Page 8

CHAPTER 8

JAEIL

The Under World

Third Ward Train Station, Inner Circle

AS THE TRAIN departed the station, Jaeil was left with the distinct impression that he’d made a mistake.

Not with the plan. It was the best he could do with the time allotted—less than a week since he saw the light and knew, like a bell struck in his chest, that the race had begun.

If it wasn’t the plan that was faulty, perhaps it was the players. The five individuals he met at Bo Dan’s were endowed with enough physical prowess, and presumably wits, to locate a girl and bring her back to the Under World, where he could ensure her survival.

He’d watched all but one of them board the train. The two mercenaries came as recommendations from one of Sana’s more unsavory acquaintances. He’d invited the old woman himself, as she was a bounty hunter of some renown. The scarred man hadn’t shown up, which surprised Jaeil, if only because he’d seemed the most eager to collect on the reward.

Lastly, there was the swordsman. Sunho had arrived so late to the station that Jaeil had presumed he’d had a change of heart. But as the train whistled its departure, Sunho had stepped from the darkness onto the platform, where the lanterns were brightest. Even then, he’d been almost undetectable; Jaeil had only noticed him because of his red scarf. He’d been the last passenger to board the train.

Across from Jaeil, his lieutenant slid a tray of tea and pastries across the table, a gift from the stationmaster upon their arrival.

“You couldn’t have gone, not with that arm,” Sana said, eyeing his cast. “I know you’d have given anything to be on that train. After all, there’s only one way to ensure the outcome you desire: Do it yourself.”

“What makes you think I could do the job any better?” Jaeil asked, curious.

Sana scoffed, taking a drink from her cup, though he doubted it was tea she was imbibing. She carried a tin of liquor in her jacket for just such occasions.

“Maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t go.” She sat so far back in her chair Jaeil was impressed she didn’t fall over. “There are around a hundred hired killers and mercenaries on that train.”

He grimaced. He’d watched them all board from this very seat. Jaeil had known the general would send people of his own, but even he was surprised at the sheer amount .

“Was that really the smartest choice, boxing them in like that?” Sana asked. “It’s a powder keg, waiting to explode.”

Jaeil shook his head. “It was the only way. The light came from the east, over the mountains. That’s a few weeks journey by horse, a month by foot. The train will get them to Seorawon within three days.”

He could have dispatched a military aircraft to the northern border where his soldiers were stationed, but he couldn’t risk it being intercepted.

“Why the kid?” Sana asked.

He glanced at his lieutenant, lifting a brow. The kid wasn’t much younger than himself.

“Oh, don’t make that face. You know what I mean. Why put your faith in a nobody from the Outer Ring? Bo Dan’s just an opportunistic bastard looking to make an extra bit of coin.”

Why, indeed. On one hand, coin wasn’t the issue; he could have hired a hundred mercenaries, but throwing bodies at the problem wouldn’t make a difference.

Sunho hadn’t been like the others. He wasn’t a career assassin, for one. Jaeil had a report drawn up on him shortly after their meeting. It had consisted of a few brief sentences, starting from two years ago. Any records of him before then were either expunged or never existed. There wasn’t evidence of him having served in the military.

But Jaeil had remembered his brother. That had been the truth. He’d fought alongside countless soldiers and couldn’t recall half their faces, but he’d remembered Junho because he had talked nonstop—a memorable, if insufferable, trait.

“He wants something, beyond the coin,” Jaeil said. “You take chances when you’re motivated by more than money. Fate intervenes, too. They favor those who have a story to tell, the reckless, the ones who take risks.”

“Then Fate favors you.”

“They have a funny way of showing it.” Jaeil picked up a teacup, swirling the contents before bringing it to his mouth. His arm ached. “It seems the mercenaries aren’t the only notable passengers to board today’s train. I don’t know if you noticed—”

Sana’s chair hit the floor with a thump. “I thought that was him! Though I wasn’t sure. Ministers tend to all look the same. Stodgy old men.” She shuddered.

Jaeil had arrived at the station to ensure those he’d hired made it onto the train, but he hadn’t accounted for witnessing the clandestine departure of a Sareniyan nobleman.

Minister Jo, who oversaw the ninth ward, had boarded one of the first-class cars, traveling alone except for a single black-robed guard. It wasn’t his leaving the city that was notable—it was that he was leaving two weeks before the Festival of Light. During that time, Sareniyan nobles would gather in the Under World to throw extravagant parties and partake in the general debauchery forbidden in the pristine, moonlit courts of the Floating World. Minister Jo would be expected to host his more illustrious clan members for the duration of their stay.

“He could have left for all kinds of reasons,” Sana said. “Maybe his lungs were troubling him, and he wanted to recuperate in the countryside. Or he has a lover in one of the Occupied Territories. That’s something you would know little about.”

“Ministers travel with retinues,” Jaeil said, purposefully ignoring her last comment. “He didn’t want anyone to know he was leaving.”

Sighing, he placed his cup on the table before leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. Perhaps he was wasting his time thinking about the minister. He paid little attention to the actions of the nobility unless they affected the war.

His mother had been a noble, the unwanted ninth daughter of a weak and pitiable clan. Through her bloodline, he was technically one himself—a fact he tried his best to forget.

“He really chose the worst day to take a train ride,” Sana drawled.

There was a loud rap at the door. A man in the uniform of a Sareniyan guard stepped into the parlor, bowing at the waist. “Captain.”

Jaeil didn’t recognize him, but the branch of the military that maintained order in the city saw recruits come and go more than the others.

“What is it?”

“A thief broke into your residence. They were apprehended, but…” The recruit’s eyes darted to Jaeil.

“But what?” Sana prompted.

“There was significant damage done to your study, sir. A few of your belongings were destroyed. Books, artwork, and…” The man hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure of the significance of the last object. “A feather.”

Jaeil rose quietly to his feet.

Sana followed after him, patting the recruit on the shoulder. “You’d better come with us.”

JAEIL’S RESIDENCE WAS located within Hagye Military Base in the first ward. “Wait outside,” he ordered Sana and the recruit.

Within moments of entering his study, he knew that he’d been lied to. The great desk at the back of the room and the large bookshelf that took up an entire wall were as he had left them.

The door slowly shut behind him, sealing off the light from the foyer. It was a trap.

He’d guessed as much. He kept nothing of value in his residence, besides perhaps a few weapons, the most prizeworthy of which lay on his desk where he’d left it—his grandfather’s sword. Most telling was the silence surrounding his estate. For a theft within a high-ranking officer’s residence, there was a distinct lack of military personnel present. Just the one recruit sent to fetch him, now cowering outside the door.

“Goddess, it’s dark in here,” Sana said from close behind him. “Can’t you turn on a light?”

His heart lurched. She’d followed him inside. He turned. “Sana—”

A head tumbled across the carpet, rolling to a stop at his feet. The face of the scarred mercenary stared up at him.

Jaeil turned toward the shadows in the corner of the room, where the general of the Sareniyan empire rose from a seat to his full, towering height.

Jaeil immediately lowered his gaze.

“You disappoint me, son. If you’re going to betray me, you should at least take care I don’t find out.”

Jaeil felt more than heard his father approach, the air shifting with his presence. Time seemed to slow, though he knew it was only in his imagination. General Iljin hadn’t any powers, even if his enemies might believe otherwise.

“Now,” he said, and he was so close that Jaeil felt his breath ghost over his face. A shiver swept through his body; he was always cold, but never so much as when his father was near. “I’ll have to punish you.”

Jaeil had been beaten enough times to know what pain to expect, and not by the general’s hands only. On the battlefield, he’d been stabbed, gutted twice with a sword, and most recently, his forearm fractured in two places.

Yet still, when his father raised his fist, and he felt that first rush of air, he flinched.

He heard a dull thud, and for a half second couldn’t comprehend what had happened—he hadn’t felt any pain. Then Sana hit the floor.

Jaeil was respected, admired, feared by many. Yet to the general of the Sareniyan army he was just a boy, a son. Powerless.

He kept his gaze forward, sparing not a glance for Sana. The general despised displays of weakness.

As the general moved to leave, Jaeil said softly, “I believed you ten years ago, when you said she had perished. I would have continued to believe, had you not sent those assassins.

“Is it her?” Jaeil asked, and he hated the way the question made him feel like a child again. “Is she alive?”

“It would seem so, but not for much longer.”

Jaeil nodded. “How will you ensure you’ll succeed this time? Or that you’ll even find the right person?”

His father stared at him, unblinking. His gaze was eerily opaque. “What makes you think they’re after one person?” Jaeil knew immediately what his father had done. “Each mercenary on that train will earn a thousand coins for every girl that fits the description.”

Hundreds would be killed. It would be a massacre .

The general lifted a hand to the emblem on Jaeil’s shoulder, brushing it softly with the pad of his thumb. “Captain. You’ve earned it. You’re strong, Jaeil, but you’ll never win with a soft heart.”

Jaeil waited until his father had left the room before approaching the desk.

“Captain?” Sana stood beside him. Blood gushed from her nose. “Are you all right?”

Funny that she should be the one to ask him that.

Footsteps entered the study. The recruit staggered forward, falling to his knees.

“Captain, forgive me,” he whimpered. “The general threatened my family. I didn’t have a choice.”

Reaching out his hand to his desk, Jaeil’s fingers lightly traced the blade of the sword laid across it. It was an heirloom, handed down by his grandfather, and his grandfather before him.

“You said a thief broke into my residence,” Jaeil said. “You weren’t mistaken.”

The recruit gasped, “Thank you, thank you—”

“My father is the biggest thief of all.” His hand wrapped around the hilt. “He stole a world.”

Sweeping the sword, he cut the recruit’s throat. The man fell to the floor, gurgling in his death throes; his blood soaked the rich carpets.

“Captain,” Sana chided softly. “He wasn’t to blame.”

“No,” Jaeil agreed. “He feared my father more than he feared me. Otherwise, he’d never have lied to me. The one to blame is me.”

After wiping the sword with a piece of cloth, he placed it back onto the desk. Then, turning, he stepped over the body of the man before striding from the room.

His steward stood quivering outside the door. “Call in the servants. I need a new carpet.”