Enna bowed her head slowly, her eyes glistening, brimming with tears that refused to fall. She struggled for composure, but sorrow surged too heavily within her breast.
"Enna, my dear," Juho's voice was gentle, steady even in weakness. His hand, though frail, reached to her cheek and brushed away the tears. "Do not weep. I shall be well."
She nodded faintly, lips trembling into a smile.
"Yes… you will be fine…"
As the months passed, Juho withdrew from the court, his strength consumed by illness. The physicians came and went, their remedies powerless against the shadow that clung to him. By the time winter descended, silent and merciless, Juho's breath had faded into stillness.
The day of his funeral dawned bleak and cold. In the wide courtyard of their household, the air was heavy with the sound of grief. Clan elders, distant kin, royal officials, and loyal servants all dressed in white mourning robes. Their cries rose like a mourning wind, echoing against the walls of the house that had once known laughter.
At the head of the procession stood Enna, clad in plain white hemp. Her face bore no tears. She had poured forth all her sorrow in sleepless nights, until her body could shed no more. Her gaze remained fixed upon the wooden bier where Juho lay, his form shrouded in white. The world about her dulled, her heart stunned into silence by grief too great to name.
Her father, Park, came beside her. With trembling hands, he placed them upon her shoulders.
"My daughter… if you must cry, then cry. Do not hold your sorrow within."
His eyes, clouded with age, brimmed now with worry.
Enna's lips parted, her voice breaking like a reed in the wind.
"Father… I feel as though I have forgotten how to cry… even how to smile."
At her words, Park's heart fractured. Tears streamed down his worn cheeks as he beheld his daughter—so young, yet burdened with a grief that seemed to strip her of life itself. The snow fell softly then, as though the heavens themselves wept for her sorrow.
The torrential rain had at last withdrawn, leaving the mountainside drenched and perilous, as though the heavens themselves had wrung their grief upon the earth. Teel, chieftain of the mountain brigands, pressed forward through the mire. His stride was slow, yet unyielding, the weight of his iron mace upon his shoulder like the burden of a lifetime carved into flesh and bone.
Behind him, his men trudged in silence, their breaths harsh against the cool air. Each step sank into the sodden earth, each trouser hem streaked and darkened by the mud that clung like a shadow. Their march was not merely upward but inward, toward the very heart of inevitability.
When they reached the crest, the storm-washed sky opened to reveal a broad plain, its grasses still bowing beneath the weight of rain. Teel halted at the center, his towering frame stark against the vastness. He lowered the mace with a muted thud and cast his gaze across his men.
What he saw in their eyes was a mingling of awe and dread—a wordless acknowledgment of the storm not just passed, but yet to come.
And within Teel's breast, memories surged like half-lit lanterns swaying in the dark corridors of time.
Once, he had dwelt not in shadow but in the brilliance of the royal capital, son of an upright official of the Hana Kingdom. His father, a pillar of principle and rectitude, had borne the envy of lesser men. Slander festered in gilded halls, and virtue was punished in whispers that grew into decrees. At last, stripped of honor, his father was cast down. The family abandoned the marble streets of the capital and settled by the southern sea, where the elder lived the humble toil of a fisherman.
Yet the sea, too, betrayed them. A storm rose without warning, and the waves, black as ink, devoured their frail vessel. Teel—then but fourteen—was wrenched from the embrace of his parents and siblings. The cries of his family were swallowed by the gale, leaving only silence and the boy who could not die with them.
For many days he wandered the hollow shell of his home, haunted by voices that lingered in its corners. But grief gave way to terror when a company of marauding bandits came thundering into the village, torches blazing, steel flashing. They encircled his dwelling as wolves encircle a lone fawn.
And thus Teel, son of an official, first beheld bandits.
Their leader, Bon, stepped forward. Teel knelt defiantly before him, fists clenched, eyes blazing though his body trembled.
Bon's voice was coarse, yet almost amused.
"How old are you, boy?"
Teel pressed his lips together, blood seeping faintly where his teeth bit down. He would not answer. Pride, like a blade within his chest, would not bend—even before death.
A bandit stepped forth and struck him across the head.
"Whelp! How dare you defy the Chief!"
The boy swayed but did not fall. Slowly, he raised his gaze. Within his eyes burned a fire fierce enough to silence laughter, a fire that belied his tender years.
Bon, the scarred chieftain, studied that unflinching gaze. For a long breath, the two locked eyes—the man of countless battles and the boy whose life had already been torn asunder. At last, the chief gave a low grunt and nodded.
"You are no ordinary brat," he muttered. Turning to his men, he commanded, "Take him with us."
The bandit who had struck Teel gaped in astonishment.
"Chief? This scrawny boy?"
"That look in his eyes," Bae-jang said, his tone edged with certainty. "He will be of use. Bring him."
And so it was that at fourteen, Teel was carried away into the world of bandits.
What should have been a life of misery became a path unforeseen. The brigands, savage and crude, became as elder brothers to the orphaned youth. Among them, Teel grew in sinew and in spirit. The harshness of plunder tempered him, the blood of raids steeled his heart.
Day by day, he grew bolder. Day by day, his arm grew heavier, his eyes sharper, his will more unyielding. Before long, none among the bandits could match his skill. When he raided, he returned with greater spoils than all others. When he fought, he fought as though his blade were the storm itself.
Bon came to trust him beyond measure. The men, rough-hewn though they were, bent their loyalty toward him. And in the shadows of cruelty, Teel offered them something no one else did—compassion. To the most downtrodden outcasts, he became a shield, and so their faith in him grew deeper than fear.
Nineteen winters have passed. At last, Teel resolved upon the path his heart had long carried: he would seize the clan for himself.
At thirty-three, his hand closed upon the reins of power. Bon fell, and Teel rose. Under his command, the mountain clan surged beyond the southern frontiers of the Hana Kingdom. Villages burned, forts crumbled, and their banners spread like fire upon the wind. Northward they pressed, until even the heart of the kingdom shuddered at his name.
And yet, destiny had not finished with him.
From the throne of the Hana Kingdom, a sovereign watched his rise. A queen not of mere crown, but of indomitable will—Her Majesty, Queen Genie.
Upon the rain-cleansed summit, the wind howled like a war horn. Teel stood tall, his iron mace resting upon his shoulder, his cloak whipping about him like a banner of defiance. His gaze swept across the hardened faces of his men—brothers forged not by blood but by battle.
Then, lifting his voice, he thundered across the mountain peak:
"The Queen herself will soon come to this mountain—our strongest fortress, carved from rock and storm! She will seek to bargain, to soften us with words. But mark this well!"
His voice split the air like a hammer striking an anvil.
"I will never yield, not even a single pebble of our land! This soil we bled for—this soil we claimed—shall never be surrendered! Engrave it into your hearts!"
For a heartbeat, silence hung heavy, as though the mountain itself waited.
Then Manny, his most loyal lieutenant, fell to one knee and raised his sword high.
"Long live the Chief!"
The words rang like steel on steel.
One by one, the others took up the cry, until the mountainside roared with their voices.
"Long live the Chief!"
"Long live the Chief!"
"Long live the Chief!"
The sound swelled, crashing against the cliffs, rolling down the valleys below. It was not merely a cheer—it was a vow, a thunderous oath sealed in the marrow of every man present.
The cry of the bandits shook the peak, and even the ravens circling above took flight, as though the heavens themselves trembled at the force of their defiance.
Teel's gaze swept across the gathered bandits, his eyes hard as iron. His stance was unyielding, his hand resting upon the haft of his mace as though it were the very pillar of his being. To his men, he was the mountain itself—immovable, unshaken.
Yet within, a shadow stirred.
His heart beat against his ribs like a drum of war, but not for battle alone. Beneath the armor of resolve lay fear—silent, insistent, gnawing at him. Already it whispered of what was to come.