Chapter 1

The tinkling of bells rang loudly.

Behind it came the thump of drums and the janggu, and the frantic footfalls of the clapping shaman in her five-colored hanbok. The whole village had come out to watch the ritual.

It was a village near the capital that worshiped the mountain deity.

Because it guarded the capital in times of war, the mountain-god village had beacons and defensive walls that ran from mountain to mountain all the way to neighboring settlements.

The village belonged to the Hong family, a clan honored among the founding meritorious families. They’d been pushed aside in power struggles, but the family had produced military leaders for generations, so they made their seat in the mountain village close to the capital.

The mountain deity watched over them and helped them prosper, and because the path to the capital passed through this village, it was always noisy with travelers. There was also an old tradition. Once a year the villagers had to offer a sacrifice to the mountain deity for one hundred days if they wanted the village to prosper.

“Mountain deity? If it’s asking for a sacrifice, wouldn’t that mean it’s a monster?”

Hong Yeom-rang, the Hong family’s second son, had just returned from his studies in the capital and stood in the front row with the corner of his mouth twitching up.

“Shh.”

His eldest brother, Hong In-nam, clicked his tongue and scolded him quietly.

When the villagers had once failed to offer the sacrifice and the mountain deity grew angry, a tiger appeared and merchants and travelers stopped coming to the village. Even when they sent hunting parties, no shadow of the tiger could be found except when outsiders came through, and then it acted threateningly. The people who made their living from travelers all begged for the sacrifice to be offered again.

The shaman’s five-direction flags flew noisily. Pulling out a bright red flag, the clapping shaman who was painted up like a woman glanced briefly at Hong Yeom-rang.

He thought he recognized her.

The moment their eyes met, she quickly turned away as if to run. Since he had grown up here before going to the capital, it was likely a familiar face.

“You still believe this superstitious crap?”

Everyone in the village had to come out to watch the ritual. You never knew who might be chosen as the sacrifice, so it was natural.

Curiosity showed on everyone’s faces.

“It’s called a sacrifice, but it’s really just a devotional vigil. Everyone accepts it and believes it, so if you live here, you follow it.”

“Old man looks a lot tamer now.”

Hong Tae-young, standing a couple of paces away with his hands clasped behind his back, watched the ritual. He looked like a rough old soldier. Hong In-nam saw the bluish vein standing out at his father’s temple.

Called a sacrifice, the chosen person would go into a cave in the mountain for one hundred days to hold a devotional vigil for the mountain deity.

If they did that, famine or flood and other natural disasters didn’t happen and the village always stayed prosperous. The people chosen for the one hundred days of vigil were always from poor households, and when they came down from the mountain with wild ginseng or jewels their families prospered greatly.

When tempted to ask where the wild ginseng or jewels came from, people just said it was the mountain deity’s grace, and the villagers had no choice but to believe. There were even the deity’s messengers who lived on the mountain. The ones who were seen usually appeared under the village’s sacred tree or at the foot of the mountain. They didn’t age over ten or twenty years. They didn’t harm the village, and folks came to believe those messengers reported the village’s affairs to the mountain deity.

Hong In-nam glanced at his younger brother, boredom crossing his face as Hong Yeom-rang watched the ritual with folded arms.

He’d been different since birth.

People didn’t usually give names like that. From the prophetic dream at his birth to his four pillars of destiny, everything about Hong Yeom-rang had been unusual.

A blazing dragon had fallen into the palace where the king lived in Yeom-rang’s birth dream, and it was said his fate was to be registered with the royal household. Having failed to navigate court life properly and drifted from the royal line, Hong Tae-young was delighted and threw a feast when he heard his second son’s fate.

A man being entered on the royal register meant marrying a princess.

Hong Tae-young believed this son would lead him back to the royal road. The Hong family used the character for red in their name hoping their son’s life would burn bright and glorious, and they even named him accordingly.

The royal consort’s husband.

Under primogeniture, if the crown prince died, the princess would inherit the throne.

A woman becoming ruler wasn’t common, but it wasn’t unheard of in the nation’s history. The crown prince had been weak since birth, and people said he wouldn’t even reach his majority.

If Hong Yeom-rang married a princess, his son would be king.

Thinking of that, Hong Tae-young the general couldn’t help doting on his second son.

Maybe that’s why.

Hong Yeom-rang grew up willful. If he didn’t like something, he’d throw a punch at his older brother and talk back to his father. Born with a general’s frame, his father’s punishments had stopped when he was five. He took no interest in the weak. When he threw a fit it was only when things went against his sense of justice. He was also obsessive about revenge and would repay an injury two, three, or tenfold.

No matter how the Hong family had lost power, no one in the capital dared lay a hand on the son of a meritorious founding family. This time he even passed the military exam without being ordered to and returned to his hometown with the horse and sword the king had bestowed on him, looking listless and bored.

“My kid, but I gotta trust this kid…”

The despair at having to entrust the family’s fate to him made General Hong close his eyes tight.

In truth, his son’s behavior had been too much, so he left him with a friend in the capital during his studies. Once he started learning letters and taking up the sword, he began to speak properly, and whenever his father received gifts he reported to the magistrate that General Hong had accepted bribes.

When the magistrate wore a troubled expression for a third time, the general was ashamed of the village gossip and decided he’d rather send his son to the capital. He entrusted him to a friend who ran a brutally honest military academy.

Calling him naturally strong, the friend sometimes sent letters praising the boy. Back then people said every tough kid in the village had gotten beaten by Hong Yeom-rang, so they took it in stride. But when the sturdy arrogant face that looked like it could single-handedly kill a tiger in the mountains returned after a long time, both General Hong and Hong In-nam shut their eyes tight.

At well over six feet tall with a solid frame, the blue jacket he received after placing first in the exam looked like it would tear the moment he moved.

His face resembled his mother who died young.

When he was small, the village kids had beaten him senseless for teasing him about his pretty features like a girl.

He still looked pretty like his mother, but now people added that he looked like a man.

Thick brows, narrow double eyelids, and long slanted eyes made his expressions somehow sly at times. When he blinked from boredom, his lashes fluttered and felt deep. Hong In-nam kept a little distance from his brother mindful of the head start in height. Hong Yeom-rang, who had turned his gaze away from the ritual, tilted his head and looked at the brother watching him.

“What are you looking at?”

“Ah, nothing.”

Damn, he stammered.

Hong In-nam hurriedly turned his eyes forward again. Not just his gaze but all the village’s marriageable women were staring at Hong Yeom-rang. They’d come more to see him than the ritual.

Hong Yeom-rang’s lips were glossy and full though he wore no lip tint.

But they were always twisted so nobody dared speak to him.

“The sacrifice this year is…”

Pulled out of the house because staying inside was boring, Hong Yeom-rang watched the clapping shaman finally open her mouth with a bored look.

She snatched the reddest of the five flags and waved it from right to left.

Under the thousand-year-old sacred tree, the dyed cloths fluttered in time.

“Th-this year’s sacrifice is…”

The red flag that swept over the crowd pointed somewhere. It pointed at where General Hong stood.

The general who had been standing nearest in front of Hong Yeom-rang stepped back a pace.

The flag didn’t follow the general. It pointed squarely at Hong Yeom-rang.

“Oh.”

An intrigued gasp escaped Hong Yeom-rang.

“H-Hong of the Hong household, y-you’re to be the s-sacrifice!”

The clapping shaman’s face went white. The red flag she held trembled pitifully. Then in an instant the finger she used to point at Hong Yeom-rang snapped.