"Resolve is not a banner you raise once. It is the weight you carry every day, even when your arms ache, and your heart longs for rest."
— Jin Mu-Won
The Reach gave way to harsher land as Jin and Ashara traveled northward. The roads narrowed, the villages grew poorer, and the people more guarded. Rumors passed swiftly — whispers of rebellion simmering like embers beneath the surface.
In the taverns, men muttered of princes and lords, of grievances long held against the Iron Throne. The king's name was spoken with disdain, and that of his son with equal bitterness. Jin did not know their histories, but he knew the scent of war when it thickened in the air.
Ashara heard it too. One evening as they rode together, she glanced toward him, her face lit by the low glow of dusk.
"The realm will bleed soon," she said. "All signs point to it. A king who grows cruel, lords who grow restless, and a crown prince who fans the flames with foolishness."
Jin's gaze drifted across the horizon. "War comes easily to men. Peace is harder."
She tilted her head, studying him. "You speak as if you've seen this before."
"I have," Jin said simply. "In my homeland, men sought power, wealth, revenge. They dressed their greed in words of justice. But in the end, the earth always drank the blood of the innocent first."
Ashara was silent for a time, then murmured, "And what did you do?"
Jin's hand tightened on his staff. "I fought. Until I had nothing left to give. And still it was not enough."
His words fell heavy in the dusk. Ashara did not press, but her eyes lingered on him with a look not of pity, but of understanding.
---
The Village
Their journey brought them to a village caught between lords. Taxes had been raised beyond what the harvest could bear. When Jin and Ashara arrived, they found the people gaunt, their children thin, their fields stripped bare. Worse still, soldiers of a minor house had arrived to "collect" what little remained.
The soldiers shouted in the square, dragging men by the arms, striking those who pleaded. A girl cried out as her father was beaten down.
Jin stepped forward.
The captain sneered at him. "Another beggar? Best keep moving."
Jin did not move. "Release them."
The captain laughed. "Do you know whose banner we serve?"
"I do not," Jin said calmly. "And I do not care."
The captain's laughter died. Rage twisted his face. He gestured. Two soldiers advanced, blades raised.
Jin's staff moved once. The first soldier's sword was snapped clean in two, the second sent sprawling with the wind knocked from him.
The captain drew his own blade, charging in fury. Jin met him head-on, his staff striking not with wildness but with purpose. A crack resounded as the man fell, his sword tumbling into the dirt.
The other soldiers froze. Something in Jin's stance — the way he held the staff steady, eyes unflinching — drained their courage. They fled, dragging their captain with them.
---
The villagers stared in silence. Then, slowly, they bowed.
Ashara watched, her face unreadable. When at last they left the village, she turned to him.
"You risked your life for strangers," she said. "You might have been killed."
Jin looked ahead, his stride steady. "If I had walked away, I would already be dead."
Ashara was quiet for a long moment. Then she said softly, "You are unlike any man I have ever met."
Her words carried neither flattery nor jest. Only truth.
---
That night, as the fire crackled between them, Jin sat with his staff across his knees. He gazed into the flames, his eyes shadowed but steady.
In Murim, he had sworn to be a shield until the end. Here, in this strange land with its strange stars, he found the vow unchanged.
He did not know what fate awaited him, nor what storms loomed on the horizon. But he knew this: so long as he breathed, he would not falter.