Haneul's fever showed no sign of breaking. The days passed beneath a veil of somber lethargy, and the young woman remained unconscious, suspended somewhere between life and death.
Kang-dae did not leave her side for even a moment. He tended the fire beneath the ondol floor to keep the chamber warm and held Haneul's icy hands against his own chest, desperately trying to transfer the heat of his body into hers. It was no longer only the monarch who fought for his life in the temple's secluded rear pavilions; Haneul, too, was slowly losing the fragile pulse that tethered her to this world.
Her fevered delirium grew increasingly intense—and increasingly dangerous. Lost within the heat consuming her, she murmured dark fragments about her life at the Cheomseongdae, names belonging to the royal court, and secrets written among the stars. For that reason, Kang-dae strictly forbade any guard or servant from entering the room. No one but him—and her faithful momjong—was permitted to cross the threshold. He changed the warm cloths upon her forehead himself, finding in each small act of care a way to ease the devouring guilt he carried for having treated her so mercilessly.
In the depths of one particularly bitter night, Haneul's restless murmuring softened into a faint breath.
"Kang… dae…" she whispered, her voice broken.
The instant he heard his name upon her lips, the Bujang bent over her. He leaned so close that Haneul's slow, warm breath brushed against his ear.
"What are you saying, Haneul?" he asked, his heart racing wildly with fear.
Her lips moved again, scarcely more than a few millimeters, shaping his name one syllable at a time, as though it were the only anchor she had left to keep herself from vanishing into the shadows.
"Ka… ng… dae…"
He enclosed her hand within his own and, brushing his fingers against Haneul's burning cheek, answered in a whisper steeped in devotion.
"I am here, Haneul. I have not left you."
Yet the moment the words escaped him, a blade of bitterness pierced his chest. He studied the exhaustion etched across her face and, tormented by the confusion within him, thought in silence:
Why do you not call for the Daesagan? He is the one who should be here watching over you, not me. He belongs to your world. Your heart belongs to him now… It is wrong that I should be the one holding your hand beside this bed.
The shadow of Daesagan Jun-ho rose between them like an insurmountable wall of duty and noble rank. Kang-dae knew that, in the eyes of Joseon's laws and society, he was nothing more than a soldier charged with protecting her, while the young Lord Yi represented the future she deserved.
But the painful memory that had gnawed at him for days surged back with renewed force. The image of Haneul walking beside the Daesagan through the crowded market streets, smiling freely beneath the bright commotion of the afternoon, tormented him once again.
With a heavy sigh, he tightened his hold on her hand one last time before forcing himself to release it slowly. He remained kneeling in the dimness, staring down at his trembling hands, his eyes clouded by tears he would never have allowed himself to shed before his men.
His voice fractured beneath the weight of a truth he had concealed for far too long. Convinced that his words would never be heard, Kang-dae spoke in a whisper.
"I never should have allowed you to come so close to me."
He lowered his gaze toward their intertwined hands.
"It would have been easier… if we had never met that first night."
A weary smile, almost imperceptible, flickered briefly across his face.
"I thought you were merely a reckless young woman… one of the countless people a man encounters during a journey and eventually forgets as the years pass."
He fell silent for several moments.
"But I never forgot you."
He carefully held Haneul's hand between both of his.
"You always appeared again… arguing with me, contradicting me, challenging every word I said. You never obeyed a single command… and yet, whenever you left, I found myself waiting to see you again."
His eyes remained fixed upon her motionless face.
"For a long time, I tried to convince myself that it was nothing more than an illusion. I told myself that a soldier like me should never look upon a woman like you. You belonged to a world I could never enter."
He paused.
"Then the Daesagan appeared."
Even speaking the title seemed to cause him pain.
"I saw him walking beside you… and I understood that he could offer you everything I would never possess."
A name.
Position.
A future he could never give her.
He turned his face away.
"I was jealous."
The confession left his lips with almost brutal simplicity.
"Jealous in a way I had never been of anyone."
He closed his eyes for a moment.
"That is why I began pushing you away. Not because I had stopped loving you…"
His voice finally broke.
"…but because the closer you remained to me, the more impossible it became to surrender you."
He stayed silent for a long while before speaking again.
"And now you are here…"
Slowly, he lifted Haneul's hand and rested his forehead against it.
"Fighting for every breath…"
A tear fell upon her unmoving fingers.
"I have entered battles where I never feared death… but I did fear never finding my way back to you."
He squeezed his eyes shut, as though the admission had torn away the last defense he still possessed.
"If you awaken… I will never again cast you aside because of my pride."
His voice fell until it became a murmur scarcely louder than the fire beneath the floor.
"If this is my punishment for loving you in silence… I will accept it."
No sooner had the final words of his confession faded into the darkness than the hurried sound of footsteps upon the wooden corridor shattered the silence surrounding the chamber.
A moment later, several firm knocks struck the door.
"Bujang Kang-dae!" the temple physician called from the other side, attempting to restrain the urgency in his voice. "Forgive the interruption, but His Majesty requires your presence immediately."
Kang-dae remained motionless for a brief moment. As though awakening from a dream he should never have allowed himself to enter, he drew a deep breath and closed his eyes.
With the back of his hand, he discreetly wiped away the moisture still clinging to his face. When he opened his eyes again, the vulnerability of the man who had just laid bare his heart had vanished completely.
Only the Bujang of the Royal Army remained.
He rose with measured calm, though the tension running through every muscle betrayed the silent battle raging within him.
Before leaving, he turned his gaze toward Haneul once more.
The fever continued to consume her. Her breathing remained weak, scarcely perceptible beneath the thick blankets protecting her from the cold.
Kang-dae approached her one final time.
With infinite tenderness, he brushed aside a strand of hair that had fallen across her face and took her hand between his once more.
For several moments, he remained that way in absolute silence.
"Hold on a little longer…" he murmured, as though afraid that even those words might disturb the stillness of the chamber. "This time… I will return."
Slowly, he released her hand and straightened once more.
He opened the door.
The physician waited outside, bowed respectfully.
The moment he stood before the Bujang, he stepped forward and lowered his voice even further.
"His Majesty has regained consciousness. He asked for you immediately."
Kang-dae nodded gravely.
He did not ask a single question.
There would be time enough to learn the sovereign's condition.
For now, only duty remained.
He straightened the belt from which his sword rested, adjusted the sleeves of his cheollik, and set off down the corridor with the same steady resolve with which he had once led his men across the battlefield.
As his figure disappeared among the temple pavilions, the chamber once again fell into the deepest silence.
Only the crackling fire beneath the ondol accompanied Haneul's uneven breathing.
And, for the first time since the fever had taken hold of her, the young woman's motionless fingers seemed to tremble faintly upon the blankets.