Wandering Through Vol. 1 Chapter 3 - Wedding

Blood dripped on the snow-covered mountain path.

 

A torn collar, a tattered skirt. Her hair was torn loose. The shambling woman stopped.

 

There was nowhere to go. 

 

Turning around, she saw red footprints in the white snow.

 

The blood from her beating had dripped there. Or was it the blood between her legs…

 

‘Huck, hmph…’ 

 

It’s a long way down. Pressing a hand to her knee, which was already cracked and bruised from the many falls she had taken, she felt pain even through her frozen body.

 

But she didn’t take her hand off her knee, because if she did, she would stay down and never get up again.

 

No, she had to go.

 

Farther. Anywhere. 

 

Farther than the tiny room at the bottom of that mountain.

 

Finally, she managed to get her hands off her knees and onto her back. There seemed to be a hand still attached to her broken knee.

 

No, the hands were not her own, but someone else’s. It belonged to the man who had opened her knee only a day before.

 

Against the falling snow and flesh, her wind-frozen body should have felt numb, but her strangely clear mind replayed the previous day’s events.

 

Where his hands had touched, where his lips had brushed, where and how they had entwined. She recalled exactly where and how far she had allowed the young man to push her.

 

Lips pressed to the tips of my ears, our tongues tangled, and we swallowed each other’s saliva in small, deliberate gulps. 

 

We rubbed each other’s bottoms, never having taken off our clothes before.

 

Our legs spread apart as we whispered that we loved each other, that we cared.

 

With tears streaming down my face, I clutched my hand to my chest and froze.

 

A child, I thought, one I would carry in my arms for the rest of my life. Even with the flesh between my legs and the stranger panting on top of me.

 

Little did I know that being young didn’t mean being stupid, and I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with this thing in the width of my skirt.

 

Ever since I met him, ever since the day before, ever since I met him…

 

“I wish I had never met him in the first place.”

 

The woman’s voice woke up the young man, who had fallen asleep in her room. 

 

Everything in her body ached and throbbed as if she’d been struck by a boulder. It felt like a nightmare, but a few blinks wiped it from her memory as though it had been washed away.

 

In the darkness of the chamber, which was already night, Yi sat up.

 

The sound of rustling and the swish of robes was unusually loud. The candlesticks were lit.

 

“Argh.”

 

A half-hoarse voice escaped from her slumber.

 

Sitting next to the candlestick was a small boy who must have been Yiseo’s young groom. Yiseo was intrigued to see a small child his size.

 

It was strange to see a child of his size, but even more strange was the familiarity of the child.

 

The groom was a very young man.

 

It was almost too good to be a boy. He was so tiny and pretty, she thought, that she would believe him to be the officiant of this wedding.

 

He didn’t look so much like a half-breed as he looked down with his eyes expressionless.

 

Even though they were married, she didn’t know what to call him at first, so she just pursed her lips and finally spoke up when she saw the statue of a seated man by the candlestick.

 

“…Have you eaten anything?”

 

“…”

 

The young groom looked down at the flint in his hand and fiddled with it. 

 

He looked troubled, but Yiseo assumed it was the awkwardness of an eleven-year-old groom who had never encountered a bride before, so she spoke up.

 

“I should have waited… I’ve been moving around since dawn, so I’ve been sleepy… I hope you’re okay…”

 

Even if Yi Seo was a year older, she was still twelve years old. Yi Seo’s lips twitched upward as she continued.

 

“My name is Kim Yi Seo. My father is the military commander of Ansan…”

 

“I know. I saw him in the palace.”

 

It was a voice as clear and cool as water. Yi Seo could no longer understand why the great lord in front of him was called a halfling.

 

“Me too, I looked at the divination book, and according to the reading, he said that you and my father are compatible, that it’s a good match…”

 

“Which diviner said that?”

 

“He said it was specially done for him by the Grandmaster of the Swords. He paid attention to it because it was a royal marriage.”

 

As the conversation continued, her confidence grew. 

 

She hadn’t seen eye-to-eye with him yet, but she felt that if she talked to him and familiarized herself with him, they would bond. 

 

She might not live long, but she would be able to live and die like everyone else.

 

“Then you must learn the name of the master.”

 

But just as she was about to say that, her groom looked up.

 

Their eyes met for the first time. Yiseo was met with a blatant contempt that she had never encountered in her short twelve years of life.

 

Eyes that looked more blue than black met hers.

 

“A good match… If you were so incompetent… You wouldn’t have anything to say if you were kicked out of the squadron, would you?”

 

The child did not speak like a halfling. No, he was small and didn’t look like a child. Yi Seo could immediately recognize the young groom’s name from the inscription plate.

 

Leegwang.

 

It was Leegwang.

 

“What a good match.”

 

Yi knocked over the statue of a seated figure next to the candlestick. 

 

The plate tipped over. The greasy food spilled onto the floor, staining Yi’s long robes.

 

Yi Seo stared at him in amazement at what had transpired in an instant, but without looking back, Lee Gwang jumped to his feet, threw open the door to the sacred chamber, and ran out.

 

“Mother, Mother!”

 

His tone was different from when he had spoken to her, slurred and dumbfounded. 

 

For a moment, she didn’t recognize it as the same voice.

 

The wide-open door to the chamber gave a good view outside.

 

“I’m scared! I don’t like it! That thing touched me, Mother!”

 

Lee Gwang screamed, clutching at the hem of the court lady’s skirt, which wasn’t even his mother’s. 

 

Yi Seo cowered in the chamber and watched the scene from afar. 

 

The young groom had gone out into the hall and stomped off in disgust, and she didn’t know what to do.]

 

My stomach churned at the foul odor of the food on the floor.

 

The sounds of people milling about, whispered words, footsteps, laughter, and sighs.

 

She couldn’t dismiss this day as a mistake, the work of one half of a great army, a mistake of a half who didn’t know what a wedding was and didn’t know what an hour was.

 

This was no mistake.

 

A terrible first night, Yiseo thought, as she stared at the small of the groom’s back, wrapped in the ruffled sleeves of the palace robe.

 

💫

 

“No good news yet.”

 

“I apologize. Please be prepared.”

 

“I’ve been married for ten years…”

 

Yi Seo listened to the words with her head bowed. 

 

No matter how young they got married, ten years had already passed. We had long since outlived our contract, and most women my age already had a child or two under their wings.

 

But I’m not expecting a child after seeing him.

 

‘What the heck am I supposed to do with a husband who hasn’t held my hand for the past ten years?’

 

Yi Seo waited for the dismissal to pass as she pondered her now cynical situation.

 

Luckily, she wasn’t the only thing on his mind today.

 

“You’re wasting your good words, Queen Mother.”

 

Each of the royal ladies she’d summoned had said the same thing, pushing her to the back of the line. Yi Seo was grateful for the disrespect and kept quiet.

 

Queen Mother Yun called the meeting to order.

 

It was a day of rejoicing for the royal ladies, and Yi Seo knew she would be criticized, but she couldn’t plead illness and skip out. 

 

After all, she hadn’t been sick for more than a day or two.

 

“His Majesty was not pleased, surely…”

 

“…Perhaps in the spring…”

 

“The king has high hopes…”

 

Yiseo looked at Queen Yun, who was fiddling with her belly, which hadn’t even come out yet. The moon-like beauty’s face was filled with joy.

 

Queen Yun was polite to those above her and compassionate to those below her. She was different from the previous Queen, who had been deposed. Everyone in the palace liked her because she was full of virtue. 

 

Even the child of the late Queen, the prince.

 

Although Yiseo should strive to be more like Queen Yun as instructed by her father, she couldn’t help but often idolize the Queen.

 

In the sense that she was the wrong bride who deserved to be disposed of.

 

When she returned home from the palace, the sun was already setting. 

 

Even just going out for a walk didn’t make me feel well. I drank a few bowls of the medicine bowl brought by the bustling Nanny Yeongsun, and by the time I finished, I was already full and lying on the futon.

 

“You should at least eat your meal.”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“If you want to get better…”

 

‘No amount of medicine would make me healthy, and I know it.’

 

Yiseo just burrows back into the blankets as she listens to Nanny Yeongsun talking outside the door. The sounds outside were drowned out.

 

Nothing had changed since she was a child.

 

A small body that might die at any moment. 

 

A room filled with the smell of medicinal herbs.

 

Only one thing had changed. I realized that it was my husband, not my parents, who lived with me.

 

‘I don’t know if I can call this living together.’

 

As she drifted off to sleep, she tried to picture her husband’s face in her mind. 

 

A face she could barely remember what it looked like anymore, even though he had not come to see her for the past ten years. Even when she was out of breath.

 

‘He was so small, and then he became so tall, making me more insignificant…’