𝐄𝐗𝐈𝐋𝐄 ♕ 𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐆 𝐖𝐎𝐎𝐊

𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻

Nobody could understand why Maidservant Kim fretted over leaving Gaeun alone with three children. She hovered by the door of the spare room for most of the night, trying to peek in through the windows, and left only when Gaeun sent her a reprimanding look.

Wook had half-expected to see Kim Dojoo sitting on the stairs when he snuck out for the seventh time around sunrise. Each time, Gaeun had been awake and somewhat aware that he was outside. But he couldn't help it. After everything she had implied—after all that he had found out about her, he wanted to make sure she was okay. Because he most certainly did care for her. He was just embarrassed to admit it. Or show it.

What if she misunderstood it as him falling in love with her?

Rubbing his eye sluggishly, Wook peered inside the spare room and found that Gaeun had finally succumbed to exhaustion and had fallen asleep along with the girls, with her back against the wall. Her hand rested on Nabi—the youngest's—back as the child curled up in her lap. The eldest, Hwi, had her arms coiled around Gaeun's waist while Nara was sprawled over her legs.

Each time Wook had come to check on her, Gaeun had been busy giving her full attention to the girls. She had helped them bathe and dress, nursed their wounds while narrating stories, and made sure that they ate properly before bed. The third time he had been there, he heard Gaeun humming a soft tune while doing Hwi's hair. The fourth time, she had very, very subtly tried to interrogate them about their captor. And the sixth time, she had comforted Nara who had woken up screaming from a nightmare.

How much of herself did she see in them, he wondered.

Wook had met her once every year for a few weeks since he was five years old and he had never bothered to know more than what was required about her. He could've never imagined, even in his wildest dreams, that he would fake marriage with her and, in the process, stumble upon the legends of old.

I could burn it down for you. Songrim. Daeho. Everything.

Once upon a time, Wook would've laughed if someone had told him that Gaeun could speak words of such terrible violence. But she had sounded so resolute that day that it had frightened him.

Ever since she had told him she was a Vessel, Wook had spent his isolation reading whatever records he could find on the cardinal gods and their chosen mortals while simultaneously practising his breathing. He managed to dig out old storybooks of his childhood in the forgotten corners of the household and researched for titles that he made Servant Lee borrow in secret from Danggu and Yul. Something to take my mind off, he had hastily scribbled the excuse in a note addressed to them, Don't tell anyone.

All of them were labelled as works of fiction and none of them had a happy beginning, middle, or end.

Like Gaeun had said, there were fables about how their powers had been discovered through traumatic events. A drowned child was carried ashore by the waves and brought back to life only for the village physician to cut her open in search of the fish who saved her. A kind man who loved his little hamlet so much that he kept the fires going through the dark and terrible winter to save them from the frost and ended up dying from exhaustion. The hero who bent metal and earth to his will saved his loved ones and vanished from the face of the earth to protect them. An uncontrollable warrior won humanity a war but couldn't control his fire and ended up submitting himself to eternal captivity.

The Gods are dead and they live as sentient weapons to be wielded against the barbarians and the evil, one author wrote. They loved humanity because it was a strange and curious concept for them. They lived for humanity because the purpose of their birth was to serve them. And in the end, they perished for humanity because sacrifice is necessary for good to prevail.