THE CONCUBINE || TAEKOOK ||

FORTY FIVE

The Northern Road — Weeks After the Battle

The army had been marching for three weeks.

They moved slowly, the wounded carried in wagons, the survivors walking with the weary determination of men who had seen too much and lost too many. The roads were muddy with spring rain, the fields green with new crops, the villages they passed through quiet and watchful.

Jungkook rode at the head of the column, his armor polished, his banner held high, his face turned toward the south. The wound in his side had healed, more or less the physicians had done what they could, had bound it tight, had told him to rest. He had not rested. There was no time to rest. There was only the road, and the miles that stretched between him and home, and the face that waited for him at the end of it.

"The scouts report that the road ahead is clear," General Seo said, riding up beside him. The general had survived—barely—the arrow that had pierced his chest, the fever that had followed, the long weeks of recovery. He was thinner now, his face lined with pain, but his eyes were sharp, his voice steady. "We should reach the capital by nightfall."

Jungkook nodded. Nightfall. Hours, now, not days. Hours between him and the palace, between him and Taehyung, between him and the life he had left behind.

He looked at the men behind him the survivors of the Battle of Yalu River, the soldiers who had crossed the water with him, who had held the line, who had watched their comrades fall. They had marched through mud and rain, had slept in fields and forests, had carried their wounded and buried their dead. They were tired, bone-tired, the kind of tired that sleep could not cure.

But they were coming home.

---

The Village — Afternoon

The first village they passed was small a cluster of houses, a few fields, a shrine at the edge of the road. The farmers stopped their work when they saw the column approaching, their faces pale with fear. They had heard stories of armies marching through villages, taking what they wanted, leaving nothing behind.

Then they saw the banners. The dragon of Joseon, the symbol of the king.

A woman was the first to kneel. She was old, her back bent, her hands gnarled from years of work. She knelt in the mud at the side of the road, her head bowed, her hands pressed together.

"Long live the king," she whispered.

Others followed. They came out of their houses, out of their fields, out of the shrine where they had been praying for news of the war. They knelt in the road, in the mud, in the spring grass, their voices rising in a chorus that made Jungkook's throat tighten.

"Long live the king! Long live the king!"

A child broke free from her mother's arms and ran toward the column, a handful of wildflowers clutched in her small fist. She stopped in front of Jungkook's horse, looking up at him with eyes that held no fear, only wonder.

"For you," she said, holding up the flowers.

Jungkook dismounted. He knelt in the mud, ignoring the pain in his side, and took the flowers from her small hand. They were simple daisies, buttercups, the kind that grew wild in every field but they were the most beautiful thing he had seen in months.