When she closed her eyes, she could smell the earth.

When she opened them, the scent of stagnant water filled her lungs.

It wasn’t until the snowflakes melted on her cheeks that Hayeon finally came to her senses.

She slowly retraced everything that had happened:

Why she was there.

How she had ended up like this.

She had been chosen as the sacrifice.

From the moment the selection was announced, her father and older brother had done nothing but search for a way to help her escape.

If she couldn’t accept her fate…

They should have forced her to do so.

Instead…

Driven by her selfish desire to live, she led her family to certain ruin.

She truly believed they could escape.

Because of that…

Her father and older brother died.

She should never have clung so desperately to life.

Ultimately, she even dragged her fiancé, Lord Ukgyeong, into their plan, endangering him too.

Her small hand clenched a fistful of dry grass growing from the frozen earth.

Her chest rose and fell violently…

As her entire body trembled.

Their escape had been discovered.

The price for it was the lives of her father and older brother.

In an attempt to force Hayeon to witness the consequences of defying the will of the gods, they were killed by spears right before her eyes.

It was a merciless death.

The officers, who claimed to wield their blades in the name of righteousness, repeatedly slashed at their bodies.

Before the gods’ command…

Honour and justice were worthless.

Hot tears streamed down Hayeon’s cheeks.

She stuffed her damp sleeve into her mouth to muffle her sobs.

“Mm… ngh… mmm…”

If she cried too loudly…

Someone might find her.

She had committed no crime.

Yet she was treated as a criminal.

“Mmph… ngh… hic…”

She wept as she clutched at her chest.

‘What kind of god are you?’

‘You can’t be seen.’

‘You can’t be heard.’

‘You can’t even be touched.’

‘So what are you?’

Hayeon cried like a wounded animal.

She cried and cried.

Until, somehow, she finally managed to steady herself.

When she pulled her sleeve away from her mouth, she saw that it was warm with her breath.

“Haa… hic…”

She let out a long, trembling breath.

A white plume drifted into the winter sky.

“Don’t ever speak of dying. Do you want your parents to outlive their own child?”

“Run! Hurry!”

“Auntie! Auntie, where are you going?”

“Hayeon… I’ll protect you.”

One by one, the faces of the people she longed for appeared before her.

But they faded away again.

Soaked to the bone, she stood trembling in the falling snow.

Or perhaps…

It wasn’t the cold at all.

Maybe it was grief so overwhelming that it affected her breathing.

“Hic… ah…”

Slowly, the small figure pushed herself up to her feet.

She couldn’t afford to waste any more time.

In the end…

She escaped the cave.

Hayeon understood exactly what that meant.

It meant that she had been given a chance to live.

Because she had survived…

There were responsibilities that she, as a human being, was duty-bound to take on.

Sayugang.

The two children were only five years old.

Because of her…

They had lost their father.

The twins had been sent to another village in advance, and Hayeon had to find them and ensure their safety, no matter what it took.

It was the duty of the one who had survived by trampling over the lives of those she loved.

Hayeon slowly surveyed her surroundings.

“Where… am I?”

The only thing she had ever seen near her village were rolling hills.

There were no mountains.

Yet here, towering trees covered vast mountains.

As she looked around, her gaze settled on a narrow stream.

She looked back and forth between her wet clothes and the seemingly bottomless, black waters winding through the ravine.

“Did I… come out from there?”

Her voice came out hoarse and cracked.

Perhaps, unbelievably, the lake inside the cave was connected to the stream in the mountain.

Perhaps she had somehow been carried there by the water.

There were far too many things that made no sense.

But no other explanation fit.

“But…”

The cave where sacrifices were offered to the god was located in Yeogwon, the southernmost region of the Kingdom of Heonyeok.

Yeogwon had no mountains like these.

“I can’t be dead… I can’t have crossed into the afterlife.”

Hayeon slowly ran her fingers over her cheek.

It was smudged with dirt.

But it was warm.

Soft.

A warmth belonging only to the living.

‘I need to get down this mountain.’

Slowly, she forced herself to move.

Her knees buckled, and she staggered for a moment before bracing herself with a hand against her thigh and pushing herself upright.

“I have to go… I have to…”

She steadied her breathing and wiped away the last of her tears.

Fortunately, her body felt surprisingly light.

Her eyes hardened with resolve.

“I can’t die.”

She had nothing left to lose.

Her fate could not be worse than what she had already endured.

No matter how ugly the means…

She had to survive.

With each breath she exhaled, a pale white mist drifted into the air.

Hayeon wrapped her arms around herself and shivered in the bitter winter wind.

‘It’s so cold…’

‘How did I not freeze to death while I was unconscious?’

Hayeon carefully examined herself from head to toe, checking for injuries.

Much to her surprise, she found nothing too serious.

At least she could still move.

That alone was a blessing.

But something felt… off.

Something she had treasured for the past year — something that had become as much a part of her as her own body — was missing.

Slowly, she raised her left hand.

“My ring…”

The jade ring Lord Ukgyeong had slipped onto her finger was nowhere to be found.

She remembered the way he used to call her by her childhood nickname.

“Yeon.”

‘Is that why it hurts?’

When she first got engaged, she struggled with her feelings for a long time.

And only now…

Hayeon bit her lip.

The thought of the jade ring, forgotten somewhere in the cave, ached at her.

Taking a slow, steady breath, she pushed the feeling aside and turned away.

Beneath the sleeve swaying gently at her side, the ring finger of her left hand curled and relaxed as naturally as ever.

Preoccupied with the loss of the ring, Hayeon never gave another thought to the strange tingling sensation she had felt in that finger just before she lost consciousness

Nor did she remember the scrape on her knee from when she had fallen inside the cave.

***

The mountain itself was unremarkable.

Like any other mountain, it was rugged, cold and steep.

As dusk settled over the landscape, Hayeon looked up at the sky and exhaled slowly.

A long plume of white mist drifted from her lips.

Winter had arrived in full force.

If she fell asleep out here…

She would surely freeze.

But if a wild beast found her first, escaping the cave would be meaningless.

“Just… how much farther do I have to— Ah!”

Only when her body began to tremble uncontrollably did she finally notice a tiny flicker of light in the distance.

She stopped in her tracks and stared down the mountainside.

A towering structure came into view:

A pagoda.

And beneath it…

One light.

Then another.

Small, warm glows flickered against the darkness.

Though faint, they unmistakably marked the presence of human life.

A village.

“I… I’m saved…”

The muscles, which had been frozen stiff by the cold, finally relaxed.

A radiant smile spread across Hayeon’s face.

Without another thought, she hurried down the mountain.

Her jacket was soaked and frozen solid against her body, and her limbs were slowly going numb.

But she didn’t care.

‘I’m alive…!’

The thought filled Hayeon with exhilaration as she raced downhill.

But the moment she reached the foot of the mountain…

She came to an abrupt halt.

“What is this…?”

Several layers of thick straw rope had been stretched across the mountainside at chest height. They were woven so tightly together that they appeared to have been placed deliberately.

Running from tree to tree, they formed an encircling barrier around the entire mountain.

A chill crept down Hayeon’s spine.

She took a step back instinctively.