“Some children are born. Others are hidden from the world because the world is not ready for them.”

— The Book of Forgotten Queens

The sky was not dark. It was strangled.

Clouds coiled in agony above the forest like the breath of ancient spirits. Lightning didn’t simply strike—it clawed its way out from the heavens, tearing the sky’s belly open to bleed white fire across the land. The wind shrieked like something hunted.

And through the pine-thick woods of western Joseon, a woman ran. Her feet are bare. Her hair is undone. Her robes soaked in both rain and blood. She carried no weapon, only a bundle wrapped in crimson silk. The child inside was impossibly still. Too still.

He hadn’t cried when he entered this world.

He seemed to know that crying would only summon death.

Behind her, the sound of hooves.

Not galloping.

Floating.

Six riders, all veiled in black, their eyes hollow beneath obsidian masks. They bore no insignia—only a single silver crescent etched on their blades.

The Order of the Hollow Moon.

They were not guards. Not assassins. They were silence itself—sent by the throne to erase what should never have existed.

And the woman, once a court lady in the Queen’s inner circle, now ran with a death sentence tied to her arms.

Her name was Serah. Once servant. Once secret-keeper.

Now mother. And traitor.

“Down the ravine!” a voice barked behind her. Closer now. Too close.

Serah’s heart slammed against her chest like a beast inside a cage. She couldn’t feel her legs anymore. Couldn’t hear her own breath. All she could feel was the child. Heavy. Silent. Warm.

She reached the edge of a cliff where the trees broke away into a sheer drop above jagged black rocks. The waves below were wild and foaming, screaming against the earth as if they, too, feared what was coming.

She looked down.

She looked back.

She knew she would not survive this night.

But the boy might.

From within the crimson cloth, the child stared up at her—eyes wide, storm-colored, unnatural in their calm. He did not blink. He did not cry.

He only watched.

“Raon,” she whispered for the first and last time. The name meant “joy”... but it was more than that. It was defiance. To name him was to declare him real. To defy a kingdom that had tried to erase him from conception.

“You must live,” she said, her voice breaking. “Even if the world hunts you. Even if they call you wrong. Even if you forget who you are—live.”

She pulled a talisman from her neck—a coin etched with the Queen’s dying prayer—and slipped it beneath his wrappings.

Then she placed him in the floating basket woven from midnight reeds and stitched with moon-thread spells.

The storm cracked again above her, and a cry echoed from the forest—“She’s at the cliff!”

No more time.

Serah whispered something too quiet for the wind to hear.

She stepped back, arms outstretched.

An arrow hissed.

She fell.

The sea rose to meet her.

But the basket… the basket drifted away.

🜃 The Shore That Shouldn’t Have Found Him

Three days later, a storm-broken basket washed ashore in the gray cove of a forgotten village called Hollowshade—a place where wind passed through trees like breath through bones, and nothing bloomed except weeds and whispers.

An old healer found him there.

Her name was Amah. She was rumored to be older than the rocks, wiser than the priests, and more feared than death by the village’s children. They said she talked to crows. That she’d seen every death in the valley before it happened.

She pulled the boy from the basket, soaked and wide-eyed, still silent. She checked for marks—none. Scars—none. But she saw the talisman. And she saw the royal silk. And she did not ask questions.

She burned both.

She named him Raon, after the firelight in chaos, and raised him as her own.

🜃 The Child Who Didn't Cry

Raon grew without mirrors.

Without songs.

Without stories of princes and kingdoms.

At five, he climbed trees no other child dared touch.

At seven, he stitched herbs together with eerie precision.

At ten, he broke a thief’s nose with a pestle to defend Amah.

At twelve, he sat for hours under the same dead tree each night, claiming it whispered in his dreams.

He had no memory of a mother, but sometimes he saw her in the corners of his nightmares—falling, falling, eyes open, lips moving.

He never cried.

And he never asked who he was.

On the eve of his nineteenth year, the dogs howled before the sun set. Crows gathered at the rooftops and didn't move. The sea, visible from the hilltop, turned the color of bruises.

Amah did not sleep that night.

Raon stood at the old stone well behind the healer’s hut, watching the moon struggle behind the clouds. Something in the air had shifted. Time felt thin. Like the world was holding its breath.

Then he heard it.

A rustle not made by wind.

A whisper not made by voice.

A name not spoken in a decade—

“Raon…”

He turned, heart pounding. No one there.

But something had arrived.

Not from the woods.

Not from the sky.

From the past.

“Some people enter your life like a wound. And yet, you never wish to heal from them.”

— Amah's Book of Forgotten Truths

---

Raon had always believed the wind spoke in riddles.

But tonight, it screamed in a tongue older than fire.

The village of Hollowshade lay unnaturally still. Even the rats had vanished. The scent of salt and damp ash curled through the air like ghost breath. Beneath the well-moon, the hills looked like sleeping beasts.

Raon stood outside Amah’s hut, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the mountain path. He wasn’t waiting for anyone. He didn’t expect anything. Yet… his skin burned with that heavy silence before something cracks.

That’s when he saw her.

---

She walked into the village like someone who’d always belonged to the dark.

A traveler. A widow, they’d say later. Dressed in deep violet robes trimmed with dusk-thread lace. A silk veil hung over her face, but her eyes—gods, her eyes—shone like a storm seen from behind glass. They didn’t dart around nervously like other newcomers. No, her gaze was direct, curious… calculating.

Raon’s hand twitched toward the knife tucked beneath his belt. Not in fear. Instinct.

The girl stopped in the center of the path. The wind lifted her veil for the briefest second—just long enough for their eyes to meet.

And in that second, the world tilted.

---

She bowed politely to Amah, who had emerged with her usual quiet wisdom.

“I’m looking for lodging,” the girl said. Her voice was like warm ink—slow, precise, leaving a stain you’d never scrub away.

“I don’t take strangers,” Amah replied, already retreating.

“I’m not a stranger,” the girl said calmly, “just someone you’ve forgotten.”

Amah paused. Looked again.

Raon’s fingers clenched.

Why did this girl feel like memory trying to force its way back into a locked room?

---

That night, the girl stayed.

She gave a name no one believed: Lira — meaning “song that doesn’t die.”

She claimed to be a widow, but her hands bore no ring marks. Her robes were too finely woven. Her posture too alert.

Raon didn’t trust her.

But he couldn’t look away from her either.

---

🜃 The First Fire

Raon watched her from the woods the next morning, arms folded as she lit incense outside the temple ruins—a place untouched by prayer in years. The villagers avoided it. Said it was cursed. Said it had burned once without ever catching flame.

She knelt there, eyes closed, whispering something to the ground.

He stepped from the shadows.

“You’re not from any village nearby,” he said.

She didn’t flinch. “Neither are you.”

Their eyes met again—more steady this time, more dangerous.

“You burn things,” he said softly. “I can smell smoke in your bones.”

She smiled beneath her veil. “And you, Raon, are still afraid of the thing you’re meant to become.”

---

🜃 Whispers Beneath the Skin

They met again that evening by the cliff where the sea moaned like a dying god.

Raon should’ve left. Should’ve walked away.

But her voice wrapped around him like silk dipped in blood.

“What are you really doing here?” he asked.

She stepped closer. Close enough for him to see the faint scar along her neck, like a blade’s memory. “I’m hunting someone,” she whispered.

“Who?”

She looked out to the waves. “A man who once destroyed everything I loved. I plan to return the favor.”

Raon exhaled. “Revenge isn’t as clean as it feels.”

Lira turned, face inches from his. “Neither is love.”

---

🜃 Flame Meets Storm

That night, rain whispered against the thatched roof. Raon sat by the window, watching Lira’s silhouette in the moonlight outside, her arms raised in silent motion—like a dance, or a ritual.

She didn’t see him watching.

Or maybe she did.

Maybe she always did.

He didn’t know if she was here to heal or to kill.

He didn’t know if he wanted her to stay… or to disappear before she burned his world down.

But he knew one thing as surely as his own breath:

This girl had come for blood.

And something deep inside him…

wanted to help her spill it.

“Some silences aren’t empty. They breathe. They remember.”

Morning hadn't come. Not truly.

The sky was pale and colorless, like someone had drained the blood from it. Mist clung to the trees like cobwebs, thick and damp. The village looked abandoned again — as if its people had vanished in the night.

Raon crouched by the well near the Widow’s Shrine, his jaw tense.

Next to him, Lira — still dressed in her widow’s disguise — sat on a cracked stone, chewing a piece of dried persimmon like it was the most normal morning of her life.

“You’ve been staring at that well for an hour,” she said. “Planning to jump in?”

“There’s something inside it,” he muttered.

She leaned back, unimpressed. “Maybe it’s a cursed frog. Maybe it’s your reflection.”

Raon didn’t laugh. He was listening.

Last night, he’d heard it again — the scraping sound.

It had started after midnight, low and distant. Metal against wood. Like someone dragging their nails through the earth.

Now, something had changed.

A crack had appeared in the shrine’s foundation — fresh, jagged, breathing cold air.

He nodded toward it. “That wasn't there yesterday.”

---

They both stood, walking toward the crevice. The smell coming from it was strange — sweet, but sharp. Like flowers left on a grave too long.

Raon pulled a small mirror from his sleeve. He tilted it toward the opening carefully.

Lira watched him, curious now. “What do you see?”

His eyes widened. For a heartbeat, he didn’t speak.

Then he whispered, “A face.”

“A human face?”

“Half of one. The mouth was stitched shut.”

She took the mirror, glanced at it herself. Nothing there now — only shadows.

But the air felt different. Heavy. Personal. Watching.

---

Suddenly, the shrine door creaked open.

Neither of them had touched it.

Lira stiffened. “Okay, that’s... new.”

Raon drew his blade.

They stepped inside together.

---

The shrine’s interior was colder than the outside air. It didn’t feel abandoned. It felt occupied — like someone had just been there and might return any second.

The walls were lined with masks — grotesque, chipped, hollow-eyed.

But one mask was missing. The one at the top-right corner. The one with the sharpest smile.

Raon turned to check behind them.

A figure was standing there.

---

It was tall and thin, wrapped in pale cloth like burial linen. Its hands were twisted — fingers bent backward, as if broken.

“You’ve come to feed her,” it rasped. “She waits... hungry.”

Lira stepped forward, unfazed. “Feed who? I didn’t bring snacks.”

Raon glanced at her. “This really isn’t the time for sarcasm.”

“Exactly why I’m using it,” she whispered.

The creature hissed and lunged.

---

The fight was fast. And brutal.

The figure moved like smoke. Hard to strike. Harder to hurt.

Raon blocked a blow and countered, steel meeting cloth — but the creature vanished and reformed behind him.

Lira ducked low, spun, slashed upward — a clean arc, slicing through empty air.

Their bodies moved together — sharp and fluid.

They didn’t speak, but they knew each other’s rhythm now. Every attack, every dodge, perfectly timed.

At one point, Raon stumbled, the creature grabbing his arm. Lira didn’t hesitate. She drove her blade straight through its side.

It shrieked and turned to dust.

---

Silence fell.

Then — the masks began to drop from the walls, one by one, crashing to the ground like shattered bones.

The shrine trembled.

“We need to leave,” Raon said.

Lira grabbed his wrist. “Go!”

They burst out just as the shrine collapsed in a rain of wood, dust, and broken curses.

---

Outside, the air had changed.

A thin ray of sunlight finally broke through the clouds. It fell across Raon’s face like a quiet blessing.

He turned to Lira.

She looked back at him — wind in her hair, blood on her cheek, chest heaving with breath.

And in that moment, she didn’t look like a disguised widow anymore.

She looked real.

Brave.

Beautiful.

He didn’t say anything.

But she noticed the way he looked at her.

And smiled — just slightly.

“Still alive,” she said. “Barely.”

He nodded. “You saved me in there.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” she teased. “I did it for your sword. It’s shinier than mine.”

He laughed — really laughed — the sound echoing through the mist.

---

But deep underground, beneath the fallen shrine, something stirred.

A pale face pressed against the dirt.

Its mouth — once stitched — was now slowly opening.

And from that dark hollow came a whisper.

“Raon…”

---