“Woo-hye.”

At the sound of her name, Woo-hye lifted her head. The strings tied to her hair – parted in two braids and twisted up like dumplings – rattled as she swayed.

She had been wiping her mother’s feet, now shriveled and dark like an old, withered tree. Woo-hye lowered the damp cloth and roughly wiped the water from her hands onto her skirt. Then she gently held her mother’s hand and replied with a bright smile.

“Yes, mother. I’m right here.”

Woo-hye’s mother, Na Ryeo-eun, had lost her sight. She hadn’t always been blind; in fact, her eyes had been fine until Woo-hye was just learning to walk.

But now even the colour had faded from her irises, and she had become so sick with a rare disease that she no longer had the strength to get out of bed.

She looked like the living dead – so disturbing in appearance that even the servants avoided her, calling her ominous.

It was said that she had once been known as the most beautiful woman in the land. Those who remembered her former self pointed at her now and whispered how such beauty could become such a hag. But Woo-hye disagreed.

In Woo-hye’s eyes, her mother was still the most beautiful woman in the world.

“My little baby… when did you grow up so much?”

Na Ryeo-eun spoke with a wistful smile as she gently touched Woo-hye’s face.

“I’m already thirteen, mother. I’ve grown bigger and stronger than Wan-ri.”

Woo-hye remembered the time her half-sister had tried to knock her down, only to fall herself. Her favourite skirt had caught on a rock and torn, and Dan Wan-ri had cried her eyes out – it had been hilarious.

As she laughed silently at the memory, her mother suddenly reached out and gently stroked her hair.

It was the touch of something precious, something irreplaceable.

Whenever that hand touched her, Woo-hye felt as if she were being wrapped in a warm, freshly steamed bun.

‘I’m happy.’

Woo-hye tugged at her mother’s hand and pressed it against her round cheek, nuzzling it lovingly.

“Hehe.”

She laughed without meaning to.

But the laughter didn’t last long.

“It was you who let the snake loose in the garden last time, wasn’t it?”

Not long ago, the Dan household had been thrown into chaos by a sudden snake incident. Fortunately, no one was bitten, but the tea party that the concubine, Seol Mi-hee, had meticulously prepared was completely ruined.

With a voice completely devoid of malice, Woo-hye replied innocently,

“What? But I went to the pharmacy that day to buy medicine.”

“My maid found the basket you used to release the snake in your room. There was still some raw meat stuck in the cracks – it was rotten and stinking.”

“…”

Woo-hye was silent for a moment.

Should she continue to lie?

Or should she just confess?

In truth, the choice didn’t matter. The moment she hesitated to answer, her deception had already been exposed.

Woo-hye didn’t want to waste her mother’s precious time with pointless games.

“She is the one who did this to you, mother. I’ll never forgive her.”

In comparison, what she had done was nothing more than a harmless prank – hardly enough to be called revenge.

If it would alleviate even a fraction of the injustice her mother suffered locked away in a sunless annex, Woo-hye was prepared to do far worse.

“It was just luck that you didn’t get caught. If you carry on like this, Lady Seol will find out soon enough.

Na Ryeo-eun had long known that her daughter’s temperament was different from others.

If Woo-hye didn’t learn to control her impulses, she would inevitably fall prey to the vicious Seol Mi-hee.

Woo-hye was overly fearless and took everything in her “nest” far too seriously, like a mother bird guarding her eggs.

So it wouldn’t work to just tell her to take it.

“If you want to defeat someone stronger than you, don’t waste your time with petty tricks. You have to land a decisive blow at the last moment.”

“And how do I know when that ‘last moment’ will come?”

“Learn to take the long view. If you rush, you’ll ruin everything. You’re young – you have plenty of time. Even the most soaring bird gets tired one day. That’s when you strike.”

No matter how smart Woo-hye was for her age, she was still just a thirteen-year-old girl.

There was no way she could stand up to Seol Mi-hee, who practically ruled the household as she pleased.

“You must wait until you are sure that you have become stronger than your opponent. You must hide somewhere safe and quietly increase your strength.”

“Are you saying that time is now?”

Her mother gave her a faint smile, as if to say she was absolutely right.

“Yes. Go to Doha, Woo-hye.”

Doha – a small provincial town far from Akyang, the capital of Cheonhaeguk, where the Dan family lived.

“There is a house there that belongs to me. If you say you’ll live there from now on, Lady Seol will no longer consider you a threat. Remember what I said, my child… cough, cough!”

When Na Ryeo-eun broke into a violent coughing fit, exhausted from talking too much, Woo-hye quickly poured a glass of water, pressed it to her lips and gently rubbed her back.

She moved with the practiced ease of someone accustomed to caring for the sick.

“Madam! My Lady!”

Suddenly there was a commotion outside. Woo-hye’s maid, Hyang-eum, burst in, her face drenched with tears. The air was heavy with foreboding.

She managed to speak in a voice choked with grief.

“Madam, a royal messenger has just arrived… the First Young Master… has fallen in battle… sob…”

“What did you say?”

“Master Joo-hyuk has been killed in battle, Madam! His body… is outside…”

Dan Joo-hyuk was the eldest of Na Ryeo-eun’s three children.

To support his mother’s dwindling family, he had become a young general, travelling from battlefield to battlefield.

And now he had returned home as a cold, lifeless corpse.

“That can’t be. Not our Joo-hyuk… That sweet boy would never leave his mother and die!”

Na Ryeo-eun staggered as she tried to get out of bed, only to collapse helplessly on the floor.

“Mother!”

Woo-hye screamed in horror.

Her mother lay motionless with her eyes closed. The silence was too deep – it was as if she had died.

“Please open your eyes. Please…”

She had just heard the news of her beloved brother’s death. Her heart was already breaking with grief, but before she could process the pain, another disaster struck without warning.

Woo-hye shook her mother’s still warm body, desperately denying the cruel reality.

“Don’t leave me behind, please… please… mother!”

That day, Woo-hye lost two of her most beloved family members.

***

Hyang-eum held out a spoonful of porridge.

“My lady, just one bite. Please?”

Woo-hye had fainted during the funeral from uncontrollable sobbing and had only just regained consciousness.

Now, as if that storm of grief had never happened, she sat frozen, staring out the window without a word.

Her eyes were fixed on the house where her father and Seol Mi-hee lived.

Why? Why did my mother and brother die?’

The ones who were supposed to die were right there.

Just then, from somewhere in the house where two of their loved ones had died –

There was laughter. A bright, carefree giggle.

At that moment, Woo-hye felt like she was losing her mind.

It was as if a thick, black poison was rising in her chest, choking her from within. If she didn’t find a way to get rid of it, she really felt that she would suffocate and die.

So that night, when the whole household was asleep,

Woo-hye quietly slipped out of bed and walked off somewhere.

The world was silent.

It was the first day of rest after a long period of mourning, and everyone seemed to have finally fallen asleep.

She remembered how the stable master had once said that in autumn the straw caught fire easily and had to be handled carefully. He had spent days collecting and stacking the straw.

She had taken note. And she had collected it too.

All for this day.

Whoosh!

Woo-hye, who had already memorised the guards’ patrol schedule, set fire to the building where her father and Seol Mi-hee were sleeping.

With eyes filled with madness, she stared at the rapidly growing flames.

One life must be paid for with another.

Ssshhh-!

But then it started to rain. The sky, which had been clear all afternoon, suddenly poured down heavy drops.

“…Ha, haha…”

Soaked by the rain, Woo-hye laughed like someone who had lost her mind.

Even the sky wasn’t on her side.

The fire that had just begun to rage quickly died out.

The flame she had thrown with such determination ended up burning nothing but a pile of straw – completely in vain.

“Over here, my lady!”

Just then, Hyang-eum appeared and pulled Woo-hye into a corner of the estate, where she was hidden.

Soon after, the guards arrived on the scene, drawn like moths to the sudden burst of fire.

“Smoke is rising here, isn’t it?”

“Who threw all that straw here? If it hadn’t been for the rain, this could have been a serious fire!”

“Tsk, hurry up and clean it up.”

As she shivered in Hyang-eum’s protective embrace, Woo-hye thought to herself:

Only what she chooses will ever truly be hers.

‘If I don’t choose it, even heaven won’t be mine. So let it abandon me. I don’t care. It won’t hurt me.’

But Hyang-eum was hers. She was on Woo-hye’s side.

Woo-hye hugged Hyang-eum tightly.

“I think I finally understand what mother meant.”

She was young. Weak. And at this rate, she would continue to lose everything that mattered to her.

‘I must wait for the right time.’

Until the day she had the strength to protect what was precious – and take her revenge.

***

The next day, Woo-hye went to see Seol Mi-hee.

“I will go to Doha… and live there quietly, like a mouse, for the rest of my life.”

Seol Mi-hee pretended to sip her tea leisurely as she turned the situation over in her mind.

Na Ryeo-eun and the eldest son – both longtime thorns in her side – were now dead. That left Dan Woo-hye and Dan Joo-seop, and she had been racking her brains to find a clean way to get rid of them.

And now Woo-hye offered to remove herself from the household. This was something to be celebrated with open arms, but Seol Mi-hee didn’t show her joy too hastily.

“And why do you want to go to Doha all of a sudden?”

“In exchange for you leaving this house, I ask you to spare my second brother. That’s my condition.”

Seol Mi-hee put down her teacup, feigning confusion.

“Your second brother…? Are you saying that I had something to do with Joo-hyuk’s death? He died in battle on the prince’s orders.”

Instead of arguing over empty words, Woo-hye replied bluntly.

“I know that my brother’s unit is under the command of General Seol. Please have him transferred to a safer unit.”

General Seol was Seol Mi-hee’s older brother.

It was a simple request – nothing, really – and the reward she would receive was as sweet as honey.

Seol Mi-hee despised Woo-hye. Just looking at her face, so eerily similar to Na Ryeo-eun’s, made her grit her teeth in anger.

If that girl was allowed to grow up as she was, she would undoubtedly become an obstacle to her own two daughters at every turn.

In truth, she wanted to kill her on the spot and be done with it. But Dan Joo-seop was the only remaining male heir in the family, and such a move could provoke serious backlash.

With no sons of her own, Seol Mi-hee had to tread carefully.

After weighing her options, Seol Mi-hee gave a subtle sign to a maid who placed a bowl of dark herbal medicine in front of Woo-hye.

“Fine. I’ll accept your request. But drink this first.”

Woo-hye stared at the medicine, clenching both fists tightly. She had a pretty good idea what it was.

“If I drink this… will I go blind too? Like my mother?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s just a tonic – meant to strengthen your body for the long journey ahead.”

“…”

“If I just send you off to Doha, people will call me a heartless stepmother. Don’t you think there should be a good reason?”

What she meant was that if it was on the pretext of convalescence, she’d let her go.

Without a word of protest, Woo-hye lifted the bowl and drank the herbal medicine in one swift motion.

She knew it was poison – but she didn’t leave a single drop.

The sheer audacity of it made Seol Mi-hee involuntarily furrow her brow.

Woo-hye put down the empty bowl and bowed formally.

“This girl will take her leave now.”

‘The next time I come back, Seol Mi-hee… you will be the one who drinks the poison.’