence stretched, agonizing and thick. I watched his gaze shift from the knife to the red drop on my skin, and for the first time, I saw a flash of genuine hunger in his eyes. Not for my death, but for my life.
"Fine," he said, the word sounding like a death knell. "The Western Valley shall be theirs. I will grant them land, grain, and the protection of the Iron Empire. No soldier shall touch them. No wolf shall hunt them. They will live, and they will prosper under your name."
He took a step closer, his shadow falling over me like a cage.
"But the price is total, Sun-Hee. You will come to the Shadow Palace. You will never leave its walls. You will be my anchor, my prize, and my prisoner. Your life is no longer yours to take. It belongs to the debt."
My hand shook. I looked at Min-Ah, who was sobbing into her hands, and at the children who were watching me with wide, terrified eyes. I looked at the ruins of my life and realized there was only one way to save what was left.
I let the dagger fall. It clattered against the stone with a final, hollow ring.
Kai-Zin reached out, his large, calloused hand grasping mine. He did not pull me away yet. Instead, he drew a small, obsidian needle from his belt and pricked his own thumb. He pressed his thumb against the back of my hand, smearing his dark, thick blood over my skin.
As the blood touched me, a searing heat shot through my arm, coiling around my wrist like a permanent shackle. It was not a physical mark, but a brand of the soul, a blood-seal.
"It is done," he whispered, pulling me flush against his armored chest. "You are mine now, Little Light. Forever."