chapter 06
The small, frail body was slowly freezing over. Her tiny hands had become numb long ago, swollen and cracked from the cold.
The carriage that had brought Baeksa here had already left Namto long ago.
Now, truly, she was alone in this freezing land.
Her breathing grew faint, and her eyelids drooped halfway shut. At the edge of life once again, Baeksa struggled desperately not to lose consciousness.
Because she still hadn’t seen the bead again.
But no matter how long she waited, it never appeared.
The snow blowing coldly through the air and the sharp winds of Namto froze her body solid.
The child weakly clenched and unclenched her numb fingers.
“Why……”
Why wasn’t it appearing?
Had she really been mistaken back then?
Frozen tears pricked at her frail eyelids.
Her eyes stung, but her face was so frozen she couldn’t even close them properly.
Even as her mind blurred, the bead still did not appear.
As if she had expected this, Baeksa gave a lonely, sorrowful smile.
“Maybe… I really did imagine it…”
Now everything made sense. There was no way something like a sacred bead—like a dragon’s wish-fulfilling orb—would appear to someone like her, who wasn’t even a dragon.
And yet, the faint hope that maybe, just maybe, she had truly seen it had kept her from running away.
So foolishly, she had come all the way back here, abandoned once more in Namto.
A fitting end for a snake, a symbol of misfortune.
“It’s my fault.”
If she had been born a dragon, she wouldn’t have been abandoned. She wouldn’t have clung to such foolish hope and come all the way here.
She didn’t know much, so even blaming others was difficult.
But blaming herself—that was as easy as breathing. So Baeksa chose to blame herself.
It felt like it would hurt less that way.
The tiny baby snake curled its body into a ball, breathing shallowly.
Baeksa stared blankly at the snowy field.
“After I die… will it stop hurting?”
I hope I don’t come back to life again this time.
“I’m scared…”
As Baeksa squeezed her eyes shut and trembled—
“…A child?”
A strange voice came from a distance.
“A kid? Lord! There’s a child collapsed here alone!”
Another unfamiliar voice followed.
Completely unfamiliar voices.
Namto, southern region of Haese Kingdom
A cursed, polluted land where even the sky refused to rain after the wrath of a dragon.
A place where no one should have been able to survive.
And yet, even in the land abandoned by the emperor, there were still beast-people living there.
The Zhuque Clan head, Joo Deokseo.
If he had not been using his ability to slow the spread of corruption in Namto and protect the land, all the beast-people here would have died.
Because of that, they were extremely sensitive to outsiders—and even more sensitive to anything from the imperial palace.
So when rumors spread that a carriage from the imperial palace was heading toward Namto carrying cargo, the people of the region were thrown into fear.
“The imperial carriage is coming here?”
“Is the emperor finally trying to wipe Namto out?”
No one knew what it carried.
But whatever it was, it could not possibly be something beneficial.
The emperor had abandoned this land long ago. He had no interest in whether the people here lived or died.
So they had to find out what the carriage was bringing.
That was why Joo Deokseo personally went to the border of Namto.
He was almost the only one who could resist Namto’s corruption, even for a short time.
He rode his horse straight toward the border of the corrupted land.
His tied, dark crimson hair scattered like dying embers in the wind.
As he stood alone on his black horse in the snowy wasteland, he looked like a sudden flame burning in the white field.
But that was all.
There was no imperial carriage. Nothing suspicious.
He was about to turn back—
“Here! Over here! There’s really a child here!”
Jo Yeong shouted while jumping up and down. The man frowned at his exaggerated behavior.
“What nonsense are you talking about? Why would there be a child here?”
“I’m telling you it’s true! Come quickly!”
With a sigh, Joo Deokseo reluctantly walked over.
And there, truly—
“…What.”
There was a small girl.
Collapsed on the pure white snowfield as if she had been abandoned.
A child wearing clothes marked with the imperial crest, lying there without a single guard, without even a blanket to cover her.
Joo Deokseo stepped forward without hesitation and touched her frozen cheek.
She was still breathing.
But—
“It’s faint.”
Her breath was so weak it seemed it could stop at any moment. If nothing was done immediately, she would die here.
How long had she been left in this freezing place?
If he hadn’t come, she would have surely died before morning.
Without hesitation, he reached out and lifted her.
“Is this a trap?”
Or had someone simply abandoned her to die?
Knowing how deeply the southern beast-people hated the central regions and the imperial palace, leaving a child dressed in imperial clothing like this…
It was more likely the latter.
As he carefully lifted the freezing child into his arms—
From within his embrace, the small girl weakly lifted her frozen eyelids.
And their eyes met.
Baeksa’s POV
A strange voice. A strange embrace.
Surrounded by unfamiliar things, Baeksa forced her eyes open.
Through her fading vision, she saw a man with dark crimson hair.
Eyes and hair like burning flames.
The moment she saw him, she realized who was holding her.
“…The Zhuque Clan…”
The perpetrators who had angered the emperor—and the rulers of Namto, the abandoned land.
Baeksa had vaguely heard of them.
That the Zhuque Clan, once one of the pillars supporting the kingdom, still remained here.
So this man must be one of them.
She wanted to ask, but she had no strength left.
Opening her eyes had drained the last of her energy.
She stared blankly at the man’s flaming hair.
His hands were just as warm as his hair looked fiery.
He gently cupped her frozen cheek, slowly melting the ice in her body.
“Warm…”
It was warmth she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
And it was warmth she felt at the very edge of death.
Because of that, she didn’t want to die anymore.
“I… want to live…”
She wanted to live.
Quietly, like she had once dreamed—living peacefully and eventually leaving the palace to find happiness.
Even if she had to beg for food, even if she had to sleep under a bridge…
A dream she thought she had given up long ago began to spark again inside her.
So the child decided to do something she would never normally do.
“…P-please.”
Baeksa used her last strength to look directly into the man’s eyes.
“Please… save me…”
His hands were warm.
Hands that could melt even frozen cheeks.
And someone with such a warm presence…
“Even just for a week…”
Maybe he would save her.
That foolish hope rose again inside her.
Tears, thought long dried, welled up once more at the warmth she met at the edge of life.
A single tear rolled down her cheek.
Without wiping it away or stopping herself from crying, Baeksa desperately grabbed the man’s sleeve.
“Please…”
Her voice was so faint it almost disappeared.
But clearly, she begged as she looked up at him.
“I want to live…”
With those words, her small eyelids closed.
Her hand fell limply, and her tiny body went slack in his arms.
And then, the next moment—
Whoosh!
The man quickly threw a leather blanket over Baeksa’s small body.
It was large and warm enough to wrap her several times over.
