Chapter Text
1872
The first time Minho laid eyes upon Jisung, his breath faltered as though the very air had abandoned him. It was as if destiny itself had paused in reverence—two souls drawn together since the dawn of creation, fated to collide. A feverish heat bloomed across Minho’s cheeks as he stepped closer, his gloved hands trembling despite the composure his upbringing demanded.
Jisung stood beneath the flickering lamplight, a figure draped in somber elegance. His dark hair framed a face too delicate for mortal sorrow. The fabric of his coat—midnight velvet embroidered with silver filigree—caught the light like frost on raven wings.
“Are you looking at me?” Jisung’s voice was soft, yet carried the command of curiosity.
“No,” Minho murmured, his voice betraying his lie. He was staring for the last thirty minutes. Unstoppable.
“Do you need something?”
“Your name,” Minho whispered, the word nearly a prayer.
“Oh,” the young man replied, lips curling into a knowing smile. “That will be Han. Han Jisung. And yours?”
“Lee Minho.”
“Lee?” Jisung’s brow arched with mild intrigue. “So you live here?”
“Indeed.”
The Lee Castle stood upon the crest of the hill—a fortress of gray stone and candlelight, shrouded in ivy and whispering history. That evening, within its gilded ballroom, they met again beneath the cascade of chandeliers. The mask ball was in full bloom, a grand affair where the city’s elite concealed their true faces behind jeweled masks. The Lee family, renowned for their wealth and command over the city’s affairs, had spared no luxury.
Minho wore a tailored coat of deep burgundy velvet, his mask a delicate lattice of gold that traced his sharp cheekbones. Jisung, though of lesser fortune, was no less radiant—his attire a poetic blend of black satin and lace, the faint scent of bergamot following him like a shadow.
When their eyes met once more across the ballroom, the music itself seemed to hush in reverence. They danced—at first formally, then as though their souls had remembered each other from another life. Laughter spilled like wine between them, rich and forbidden. Later, with flushed cheeks and hearts too restless for confinement, they slipped from the marble halls into the dark embrace of the forest that bordered the estate.
The night had grown heavy with mist, the air thick with the scent of damp leaves and wine-soaked laughter. The forest behind Lee Castle slumbered beneath a gauze of fog, its tall trees swaying gently like witnesses to a secret. From the distant ballroom, the faint echo of violins drifted through the cold, dark air, fading as Minho and Jisung stumbled deeper into the woods.
Their steps were uneven—tipsy and careless, boots pressing into the soft earth, the hem of Jisung’s black satin coat brushing against the ferns. Minho’s cheeks were flushed a deep rose, whether from the wine or the nearness of Jisung, he could not tell. A faint giggle escaped him—unrestrained, boyish, alive.
“Careful,” Jisung murmured between soft laughter, clutching Minho’s sleeve to steady himself. His fingers lingered. “If you fall, I’ll have to carry you back to your grand castle.”
Minho turned, the moonlight catching the gold threads on his burgundy coat. “And what a scandal that would be,” he teased, voice hushed but trembling. “The heir of Lee Castle brought home in disgrace by a man too beautiful for mercy.”
Jisung’s eyes gleamed—dark, daring, and rimmed with mischief. “Beautiful? My, you must be drunker than I thought.”
“Perhaps,” Minho whispered, stepping closer, “but not blind.”
The space between them thinned to a breath. The forest held its silence; even the wind seemed to pause, waiting. Jisung’s laughter softened into something delicate, vulnerable. He could smell the wine on Minho’s breath, sweet and heavy like temptation.
Minho lifted a hand, gloved fingers brushing a stray curl from Jisung’s forehead. His heart pounded painfully—each beat echoing in the hollow quiet of the woods.
And then, as though pulled by an unseen force, he kissed him.
It was a clumsy, breathless thing at first—wine-stained lips meeting under the fractured moonlight. Jisung let out a small laugh against his mouth, their teeth nearly bumping, both half drunk and wholly undone. The laughter dissolved into something softer—sighs, whispers, the taste of red wine mingling between them.
Jisung’s hand rose to cup Minho’s jaw, his thumb tracing the trembling line of his cheek. “You taste like wine,” he murmured, eyes half-lidded, “I think I’ll get even more drunk by tasting you”.
“What a shame,” Minho replied, voice low, “being wasted drunk on my own ball with the prettiest man alive.”
They sank into the damp grass, their laughter echoing faintly through the woods—light and fleeting, like a song meant only for the night. Above them, the moon hung solemn and silver, bearing silent witness to the moment when innocence slipped quietly into desire.
There, beneath the shroud of moonlight and the watchful gaze of the ancient oaks, they kissed. They spoke in whispers—fragments of their lives, secrets not meant for the waking world. They smiled, they laughed, and for that fleeting hour, the night belonged to them alone.
The nights that followed were stitched together with stolen moments and hurried breaths. Months after that ball, Minho and Jisung found one another again and again—drawn by an invisible thread, a yearning that deepened with every glance, every touch. What began as shy affection soon grew into something far more perilous, more intoxicating than any wine they could share.
They met where no eyes could reach them: behind the locked doors of silent corridors, in the dim kitchens where only weary cooks toiled, their loyalty sealed by silence. In the dark corners of Lee Castle, where candlelight trembled on the walls, the two young men existed beyond the world’s gaze.
Sometimes, laughter betrayed them—a soft giggle swallowed quickly by a kiss. Other times, they whispered names like prayers, trembling at the thought of being discovered and yet unable to stop. Theirs was a love born of secrecy and defiance, but also of joy—reckless, golden joy.
They were young, and the world was vast before them, but in those hidden hours, it shrank to the space between their lips. Their hearts beat in tandem, wild and sincere. Each meeting became a sacred rebellion, a promise whispered in the dark: to love despite the world, despite the cost.
They made promises in the dark—whispers traded like sacred vows, each word trembling between devotion and sin. Beneath the hush of midnight, their voices wove through the shadows, fragile yet unbreakable. They spoke of forever, of love too fierce for the daylight to understand.
“I love you so hard, my darling,” Minho murmured, his breath ghosting over Jisung’s throat, “that it might cut me into a hundred pieces.”
The words hung in the cold air, sharp as glass and just as beautiful.
Jisung’s lips curved into a slow, dangerous smile. “Would you die for me?” he asked softly, almost teasing, though his eyes glimmered with something far darker than jest.
Minho’s answer came without hesitation, low and certain—like a vow carved into stone. “I would die and kill for you. Would you like that?”
Jisung’s laughter was a sigh, half tender, half cruel. “Absolutely.”
Outside, the wind moaned through the trees, carrying their words into the night as if the forest itself had become their confessor. In that moment, they were not merely lovers—they were conspirators of passion, bound by oaths that neither heaven nor earth could unmake. The space around them felt charged, thick with the scent of their closeness, the promise of danger. Outside, the forest stirred restlessly, as if jealous of the heat they made from nothing but touch and breath.
Until something had changed.
The parlor was drowned in shadows, the last embers in the hearth throwing long, trembling shapes across the gilded wallpaper. Heavy curtains choked the daylight from the room, leaving only the faint scent of dying roses and cold tea. Lady Lee stood before the mantel, her hands clasped so tightly the veins on her knuckles shone pale blue beneath her skin.
Her voice was cold and unwavering.
“You will marry her by the first day of winter,” she said, her tone the edge of a blade wrapped in silk. “She has a body made for bearing children—strong hips, fine health. The two of you would bless this house with beauty. Imagine it, Minho: little Lee children running through the gardens, laughter ringing down these halls once more. Make me proud.”
Minho’s jaw clenched. His reflection in the tall mirror beside the window looked ghostly pale, the flicker of the fire painting anguish across his face. He could barely breathe beneath the weight of his mother’s command.
“There must be another way,” he said hoarsely. “I will not marry her.”
Lady Lee turned to him then, her silk skirts whispering against the carpet like a serpent’s hiss.
“If you don’t,” she replied, her gaze sharp and unrelenting, “then your brother will. And if that happens, you will no longer be part of this family. How could you deny me grandchildren, Minho? I will no more make that easy for you, you are too old for that, you must honor me! You must honor your name.” She would never scream, everything was said quietly, whispered, almost. Her voice was calm as a bird flying through the wind, making Minho’s heart so unquiet and restless, thundering in his chest.
“I am lost in love with someone else, Mother,” he confessed, his voice breaking. “I cannot marry her. There must be another way out.”
For a fleeting moment, silence hung between them—thick, suffocating. Then her lips tightened into a cruel smile.
“He cannot give me grandchildren,” she said sharply, her tone slicing through the air. “You already know my answer. I will not repeat myself again. By the first day of winter, you will marry her and make her pregnant.”
The fire cracked behind her, scattering sparks that died before they could reach the floor. Minho lowered his gaze, his pulse roaring in his ears. In that dark, airless room, he felt the walls closing in—the weight of duty, the suffocating chains of family, and the echo of a love he could never name aloud.
Minho did not yield. The weight of his mother’s decree pressed upon him like a tombstone, yet he moved through its shadow untouched. By day, he performed his duties as though nothing had been said—attending dinners, greeting guests, speaking of politics and land. But by night, he vanished.
Those who served in Lee Castle whispered of his disappearances, of his carriage leaving the gates when the moon was high. They did not know where he went, but the servants swore they had seen a lantern flicker in the woods beyond the estate, two shadows meeting under the trees.
It was there—beneath the black canopy of branches—that Minho and Jisung continued their secret life. Nights thick with wine, laughter, and murmured vows. Sometimes, they would lie among the moss and whisper of impossible futures; other times, they simply listened to the forest breathe around them, wrapped in each other’s warmth.
Minho had stopped caring who might see. His defiance was no longer quiet—it was carved into every touch, every kiss stolen beneath the stars.
The woman he was meant to marry, Lady Sarah, had noticed. At first, she believed his indifference was merely pride—the arrogance of a man promised too much. But as weeks passed, she began to sense something more. His eyes, when he spoke to her, were kind yet distant, his tone soft but hollow. He treated her not as a suitor would, but as one might treat an old friend—respectful, unfeeling, almost protective.
Her suspicion grew like ivy around her heart until one night, curiosity overcame shame. She followed him—barefoot through the corridors, then across the dew-soaked grass of the garden, and into the woods where the mist coiled low.
The night was still, save for the distant hum of crickets and the faint glow of a lantern ahead. She kept her distance, breath held tight, until she saw them. Minho and Jisung—standing close, heads bowed together, laughter spilling softly between them like confession. Their voices were low, laughter threading through the stillness like a spell. Then Minho leaned forward and kissed him. It was not a fleeting kiss but something slow, reverent, ruinous.
Sarah’s breath caught a sound between a sob and a gasp. Jealousy surged through her veins like poison, so strong it made her tremble. She wanted to scream, to tear them apart, to remind Minho that he was promised—to her, to the house, to everything.
But she did not move. She stood hidden, watching, her fingernails digging into her palms until blood welled beneath her gloves. The sight of them burned itself into her mind—a secret too heavy to bear.
When she returned to the castle, her steps were calm, her face expressionless, but her heart was a storm. For days she spoke to no one. Then she began to plan.
If love could not make him hers, perhaps ruin could. She would not be the meek girl who smiled through humiliation; she would be the woman who reclaimed what was hers by right.
And somewhere deep in the house, where the walls heard everything, Lady Eunha began to whisper her vengeance into the dark.
Lady Sarah’s jealousy did not burn; it calcified. While Minho and Jisung stitched the nights between their bodies like a secret cloth, Eunha sat awake in her chamber and measured each hour with a growling hunger. She had been taught—by mothers and matchmakers and the cold logic of kin—that men like Minho were to be claimed, not courted. He belonged, by law and by lineage, to the house that promised him a name and seat; in her mind, love would follow obedience. If he did not love her yet, she told herself, he would be made to.
So she planned.
She began with the map of the house—the quiet rooms, the servants’ rhythms, the places where whispers hid. The Lee library was a cathedral of paper and leather, a place where the family’s history moldered in gilt and shadow. Only the bravest footmen ventured into its deepest stacks, and only the steward knew which doors were to remain unopened. Sarah learned those routes; she watched the librarian’s habits; she waited for a thunderstorm when all decent people retired and the castle’s guards were lulled by leeward wind.
On a night thick with rain, she slipped between the stacks. The library was a cavern lit by a single brass lamp, its light trembling across rows of spines like fish in oil. Shelves rose like columns into the gloom; the air smelled of dust and orange peels and ghosts. At the far end, behind a false rack of county histories, she found a narrow door whose key had been forgotten by time. It yielded beneath her hand.
The room beyond was narrower, colder—a vault of forbidden texts. There, chained to a lectern, lay a book so dark the lamp threw it into silhouette as if the paper drank the light. Its cover was cracked black leather, the title long rubbed away; when she pried it open, a faint breath of iron and ink rose to meet her.
She read until the oil in the lamp thinned to a guttering thread. The book called itself a compendium of “Folk Remedies and Occult Artefacts,” but its pages unfurled into darker territories: marginal notes in a cramped hand, clipped Latin invocations, diagrams of herbs and moons, and a cold historical ledger of women—called witches by some, wise women by others—who had shaped men’s fortunes by bending the frail seams between want and fate. The language was the language of things meant to be half-remembered—old grievances set down as instruction.
Sarah’s brow knit. The book did not promise miracles as a market-seller would; it described leverage. A charm for binding desire, it said, required not only willow-root and rue but intention honed to iron. A ritual to make a man return to you demanded a token of his—hair, a pressed flower from his sleeve—wound into a knot with words spoken on a night of certain pressure. Elsewhere the book warned of cost: “No binding is without price; something borrowed returns, something taken leaves a gap.” Scribbled margins recorded one Mrs. Akasha's ruin, another’s discreet triumph. The ledger’s voice was clinical and terrible: the women who used these rites did not always keep what they sought.
Sarah read the entries with a scholar’s hunger. The pages explained more than superstition; they taught method. If love could be claimed by persuasion and by law, perhaps it could be reclaimed by deliberately arranging the world so a man’s choices bent toward the one who’d shaped his path. She was no rustic supplicant; she would be careful. She would be intelligent. The book gave her instruments—herbs, timings, words that tasted of iron—and, most importantly, a framework that made sense of what had before felt only like fury.
Dawn bled grey at the mullioned windows before she closed the book. Her hands shook, not from fear but from the bright cold of resolution. She would not throw herself into lunacy; she would enact a plan. She would gather what the text required—a scrap of Minho’s ribbon, a pressed blossom from his coat, a scrap of the collar he wore on the night of the ball—and she would bind them with ritual precision. She would not announce her intent. She would learn the limits of the magic the old women had practiced and the iron price it asked.
As she left the library and the false rack slid back into place, the lamp’s flame quivered and steadied; the tower sighed as if it had listened. Eunha walked to her room with the book hidden beneath her skirts and the cold certainty of a woman who had found not an easy trick but a plan that might bend a fortune. In the days to come she would practice the steps in whispered hours; in the nights to come she would watch Minho and Jisung from the margins, learning their manner of touch, the scent of Jisung’s coat, the way Minho folded his hands. Small things, the book promised, became great ones when arranged rightly.
She told herself that she loved him. She told herself that he was hers by right. And in the quiet, she vowed that if the world left her no lawful path to his heart, she would carve one from darker wood.
The forest was never silent when Sarah entered it. The trees whispered as if warning her, or perhaps welcoming her, their branches bending low under the weight of old secrets. Somewhere between the curling mist and the song of unseen creatures, she always found her — Akasha.
The witch stood in a small clearing, a figure both ethereal and terrifying. Her black hair flowed like ink across her shoulders, and in her pale hands.
By the first time they meet the witch was already waiting for her — a silhouette framed by mist and moonlight. A small lantern burned between them, its glow casting amber over Akasha’s pale face and the open pages of her book.
“Late again,” Akasha murmured, though her voice carried no real reproach. It was melodic, almost amused, as if she’d been expecting Eunha’s hesitation.
“What? Do I know you?” Sarah replied.
Akasha tilted her head. “You will” Her smile was the faint curve of a blade. “Sit. The forest is listening.”
“I need you to help me with something I’ve been doing by myself.”
Every week they met beneath the same ancient oak, working through the spells with trembling voices. The magic seemed to hum between them, feeding on their closeness. Akasha spoke softly, her tone a melody of temptation, her words brushing against Eunha’s skin like ghostly fingertips. And though Eunha pretended indifference, her heart always beat too fast when Akasha smiled.
They worked in uneasy silence at first, tracing the ancient sigils with shaking fingers. The words of the spell seemed to hum between them, growing stronger when their voices aligned. The air shimmered faintly, bending around their joined breath.
When the spell finally broke into a soft gust of wind, Akasha laughed — a sound low and rich, like dark velvet. “You have a gift, Sarah. The book called to you for a reason.”
Sarah’s lips parted, but she couldn’t answer. She was too aware of Akasha’s nearness, of the faint scent of smoke and lilacs that clung to her.
The second meeting was quieter — as though the forest itself had learned their names. The sky was bruised purple with twilight when Sarah arrived.
“You came back,” Akasha said, voice soft but bright with something like hope.
“I came for the spells,” She said quickly.
Akasha only smiled. “Of course.” She leaned closer, her breath ghosting over Sarah’s ear as she whispered the next incantation.
Sarah tried to focus, but the syllables slipped and tangled on her tongue. Akasha’s hand brushed over hers, steadying it on the page. “Don’t fight it,” she whispered. “Magic resists doubt.”
By the third night, the woods no longer felt like mere earth and trees — they breathed, they listened.
The silver moon hung low and solemn, pouring its pale light through the lattice of branches until the clearing glowed like a half-remembered dream. The air was knife-cold; Sarah’s breath unfurled in trembling clouds as she drew her cloak tighter and stepped through the frost-bitten undergrowth.
At the heart of the clearing stood the old oak, its bark scarred with age, its shadow vast and knowing. Beneath it, Akasha waited — her figure still as sculpture, her lantern unlit at her feet. Her gown was dark velvet, the kind that seemed to drink the light, and her eyes caught the moon’s reflection like two fragments of silvered glass.
“You shouldn’t stand there like that,” Sarah said, her voice small against the weight of the silence. “It looks as though you’re waiting for me.”
Akasha tilted her head slightly, a faint smile ghosting across her lips. “I am,” she replied, her tone almost tender. “You always come.”
Sarah hesitated. The words stung because they were true.
The grimoire lay between them, its cover heavy and weatherworn, smelling faintly of soot and lavender. When Akasha opened it, the pages fluttered as if stirred by a breath not their own. The inked words wavered, shifting, blurring — refusing to be read.
Sarah tried to steady her voice, tracing the letters with gloved fingers, but her breath quivered with each syllable. Akasha’s didn’t. She stood too near, her calm unsettling, her every word brushing Sarah’s skin like silk in the cold air.
“You tremble when you read,” Akasha murmured. “Why?”
Sarah’s pulse thudded in her throat. “Because magic is dangerous,” she said — too quickly, too rehearsed.
“The magic?” Akasha’s smile deepened, slow and intimate. “Or me?”
Sarah forced a small, brittle laugh. “You think too much of yourself.”
“Then tell me to stop.”
The challenge lingered in the air between them — fragile, impossible. Sarah parted her lips to speak, but no sound escaped. The wind moved through the oak’s branches like a whispering choir.
Akasha’s gaze softened. She stepped closer until their shadows merged.
“Then don’t,” she whispered.
For one heartbeat, the world stilled. The moonlight trembled on their faces, and the space between them grew warm, alive. Sarah’s pulse fluttered wildly; she took half a step back, clutching the book to her chest.
“I don’t like your games,” she said, though her tone betrayed her — softer, unsure.
Akasha smiled, a quiet thing that curved with both affection and menace. “Then why,” she asked, her voice like velvet drawn across a blade, “do you keep playing?”
They stood so close their breaths tangled. Akasha’s voice faltered, and for a moment, the world seemed to stop — the wind holding its breath, the stars leaning closer. Then Akasha kissed her. It was not a timid gesture but an act of defiance, of claiming. Her lips tasted of rain and night, of every forbidden thing Sarah had ever longed for but dared not name. The kiss was neither gentle nor cruel — it was inevitable, full of desire, carnal. The world seemed to fold around it: the whispering trees, the restless magic, the stars leaning down to watch. Akasha’s lips were cold at first, then warm, tasting faintly of rain and earth and something eternal.
When Sarah finally pulled back, her voice was barely a breath. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I know,” Akasha said. “And yet, I would again.”
Sarah bites Aksha’s lips roughly, making a bruise. Akasha would moan inside her mouth with pleasure, begging for more, making her stop right away and start talking about Minho again.
She would tell her about what he's been doing recently, about how her spells never worked while Akasha was worried about doing things that Sarah couldn’t resist and lean on her again for a carnal advice instead. Maybe if Akasha could make Sarah feel good she will stop with her obsession.
Their fifth meeting was different. The air was heavy, the moon a blood-red stain above the treetops. Sarah was cold and cruel, her words sharp as knives. She called Akasha a monster, a seductress, and accused her of manipulation — of trying to twist her soul. Akasha only smiled, her eyes bright with something between pain and devotion.
“Then let me be your monster,” she whispered. “Let me bear your cruelty if it means I can still have your voice in my ears.”
Sarah wanted to turn away, but her body betrayed her — drawn forward as though the forest itself was pushing her into the witch’s arms. They kissed so rough that her lips were bloody red. She hasn't been touched in so long that her body was aching for more. The air pulsed with unspoken things: guilt, longing, and the raw, aching beauty of two souls circling ruin.
“You can’t resist me, can you?” Akasha’s voice brushed against Sarah’s ear — soft, sinuous, threaded with danger.
“I can,” Sarah murmured, though her tone wavered like a candle’s flame. “You’re the one who can’t.”
A smile curved at the corners of Akasha’s crimson lips. “You’re right,” she breathed. “You’re far too beautiful not to touch.”
“Stop saying such foolish things,” Sarah hissed, though her words came weakly. “You sound ridiculous.”
“Do I?” Akasha’s tone deepened, velvet and mockery woven together. “Then tell me what I sound like.”
Her hand traced the folds of Sarah’s gown, the dark silk rustling like a secret being uncovered. The faint scent of candle smoke and myrrh clung to the air as Akasha sank gracefully to her knees before her, head tilted, eyes gleaming with something almost worshipful.
Sarah’s breath hitched. The world around them — the dying fire, the heavy curtains, the whispering shadows — seemed to close in.
“I could make you forget him,” Akasha whispered, her voice both promise and curse. “That man of yours. The one who never deserved your heart.”
Sarah’s jaw tightened. “Don’t call him that. You don’t know him.”
Akasha’s laughter was low, indulgent, the sound of sin finding its shape. “Then let me teach you how easily a heart can be rewritten,” she murmured, lifting her gaze until their eyes met. “You can curse me all you like. Call me wicked, call me useless — I thrive on it.”
“Then you’ll never starve,” Sarah said, her breath trembling.
Akasha smiled — a slow, knowing curve — and leaned closer until only the hush of their breathing filled the room.
Akasha melted in pleasure, leaning her tongue on her skin, making Sarah moan and whiny until she came into her mouth.
Minho had left the Castle once more to meet his beloved Jisung by the cliff, settled down on the gelid grass that iched their skin beyond their velvet clothes. Jisung was in bloddy red while Minho was wering blue like the deepest part of the ocean behind them.
The air was frozen cold, hans trembling by the breeze and anxious feelings that filled Minho’s body making his entrances reverberating with it.
The heat of Jisung’s hands on his made his feelings a little far from them each time it grow bigger and the touching on his skin harder.
“The weather isn’t very nice, is it?” Minho said breathy looking to the vast ocean.
Jisung looked at him, “It is not. You have something to tell me,” he could feel it. And Minho did.
Minho grabbed his two hands on his, leaning close to him with the anxious look filling him up and tightining the touch. Eyes dragged on Jisung. “We have to runaway the day after tomorrow. For somewhere far from here. Enough so they cannot find us”.
Jisung turned his look from Minho’s thighs to his eyes directly, with wide eyes in response. They been talking about running away, but he did not notice how real it was. He did not notice that it would actually happen. Minho would give away from his name, his familly and castle to be with him, to be with Jisung.
“I’m serious. Darling, we need that.”
Jisung smile was enough a answer, bright only for Minho, opening the heavens door. Exclusive for him. “You would really kill for me, wouldn’t you?”
“I never lie to you, my love.”
“Okay, we will runway when the winter comes than.” He smiled bigger each time, with sparkling eyes shining through his face, making Minho’s spine shake with his soul. Minho shortened the touch between them, making himself confortabel inside Jisung’s arms, huggung him so tight that it might make it harder to breath. His heat was good too much and he could said he was addicted.
He kissed Jisung tender on his cheecks, then he kissed his nose, and then his eyes, then his soft wet lips. Kisses that hold too much of love to express in other way.
Jisung always responded so well, he would lean closer and closer, gasping for a breath inside Minho’s mouth, holding his neck hard while Minho grabbed his waist so tight that it might bruise. No one could ever make him feel like this, floating to the skys. He feeled on heaven, heads heavy and drunk by it, drunk with devotion and desire.
His hands held the heart by one and the love of his life by another.
“I’ll do everything for you” Minho said while he kisses his neck urgently, hungry but tender, making Jisung’s whole body shiver on his arms, craving for more.
“I wish that it were a better word to tell you how much I love you”
Kissing his ears softly and wet, he whispered, “We don’t need that, I feel it, my love.”
Giggling Jisung would grab Minho’s head and kiss all of him, leaning down and down till finding where he wanted to kiss the most.
They had been kissing each others bodys everywhere. But would never get used to it, was always as the first time, way better and better.
Minho let a moan out of his mouth feeling Jisung’s lips getting red on his now exposed pale skin. His hands leaned to find Jisung’s hair, grabbing it so gentle, while he felt his body being swallowed by the warm wet heat of his beloved mouth.
°
“How was your day?” Sarah’s voice broke the hush of the room, soft and uncertain, like the flicker of the dying fire before her. She leaned closer to Minho as she always did when he came late into the night — cloaked in silence, the scent of cold wind still clinging to him. She had waited by the hearth for hours, listening to the crackle of embers and the distant ticking of the clock, wondering if Jisung would appear beside him. But tonight, Minho was alone.
“Why are you still awake?” he asked, his tone weary as he crossed the dim chamber. The boards creaked beneath his steps. He reached for a glass, the faint sound of water pouring breaking the heavy quiet.
“I was waiting for you,” she murmured, her eyes following his every motion. “I missed you.”
He turned, the candlelight cutting sharp lines across his face. “Missed me? I was here this morning. You saw me.”
“It wasn’t enough,” she said, almost pleading, her voice sinking lower. “You know that.”
“No,” he replied after a pause, distant and cold as the stone walls around them. “I don’t.” He set the glass aside. “I’m going to bed. You should too.”
“I haven’t eaten yet,” she whispered. “Won’t you eat with me?”
“I just ate,” he said, barely glancing her way. “And I’m so very tired.”
Her lips parted as if to speak again, but the words dissolved before they could escape. “Of course,” she breathed, more to herself than to him.
The silence that followed was thick, alive — a living shadow that settled between them as the last ember in the fireplace surrendered to ash.
She was mad. Out of her head, tired of watching the two men cursing loving promises to each other. That must have an end.
She would kill Han Jisung with magic. With dark magic. She would make him want to fall from the cliff by the end of the woods, behind Lee's castle, throwing himself on the sharp rocks that the ocean wetted with mastery. If he was lucky enough, he would die right away. On the other way, he would suffer to death, bleeding alone, feeling the cold winter inside of his entrails, making his body lifeless, pale with the dead patterned all over. On the day of their wedding. The day after tomorrow.
The spell seemed so simple, perhaps the easiest thing she would make in weeks living with the Lee’s. There was nothing that could go wrong. Besides that she didn’t read the book till the end or payed attention to Akasha’s advices.
The winter was coming and Sarah was ready to marry the man she loved. The handsome, sharped nose and strong, gentle tender touch man she wanted for so long, and now he will be hers. Her spell needed to work, she deserves to be the happiest of them all.
The next morning, she headed back to Minho.
Sarah moved quickly through the halls, her silk skirts whispering over marble. She had not slept. Her eyes were rimmed with sleepless fever, her lips cracked from the cold air that seemed to follow her everywhere. In her mind, the night before still echoed — the trembling lantern, Han Jisung’s face, his confusion. None of that mattered now. Tomorrow, she told herself, he will be mine.
When she found Minho, he was standing by the tall window in his study, the weak sunlight painting his figure in melancholy gold. The room smelled faintly of paper, brandy, and smoke — the scent of endings.
“Everything is ready for tomorrow,” she began, her voice bright, too bright. She slipped closer, looping her arm through his with false ease. “We will finally unite our souls. Aren’t you excited? I cannot wait any longer, my love.”
Minho didn’t move away, but his stillness spoke louder than rejection. His gaze stayed on the garden beyond the glass — bare trees, lifeless fountains, the world already preparing for winter. “We are not getting married, Sarah,” he said quietly. The words were calm, almost kind, but they carried the weight of finality. “We spoke of this already. I’m leaving… for Jisung.”
Her smile faltered, eyes widening as though he’d struck her. “Jisung will no longer matter by tomorrow,” she snapped. “Stop saying his name!”
Minho turned to her then, his expression sorrowful rather than angry. “Why are you doing this? You don’t love me. You love the idea of me. But I—” his voice broke slightly, “I love him. You and I… we are only friends, Sarah. Nothing more.”
Her hands trembled, curling into fists against her skirts. “I love you,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’ve told you a hundred times, but you never listen. Am I invisible to you?”
Minho exhaled softly, almost pitying her. “No,” he said at last, pouring himself a glass of brandy. “Unfortunately not.”
He stepped away from her touch, retreating toward the velvet couch near the fire. The flamelight threw his face into fleeting gold and shadow. He lifted the glass with quiet indifference. “Would you like some?”
The sound of liquid pouring into crystal filled the silence. Sarah’s pulse pounded in her ears. The air between them had become unbearable. She didn’t answer. Instead, she turned sharply on her heel, her skirts flaring like dark fire, and stormed out of the room. The corridors swallowed her footsteps, but not her rage. Somewhere in the vast estate, Han Jisung must still be near. He was always near. And she would find him.
Her plan had to be rescheduled.
She found him at the gazebo, the one half-buried in ivy and forgotten roses, its wooden beams pale beneath the ghostly wash of moonlight. The garden had frozen into silence — the kind of stillness that comes before a storm. Han Jisung stood within, coat collar turned up against the wind, eyes fixed on the horizon where dusk bled slowly into night. He was waiting for darkness — waiting for Minho.
Sarah’s breath caught when she saw him. A heat rose in her chest, burning hotter than the winter air biting at her face. For weeks she had trained the spell with Akasha, perfecting every syllable, every gesture. Tonight it had to work.
“Han,” she said sharply, stepping into the lantern’s faint circle of light. “Again.”
He turned, surprise flickering across his gentle face. “Oh, Miss Sarah,” he greeted softly, bowing slightly. “How are you this evening?”. His tone was calm, courteous — too courteous. Always too kind, too composed. It enraged her.
“Stop being so gentle,” she snapped. “It won’t buy me anything. You can stop pretending.”
Jisung blinked, confusion creasing his brow. “Pretending? I don’t quite understand—”
“Listen to me.” Her voice trembled between fury and restraint. “You should know by now what tomorrow is.”
He hesitated, searching her expression. “The first day of winter,” he said quietly.
“Indeed.” Sarah took a step closer; her gloved hands clenched at her sides. “And you must also know what happens when winter begins.”
“I… I don’t, Miss.” His voice faltered. Beneath the calm exterior, she saw the faintest quiver in his jaw. Does she know? The thought seemed to pass through him like lightning.
Sarah smiled, brittle and cold. “I’m marrying Lee Minho.” The words landed like a blow in the quiet air. Jisung’s breath stilled. His lips parted, but no sound emerged. The night pressed tighter around them, the frost whispering at their feet. “Wait,” she managed at last, her voice hoarse. “Did he not tell you—?”
“He did not, Miss,” Jisung said finally, each syllable measured, trembling.
For a heartbeat, the silence between them deepened — sharp, unbearable. The faint light from the lantern trembled as though the air itself recoiled from what had been spoken.
Something inside Sarah had been slow-smouldering until it became a blaze. He hadn’t even told Han about the betrothal — as if the name meant nothing, as if promises could be given and taken like trinkets. The small spells from the Lee book were ash in her palm; none of them bent the world, none had pried Minho from that other heart. If a knot of ribbon and a whispered charm could not do it, then she needed a greater instrument. The ordinary rules no longer applied.
She ran down the crooked lane behind the market to the florist whose windows always steamed even in winter. The bell over the door chimed like a warning. Shadows pooled in corners; lantern light made the jars on the counter gleam like black eyes. High on the back wall a painting hung — a beast coiled into itself, muscles like knotted rope and eyes like ember. The creature’s stare seemed less portrait than invitation.
From the gloom came Akasha’s voice: “What do you need, baby?” She looked up from a mortar and pestle; her hands were stained, her nails clipped short, the sort of hands that had ground grief into powder and kindness into tincture.
“I need him,” Sarah said, every syllable a raw thing. “I need him to be mine. I tried the rites in the Lee book. Nothing touched him.”
Akasha’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “Then their souls are tangled,” she said. “You will need a larger weave than village charms can offer.”
“Tell me,” Sarah pleaded. “I will do it.”
“It does not work by will alone,” Akasha answered. “You must bargain. There are names that answer — names that take and give in measure. To call such a thing is to make a debt.”
“With whom?” Sarah whispered.
Akasha nodded toward the painted beast. “Him,” she said. “The old name. He is not a kindly thing.”
“How do I make him hear me?” Sarah asked, the impatience in her voice a physical ache.
“You invoke,” she replied. “You put something of his and something of yours together and leave a door open for the dark to walk through. But understand — what you ask of the world will ask of you in return.”
“Did he ever come for you?” Sarah asked, a hope like a splinter under her skin.
“Once,” She said, unblinking. “And I paid. All bargains are ledgered, girl. Some women kept their men and lost peace. Some lost both. The beast keeps accounts.”
Sarah’s jaw set. “I will pay. I will pay anything.” The words came heavy and certain. “I will kill for this if I must.”
Akasha’s eyes flicked with something like pity, or calculation. “Why him? You could command a dozen with a look.”
“He does not want me,” She spat. The truth tasted like rust. “He loves another. He is a Lee — he will never choose me. I only want him, no one else.”
“His heart is already taken, baby". Akasha would say lingering closer, touching her cheeks softly, "Then take mine,” she said suddenly, close — her hand brushing Sarah’s arm, the touch warm and practical. “Better a living woman than a ghost of a promise.”
“You are nothing,” She snapped, wounded and proud. “He is a Lee.”
Akasha’s smile was thin. “Perhaps. But love spells aren't true.” She drew nearer; the lamplight reddened the planes of her face. “Can you live without me?”
“Better,” Sarah said too quickly.
The witch laugh was almost a sob. Akasha’s fingers stroked Sarah’s cheek again in a motion that was at once possessive and tender. The room closed around them in perfumed breath. There was a long, private pause, and then they kissed — first searching, then urgent, an answer to the loneliness between two women who had both tasted want. The jars and petals blurred into one scent of lavender and smoke; the beast in the painting watched as if waiting for ledger entries to be written.
They did not speak of bargains in that moment. When they parted, eyelashes wet and mouths quiet, a pact had been formed of a different sort — not the blood-debt Akasha warned of, but a human bargain: accomplice for wish; closeness for counsel. Sarah’s voice slid back into business. “You will gather what I name. You will not flinch at what I ask. And remember: every debt is tallied.”
Sarah left with a list folded small into her glove and the beast’s painted eyes burning in her memory. Her heart had hardened into a plan that would not be undone by argument or pity. She would go and gather the things required, and where small charms had failed, she would set a larger stage.
The woods whispered her name.
Sarah stood beneath the hollow trees, her pale hands trembling as a veil of mist rolled across the frozen earth. Before her, the shadows bent, and the scent of sulfur rose from the ground like smoke from a candle extinguished too late.
“Sarah,” came the voice — a whisper soaked in honey and ash. “You called for me again.”
The Devil appeared not as a beast, but as a man cloaked in night, his eyes dark wells reflecting the world’s sorrow.
Sarah’s lips parted, her voice trembling between fury and longing. “I want Jisung to suffer… until he dies.”
The Devil’s smile curled, slow and deliberate. “A mortal’s wish for another’s torment — how charmingly human. But death ends pain. Would you not prefer something… eternal?”
Her breath caught. The fury in her chest turned colder, sharper. “Then let him suffer forever. I want him to feel it — until time itself rots away.”
The Devil stepped closer, the earth hissing under his boots. “Blood for a wish, as always.”
Sarah’s gaze fell to the forest floor, where a bat lay tangled in her net. She whispered an apology — though not to the creature — before driving the knife through its chest. The Devil’s hand guided hers, steady, almost tender. The warm blood dripped into a small vial, thick and dark as sin itself.
He leaned in, his breath brushing her ear. “When he touches the blood, his curse begins. Bind it to him with something close to his heart.”
The morning of the wedding rose gray and sharp as a blade, the kind of dawn that bruises more than it warms. Pale sunlight bled through a shroud of mist, washing the cliffs and turrets of Lee Castle in ghostly silver. The bells had not yet begun their cruel celebration, but the servants already moved like whispers through the corridors, their faces tight with unease.
From the east wing, Lady Lee’s voice cracked the silence like a whip.
“Minho! Minho, where are you?”
Her heeled steps struck the marble floors in a relentless rhythm, echoing through every archway and gilded hall. The embroidered hem of her emerald green gown swept across the tiles, her silver hair pinned beneath a small lace bonnet, the jeweled brooch at her throat flashing like a wound each time the light touched it. Her fury was not loud—it was elegant, measured, but it burned like coals beneath velvet.
She passed the grand staircase, the portrait gallery, the rows of doors that hid centuries of Lee secrets. But Sarah stood in the center of the great hall, unmoving, her veil undone, her wedding gown cascading around her like a pool of cream touched by ash. The bodice, heavy with pearls and thread of silver, clung to her trembling frame. The air itself seemed to hold its breath.
“He’s gone,” she murmured—her voice barely more than frost. “He’s running away.”
Lady Lee turned toward her slowly. For a moment, disbelief—then the realization struck, hollow and merciless. “Gone?” she hissed, the word slicing through the silence. “What do you mean, gone?”
But before another sound could form, Sarah was already gone, her white skirts vanishing through the doorway, swallowed by the gray morning light.
Four hours early on that cold morning, the corridors were washed in a dim, blue pallor; the candles had burned to trembling stubs, and the air smelled faintly of cold ash and roses from the ballroom below.
Minho stood before his mirror, the glass fogged slightly from his breath, his hands trembling as he tied the final knot of his cravat. He had never looked more alive, nor more haunted. The pale lamplight licked across the fine planes of his face — the sharp jaw, the fevered gleam in his eyes — and for once, there was no trace of the carefully groomed heir his mother demanded he be.
He wore a velvet coat of deepest black, its high collar lined with silver embroidery that caught the faintest light like starlight trapped in shadow. Beneath it, a white silk shirt, crisp and soft, buttoned halfway before surrendering to the rush of haste. A dark waistcoat, subtly patterned with the Lee crest, hugged his frame; his gloves, discarded on the desk beside him, were still warm from his touch.
On the bed lay a small leather satchel, already packed — letters, coins, a family ring wrapped in handkerchief linen, and one of Jisung’s scarves, the blue one he used to wear in winter. The sight of it made Minho pause. His breath caught as he touched the fabric, thumb brushing against its worn edge as though it were a relic.
“Just a few more minutes,” he whispered to himself, voice trembling between prayer and desperation.
Outside his window, the garden was drowned in fog. The frost clung to the bare branches like lace, and somewhere below, the restless sea murmured against the cliffs. The hour was cruelly quiet — no sound but the ticking of the clock on the mantel, and the faint scrape of his boots as he moved about the room.
He could still hear his mother’s voice from a month before, echoing through his skull like an accusation: “You will marry her by winter’s first dawn.”
But that dawn was now — and he would not be there.
He turned from the mirror, pulling on his coat. The heavy velvet settled around him like a promise. His hands shook only once when he pinned his silver brooch at the collar — a crest that glimmered like a tear before he hid it beneath the lapel.
There was a sound at the door — soft, tentative. Three knocks.
Minho froze, heart hammering. Then a familiar whisper:
“It’s me.”
Jisung.
He opened the door, and the world seemed to breathe again. Jisung stepped inside, his cheeks flushed from the cold, his hair damp with the morning fog. He wore a charcoal coat, a simple woolen scarf wound around his neck, and his gloved hands held a small lantern whose light trembled across his face. His eyes — bright, earnest, terrified — found Minho’s, and the tension between them softened like wax under heat.
“Are you ready?” Jisung asked quietly.
Minho nodded, barely trusting his voice. “I’ve been ready all my life.”
For a moment, they just stood there, suspended between fear and devotion. Then Minho stepped forward, his hand finding Jisung’s cheek, fingers cold and trembling. Their foreheads touched — a brief, silent prayer against the noise of the world.
“Once we’re out of here, we never look back,” Jisung murmured, the lantern’s glow catching in his dark eyes. “That will be me and you”.
Minho smiled faintly, though it trembled at the edges. “You and me,” he echoed. “Until the end.”
They kissed — a desperate, quiet thing, full of all the fear and love that had burned in secret for too long. Outside, the wind whispered against the glass, urging them onward.
When they broke apart, Jisung took Minho’s hand, guiding him toward the servant’s stair. The cold stone steps awaited like a path carved for fugitives. Minho glanced once around his room — the heavy velvet drapes, the ancestral portraits, the papers that told him who he was supposed to be. Then he turned away. Together, they slipped into the dawn. The castle slept behind them, unaware that its heir — its perfect son — was leaving not for honor or duty, but for love.
The wind howled like a living thing. Below, the sea was a bruised expanse of gray-green, its waves crashing against the jagged rock as if trying to claw their way upward.
Jisung stood at the edge, his coat whipping violently around him, the tails snapping like dark banners in the storm. He was staring blankly into the roaring sea, waiting for Minho to come back with something he had forgotten so they could go.
Behind him, the cliffs stretched wild and pale beneath the fog, dotted with frozen thistles and remnants of last night’s frost. The salt air bit through the layers of his clothing, through his gloves, through his bones.
Then—Sarah appeared behind him, the wind dragging at her gown until it tangled around her legs like seaweed. Her face was pale and beautiful in the half-light, lips painted the faintest rose, eyes wide with something that trembled between guilt and madness.
“Jisung,” she breathed, her voice carried away by the wind. “I... I brought you something.”
Her gloved hand emerged from the folds of her white wedding dress, holding out a small silver pendant, tarnished in places, its chain delicate as spider silk. They shouldn't be seeing each other right now, she shouldn’t know where they were.
The faint scent of iron—metallic and old—hung between them.
Jisung blinked, confused, the gust whipping his hair across his eyes. “What is this?”
“It’s protection,” she lied, her voice shaking. “For your heart.”
He looked at it, the silver dull in the gray light, then nodded absently and slipped it into the pocket of his coat.
The moment he did, something changed.
The air seemed to shudder; the horizon pulsed faintly, as though the sea itself had drawn breath. A whisper, too faint to be language, pressed against the inside of his skull—a sound like a tide moving backward, like a voice submerged. His pulse quickened.
And then he heard it.
The call.
It came from the sea, low and unending, murmuring his name as though the water knew the shape of his soul.
His body stiffened. His eyes glazed. His boots scraped against the stone as he took one step forward—then another.
“Jisung?”
It was Minho’s voice, distant at first, carried thinly through the wind. Then he was there—running toward them, the black of his velvet coat cutting through the fog like ink spilled on paper. The dark curls of his hair were tousled by the storm, his gloved hands shaking with panic as he reached them.
“Jisung! What are you doing?” His voice cracked against the wind. “We need to leave—now!”
Jisung didn’t turn. The ocean had claimed his gaze. “I have to jump,” he said, the words dull and distant, not his own.
Minho froze. “What—? No! Jisung, stop!”
He lunged forward, grabbing Jisung’s arm. The cold shocked through the fabric—Jisung’s skin felt like stone.
“There’s… a collar in my pocket,” Jisung whispered hoarsely, barely aware of himself. “Take it with you. It’s for protection.”
“Protection?” Minho’s voice broke. “From what? Jisung, listen to me!”
The sea roared. Jisung’s footing slipped closer to the edge, the stones beneath his boots loosening. The wind screamed louder.
“Please,” Minho begged. “Don’t do this, I’m begging you—look at me!”
Jisung turned then—slowly, his face pale and strange, a faint, eerie calm settling over his features. And then he leaned forward.
Minho’s reflex was pure instinct. He threw himself toward him, seizing his coat with both hands. But the momentum betrayed them—Jisung’s weight pulled forward, Minho’s boots lost purchase, and the world tilted.
There was a single, shattering moment of silence.
And then.
They fell.
Their bodies disappeared into the mist, the wind swallowing Minho’s scream before it could echo.
Sarah stood frozen, her gown whipping violently, veil tearing loose from her hair. Her throat burned with salt and terror.
“MINHO!” The scream tore through the air, desperate and animal.
The sea answered her with a crash that drowned everything else. And when the mist cleared, the cliff was empty.
Only the pendant lay in the frost, its chain tangled, glinting faintly like a drop of blood in the gray light.
The fall wasn’t fatal — but the world cracked open beneath them.
The rocks were sharp, wet with blood. Jisung landed atop Minho, the breath crushed from his chest. For a moment, all he could hear was the roaring sea. Then — silence.
He lifted his head. His hair clung to his face, matted with crimson. But it wasn’t his.
“Minho?” his voice was hollow, searching for hope.
Minho’s eyes were closed, his lips parted, a thin stream of blood slipping between them. His neck was bent wrong. His spine shattered. His body twisted and still.
“No…”
Jisung’s scream tore through the waves. He gathered Minho’s head in his trembling hands, pressing his lips to the cold skin. “Please… please, God, no. Not him. Take me instead. Please—please!”
Sarah’s voice echoed distantly, crying for Lady Lee. But the sea swallowed every sound, every prayer.
Jisung dragged Minho’s body to a cave hidden beneath the cliffs, his arms shaking, his soul unraveling. The darkness inside seemed alive, whispering, watching.
He laid Minho down, brushed the wet hair from his pale forehead, and kissed him once more. “I won’t leave you,” he whispered, his voice a ghost of itself. “Even if you’re gone… I’ll stay. Always.” His voice were hipcuping, tired, depressed and exhausted hollow.
The cold crept into his bones. His body ached, bleeding from wounds unseen. He felt pain deep within, raw and humiliating — as if something had broken inside him too.
He held Minho through the night, sobbing, cursing, praying. But the only answer was the sea’s relentless crashing.
The cave was nothing but stone, salt, and silence.
Outside, the waves clawed endlessly at the rocks, as though the sea itself demanded to take what the cliffs had refused. Jisung sat in the darkness, Minho’s lifeless body lying across his lap. His fingers traced the outline of Minho’s jaw, still warm hours before, now cold as marble. Every few breaths, he whispered his name — “Minho… please…” — as if sound alone could summon life back into him.
But the curse had begun its cruel work.
The pendant in Jisung’s pocket had shattered upon impact, spilling the bat’s blood across the lining of his coat. Its scent mingled with the sea and rot, seeping into his skin. He began to feel it — the pull of something beneath his ribs, the slow tightening of his lungs, the ache behind his eyes.
His wounds, unseen before, now screamed in agony. His legs were numb; blood had dried dark around his thighs, and the pain was deep, internal — from the fall, from exhaustion, from despair.
Hours passed like centuries. The light from the cave’s mouth grew dimmer, colder. The waves’ rhythm became slower, heavier — as though mourning.
He clung to Minho’s corpse as if his touch alone could anchor him to life. He pressed his forehead to Minho’s chest, listening for a heartbeat that would never return.
“I should’ve gone first,” he whispered in silent tears. “It should’ve been me.”
And perhaps — the curse agreed.
Because slowly, his breath began to falter. His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven motions. The cold seeped deeper, until he could no longer feel the edges of his body. His tears froze upon his skin.
Still, he did not let go.
When the storm rolled in that night, the sea filled the cave’s mouth with spray. The waves reached them, again and again, licking the stones, climbing higher. Jisung didn’t move. He held Minho close, his cheek pressed against that lifeless chest, his lips whispering a prayer to a God that had long turned away.
“Take me with him,” he murmured. “Please… take me too…”
And as the tide rose and the cold bit deeper, his wish was granted. His breath grew faint, then vanished altogether, slipping away like a candle under a draft. His body stiffened in the night’s frost, still wrapped around Minho’s, as if guarding him from the world that had already taken them both.
By dawn, the waves withdrew — leaving only silence.
Two bodies lay entwined upon the cold rock, one pale and bloodied, the other still and peaceful.
Five days later, Minho’s eyes opened.