“...Sh—fuck...”
Jang Geon trembled, muttering the curse. His twisted face and twitching lids showed pain, anger, grief, and a hollow sag. The domino tiles slipped from his shaking hand and clacked across the table. He’d lost again.
“Look, I don’t usually say this,” the middle-aged man sharing the table said, eyeing him with pity, “but you shouldn’t touch dominoes. At all.”
Jang Geon snapped his eyes up, teeth bared. “You people... don’t tell me you’re all in on it...”
The man snorted. “Rig it? No. Your skill’s so bad we don’t need to. You’re terrible at gambling.”
That landed the final blow. Strength left Jang Geon’s shoulders; his head drooped. He knew better than anyone that this table wasn’t fixed. Burned once already, he’d sharpened his senses with inner energy, even woke his fighting intuition to watch every flick of their hands.
The problem was he watched only their hands. He didn’t hide his own face; he never read theirs. In a fight with steel, those things came as naturally as breathing. Put dominoes in his grip, and it all fell apart.
Either way, they’d cleaned him out at this table.
“Don’t take this as a joke,” the man added, raking in coins with a show of sincerity. “You really can’t gamble. And if you’re one of those martial types walking around with a blade, don’t. If you can’t even win here, you’ll end up on the wrong side of a real one.”
Jang Geon rose without a word, the same drained motion, and drifted to the long counter facing the innkeeper. The man who’d offered the advice shook his head, feeling snubbed.
“Tough run?” the innkeeper asked. He set down what he’d been grilling over a small brazier and produced a bottle. Jang Geon took the bottle and cup as if they belonged in his hands, poured, and said:
“My runs are never good.”
The innkeeper, somewhere between middle-aged and old, only smiled and went back to the brazier. Six days of steady custom made even a curt man look charming.
Jang Geon sipped, leaned on the counter, stroked his chin, and half-lidded his eyes at the room.
More drinkers than diners. Farmers in from hard fields and shopkeepers after closing, all pausing for a cup. In one corner, a minstrel lounged deep in a chair with a wide bamboo hat over the face, idly plucking a pipa. Jang Geon drank to the sound as if it were a dish.
The two-story inn built around a courtyard stood bright with afternoon sun. That brightness threw the shaded parts into deeper dark.
Sitting in the dim, he stared into the light. Motes caught in the beam floated white and slow, swimming through laughing talk. What was a dust mote’s life? Just drift and eddy between breezes? Could that be as full a life as the farmers and merchants laughing below it?
A small smile tugged his mouth. Losing money and falling into daydreams—pathetic enough to be funny.
Still, he had learned something this time. Unlike last time, he hadn’t kept gambling until his pouch was empty. The coins left against his ribs felt like a brace.
Satisfied, he raised his cup—just as three figures lifted the door curtain and came in.
Well-oiled glossy bamboo hats. Black traveling coats. Sword hilts jutting over the right shoulders. Dressed the same, carrying a dull, mean air—creeps.
The innkeeper let out a small groan only Jang Geon could hear, then moved toward them—keeping the long counter between.
“Welcome. Seeking rooms?”
The foremost of the three didn’t answer. He tipped his hat and slowly swept the room with his eyes, long enough to sour the innkeeper’s face. Then he spotted someone and grinned.
“...Sir? Guest?” the innkeeper ventured.
The man lifted one finger. The innkeeper caught the meaning, poured a stiff shot, and slid it over. The man tossed it in one go, thunked a coin on the counter, and strode inward.
The room went quiet. Anyone could feel it—those three weren’t here for a drink. Spreading as they came in, they blocked the way out, so people just watched and swallowed.
The lead man padded up behind the minstrel. The minstrel, half-reclined with boots on the table, raised the hat a finger’s width when the hush grew strange.
“Oh.”
Chin propped on his palm, Jang Geon let a low note of admiration slip, audible to only himself. The face under the hat was striking. The red mouth, the bold beauty mark below it—sharp and dangerous.
“There you are, Ju Yeorang,” the man said.
The woman sighed at the voice behind her and spoke without rising. “Who are you to be looking for me?”
“I’m So Gworyong of the Je Family of Shandong,” he growled at her back. “Even if you don’t know my name, you know the House of Je.”
“Je Family of Shandong? If they’re in Shandong, sure. But that lot’s over by Shinsa Province right now.”
“...Talking nonsense, Ju Yeorang. That’s not what matters.”
“What does?”
So Gworyong bared his teeth. “That today’s your death day.”
Ju Yeorang rubbed her temple, face pinched as if with a headache. “I can guess what this is. Sorry, but that Je young master worked himself into a fit alone. I plucked strings for coin, same as always. Am I supposed to be responsible for a boy’s lovesickness?”
“Don’t spit lies! We know you set your sights on him from the start! We have a witness!”
“A witness... to that?” she asked, genuinely blank.
“Miss Seom Jiyeong told us exactly how you approached the young master—and how you stole the family inscription from him!”
Ju Yeorang sighed long at his snarl. “Going mad, aren’t we. Family inscription? Ask the young master properly if anything like that ever happened.”
“You bitch! The young master— the young master...!”
“What about him?” she said. “Something happen to the boy?”
He didn’t answer. Flushed and jittering, he reached back and gripped his sword hilt—and barked a different order:
“Stand up! Turn around! I won’t cut anyone who shows their back!”
His hands hit the hilt; the other two sank their stance and took their hilts too. The inn’s patrons held their breath, fear plain.
Ju Yeorang kept her boots on the table. She leaned her head to the chair back, eyed the ceiling, and said:
“Really? We’re doing this? Over a boy’s crush?”
“A boy? The young master is the heir of his house—just marked his coming of age!”
“Sixteen is a boy. And the Je family doesn’t seem to care all that much. Do they?”
“What nonsense is that!” So Gworyong shouted.
“If they did, they wouldn’t send three kids like you. They’d send a real Je—alone.”
He flinched hard at her soft voice. Color flooded his face.
“How dare you! Trash like you is more than enough for me and my brothers! Get up!”
“Really fight?” she asked again. “If I start, I won’t be gentle.”
He must have decided she was mocking him. He ripped off his hat and flung it down.
“Fine. You asked for it. If you want a sword in your back, I’ll oblige.”
He pulled. The other two drew with him. And as the three blades hissed free—before steel cleared leather—Ju Yeorang spun like lightning.
Something flashed and buried itself in So Gworyong’s chest.
“Urk!”
One short cry, and he flew backward with the force of it, crashing flat. The other two stared between him and her, eyes round. Two daggers stood in So Gworyong’s breast.
“You drew first. That’s self-defense,” Ju Yeorang said with a bright little smile.
The Je family’s two retainers snapped out of it at her words and roared, swinging. She flipped back and the blades shredded the chair and table where she’d been. Judging by how cleanly they split the plank table, they weren’t amateurs like she’d called them—just not in her class.
“Fight! Get the branch chief!” someone screamed.
“Run!”
Panic blew the room apart—people bolted in a rush. Jang Geon, unlike the rest, stayed put. He drank with a flat face. A chair spun through the chaos; his hand shot up and caught it midair. He set it down gently.
The innkeeper’s eyes lit at that, then he dragged his flustered server behind the counter across from Jang Geon. Only their eyes peeked over the wood as they moaned.
“To buy all that again...”
“...Uncle, we won’t clear a profit this month.”
Ju Yeorang drew a straight short-sword from the small of her back—the blade a little longer than a forearm—and went to work. She danced through table to table, chair to chair, light and supple.
The two swordsmen had the strength to cleave a table in one stroke, but they didn’t have the feet to catch her spring. Their paths tangled; they slammed into each other. She toyed with them.
“Oh,” Jang Geon said, pleased to see even a hint of lightness skill for the first time in ages. A light body, natural flexibility, something added on top. Maybe he was watching the New Continent’s pioneer of lightness arts.
Then every table on the first floor went to splinters, and she dropped back to the floor. The instant her soles touched, both men sucked in and held breath.
Two lines of light shaved past her. She knelt lightly with the short-sword reversed in her right hand, feet planted.
A beat of stillness.
She straightened and slid the blade home at her back. The click of steel into scabbard and both men thumped down. One with his neck half severed. The other with a dagger planted in the center of his brow.
Watching all of it, Jang Geon toasted her in his head and drank. The minstrel had seasoned his liquor first with pipa, then with steel. He nodded, pleased.
Ju Yeorang steadied her breath, then noticed the only person left sitting bold as ever—Jang Geon nodding to himself. She looked at him as if at a madman, then spotted the innkeeper hiding behind him and walked over.
“I’m sorry. Those thugs wrecked your place because of me.”
The innkeeper, half beatific, smiled and shook his head. “Running an inn means getting used to this. Don’t trouble yourself, lady warrior.”
“No. I can’t do that. If not for me, this wouldn’t have happened.”
She slipped the pipa from her back, turned it over, and felt along the lower frame. A small square hatch clicked open. She drew out a pouch, hesitated a breath, then handed it over whole.
“Here. For repairs.”
“Oh my, you shouldn’t—” the innkeeper said, not refusing in the slightest. He took the heavy pouch with a chuckle. She glanced once at the three dead swordsmen and the wreck, gave the innkeeper a small nod, and slipped out.
Jang Geon understood the quick exit. Even with self-defense plain, the Martial Alliance branch chief would try to hold her. If you hated trouble, you left.
Moments later, he realized he should have left just as quickly. The branch chief arrived late and pecked at every trivial detail. If the innkeeper hadn’t kept sliding him drink and dishes, Jang Geon might have planted a fist in that face.
****
The next day, Jang Geon rode Jojo at an easy pace under the cool forest air. He’d resisted the lure long enough not to lose every coin, but his pouch was thinner for it. And that town—aside from Ju Yeorang’s ruckus—was peaceful. That had been the biggest commotion in a year.
No work there for a man of arms.
To earn money by seeking out trouble. He gave a dry smile and let Jojo amble. Sun poured down in clean shafts between straight trunks, soothing the mood. He whistled a tune he recalled from her pipa.
On the mountain road, he saw a lone crag jutting off the path and steered Jojo that way.
From the edge he saw ridges rolling off into distance, a great snow peak beyond, a river writhing in bends below, and a forest rising and falling like surf. It settled him for no good reason.
He drew a long breath of clear air and turned Jojo away—then checked the reins again. Jojo snorted, as if to ask what nonsense now.
“...You again?”
Down below the cliff, Ju Yeorang stood facing someone, the two locked in a standoff.