Be the Sacrifice – Chapter 4

Author: Nikss

“So… you really have no interest at all? In becoming the princess’s husband, I mean.”

Hong Yeomrang’s older brother, Hong Innam, let out a hollow laugh, still clinging to the ridiculous notion.

“You’re still spouting that pathetic nonsense. Shamans are just people who say whatever the listener wants to hear, brother.”

“…Huh?”

“They only speak sweet words for the one paying them.”

With an indifferent air, Hong Yeomrang curled his fingers into the perfect round shape of a copper coin and flicked it lazily in the air, as though the very concept bored him to death.

“You’re serious—you truly don’t care? Come to think of it, when I was born, they said I’d accomplish great things for the country! You were right. You were absolutely right.”

Great things?

Hong Innam couldn’t even be sure he’d pass next year’s civil service exam. This time, a violent bout of stomach sickness had kept him bedridden while his younger brother had already succeeded in the preliminary round—yet he himself hadn’t even been able to sit for the test.

Hearing his brother now, it really did seem the shaman’s words were all lies, tailored to whoever held the purse strings.

Perhaps he and his father had lived in this backwater village too long; the stagnant water had finally seeped into their bones.

“Haha… people really do need to drink the capital’s water to amount to anything.”

For the first time, Hong Innam found his usually cold younger brother almost… endearing. He stepped closer with uncharacteristic warmth and placed a hand on Yeomrang’s shoulder.

“Get off.”

“…Right… sorry.”

The hand jerked away as though burned.

Hong Yeomrang gave the spot a single sharp slap with his palm—as if brushing away something filthy—then turned his back without another word.

In the span of a heartbeat he had vanished toward his quarters, leaving only the echo of that curt dismissal hanging in the air.

From dawn, a steady, mournful rain pattered down.

The villagers pressed themselves against their fences, craning their necks to watch Hong Yeomrang prepare to ascend the mountain.

Whispers slithered through the drizzle, the weather had never been this wretched before—surely some curse had taken hold.

Servants bustled about, bundling offerings of food, clothing, and ritual items into heavy loads.

Every three days, they said, such provisions were left at the mouth of the cave deep in the mountains.

“This… you want me to wear it?”

His voice, low and edged with something dangerously close to disbelief—or perhaps reluctant fascination—cut through the rain as he stared at the garment held out to him.

The moment the bright yellow robe appeared in the servant’s hands, Hong Yeomrang’s lips curved into a slow, dangerous smile—half amusement, half thunder.

He tilted his head, voice soft, almost playful.

“So… you want me to wear this?”

The servant, still blissfully unaware of the storm he had just invited into the courtyard, beamed with pride and bowed low.

“Yes, young master! Everyone who climbs the mountain dresses in bright, beautiful colors these days. I ran straight to the market the day before yesterday and had this made especially for you.”

The servant even puffed out his chest, clearly pleased with himself.

Hong Yeomrang’s smile widened, slow and lethal.

“Fuck. Am I getting married or something?”

The servant kept smiling—right up until the yellow silk was ripped from his grasp.

Riiiiip—

Shhhrrrip.

Three savage tears, and the bright fabric fluttered down like wounded petals across the rain-slicked courtyard. The servant’s face drained of color.

“Y-Young master…?”

Hong Yeomrang stared at the shredded yellow rags as if they had personally insulted him.

Yellow. The color only women wore.

The color that filthy thing had been clutching yesterday, wrapped around itself like a lover’s embrace while it perched in the old pear tree.

He let out a low, bitter laugh that dripped with something darker than anger—something almost wounded.

“If you’re going to send me off to be married, at least bring a skirt and jeogori. That would at least look like an offering to a lecherous monster.”

His gaze flicked toward the distant mountain, rain streaking down his sharp jawline.

“Does the monster living up there have a thing for yellow?”

He imagined striding up there right now, cock in hand, marking every tree and rock just to spite it. The thought almost made him laugh again—almost.

Rain. Always the goddamn rain.

It soaked through his clothes, clung to his skin, made everything feel heavier, colder, more suffocating.

On clear days he was restless; in the rain he felt like the whole world was pressing down on him, trying to drown him in its misery.

Born into a meritorious family, he had wanted for nothing—except the one thing he could never have, a father whose greed didn’t rot everything it touched.

He had reported his own father to the authorities not out of some noble sense of justice, but because he couldn’t stand to watch the man’s avarice swallow their name whole.

And now this.

This backward village, these superstitious fools, this cursed mountain, and some yellow-robed demon waiting at the top like a bride expecting her groom.

Hong Yeomrang turned away from the ruined silk, rain dripping from his lashes, heart pounding with a fury that felt dangerously close to longing.

He hated how much he already wanted to climb that mountain.

And he hated even more that a part of him wondered what color she would be wearing when she finally showed herself.

If his son became the royal consort. His father spoke those words so casually, even as the frail but still-breathing Crown Prince lingered on.

The old man had already begun measuring the throne for the grandchildren yet to be born.

Hong Yeomrang could still see it clearly: that smug, triumphant grin on his father’s face the day he’d declared—before Yeomrang had even known the first stirrings of manhood—that the boy would one day father a king.

The pride had felt like a yoke crushing his shoulders before he was old enough to carry anything at all.

What could possibly be more suffocating than a future already written in someone else’s hand?

Even when his mother lay dying—frail, fading, coughing blood into silk handkerchiefs—his father had thrown a lavish celebration for the birth of the second son.

The banquet rang through the house while she withered alone in her chamber.

Only Hong Yeomrang had stayed by her side, small hands clutching the edge of her bedding, listening to her shallow breaths until the last one left her.

The world’s gaze mattered more to his father than a dying woman’s last moments.

And the older brother—already seething with jealousy whenever Yeomrang so much as breathed—came as an extra, bitter garnish.

There was only one reason Yeomrang had sat for the military exams and passed with ruthless precision, he intended to become a military officer.

He intended to ride straight into the blood and smoke of the battlefield and never look back.

Let his father become a lonely widower-consort.

Let his brother wear the title if he wanted it so badly.

The glory of the family line?

He could choke on it.

They were already a house of merit and rank—what more could his father possibly crave unless he himself dreamed of sitting on the dragon throne?

Hong Yeomrang would rather raise a rebellion, stain his own hands red, and seize the crown alone than ride on a princess’s skirts to place some future son of his on that gilded seat.

“People are watching!”

General Hong’s voice cracked like a whip, suddenly aware of every eye turned toward them in the rain-soaked courtyard.

“Quietly. Just go up quietly. Do you really want me to leave one more shameful mark on your life?”

He spoke as though he were a kind, upright father—protective, concerned.

Hong Yeomrang kept smiling.

The general flinched.

That smile… it was hers.

The exact curve of dead lips that once spat venom with terrifying sweetness.

His late wife had worn that same expression while she tore the world apart with soft words and sharper truths—until she burned out too soon.

And now the second son wore it like inherited armor.

“Red would be better,”

Yeomrang said, voice low and almost dreamy, gaze never once touching the trembling servant still clutching scraps of yellow silk.

“A bright, fresh red durumagi. The kind that won’t show blood when it splatters.”

The servant’s eyes widened in terror.

“Bring me one that looks like something a new bride would wear on her wedding night. Crimson. Vivid. Perfect.”

The servant bolted—practically flung himself through the open doorway and vanished into the rain like a startled hare.

Yeomrang’s smile didn’t fade.

“And while you’re at it,”

He called after the fleeing figure, voice carrying just far enough to cut through the downpour, “bring a palanquin too.”

Let them carry him up the mountain like an offering.

Let the red robes bleed into the mist.

Let whatever waited in that cave see him coming—beautiful, furious, and already half in love with the violence of his own fate.

He could feel it now: something ancient and hungry stirring in his chest, answering the pull of the rain-drenched peak.

And for the first time in years, the weight on his shoulders didn’t feel like a burden.

It felt like anticipation.

Hong Yeomrang spoke the words over his shoulder, voice carrying just enough lazy menace to make the rain itself seem to flinch.

General Hong pressed a trembling palm to his forehead, face flushed the color of fresh-spilled wine.

“What in the heavens is it this time? What exactly displeases you so much that you insist on making this disgraceful scene?”

Hong Yeomrang’s lips curved into a slow, perfect crescent—beautiful and vicious in equal measure.

“I just want to look pretty… since I’m being married off, after all.”

The word “married” hung between them like a blade.

Everyone called it becoming the princess’s husband, but the truth was cruder: he was being sent as stud to the royal stable.

And no amount of pretty phrasing could change the fact that his own father was the one tying the ribbon around his neck.

General Hong stepped closer, voice dropping to a dangerous murmur.

“Are you going to act this insolent in front of Her Highness as well?”

Hong Yeomrang turned just enough to meet his father’s eyes.

“Are you actually worried the marriage might fall through?”

“That temper of yours—!”

The general’s voice cracked with frustration.

“That damnable temper of yours is going to ruin everything! Did you learn nothing at all in the capital?”

Oh, he had learned plenty.

He had learned exactly how men like his father gorged themselves on power and called it loyalty. He had watched them sell their children, their honor, their souls, all while smiling at banquets.

The corner of Yeomrang’s mouth lifted in something too savage to be called a smile.

“The kingdom’s greatest shaman said it herself. This isn’t superstition—this is why the royal family has been watching me so closely. How can a grown man still pretend not to understand?”

“Exactly,”

Yeomrang said, almost sweetly.

“So this is just… a rehearsal. Practicing how to be sold off quietly, like a good little bride.”

General Hong exhaled sharply through his nose.

“Hah!”

He looked like a man who had finally decided that some things could only be settled with violence—or surrender.

Yeomrang tilted his head, eyes glittering.

“And that great shaman of yours… did she happen to mention that my fate is to become the offering? The sacrifice?”

Life really did surprise you sometimes.

The general opened his mouth—whether to curse, to plead, or to strike, no one would ever know—because at that exact moment the servant burst back into the courtyard, clutching a bolt of vivid crimson silk like it was his last lifeline.

“Hah.”

A short, startled laugh escaped Hong Yeomrang’s throat.

The color was obscene—deep, arterial red, the kind that looked like fresh blood under torchlight, the kind a bride might wear if the wedding night ended in murder instead of consummation.

The servant’s hands shook violently as he knelt and offered the neatly folded garment.

Hong Yeomrang stared at it for a long moment.

Then, without a word, he reached out and took it—almost gently.

The servant dared to speak, voice barely above a whisper.

“You… you’ll pay him double the wage for this, won’t you, young master?”

Hong Yeomrang’s gaze slid sideways.

The servant froze under it.

For one heartbeat the courtyard held its breath—rain drumming, silk rustling, father and son locked in silent war. Then Yeomrang’s voice came again, low and intimate, the way one might speak to a lover in the dark.

“Double?”

He let the word hang.

Then, very softly:

“Triple. Because I plan to wear it like I mean it.”

He lifted the crimson fabric until it caught the gray light and bled against the rain.

Somewhere far above them, on that fog-choked mountain, something ancient stirred—something that had been waiting.

Hong Yeomrang felt it in his blood like the first note of a song he had always known by heart but never dared sing.

He turned toward the mountain path, red silk trailing from his fingers like spilled destiny.

And for the first time, the weight of what waited at the end of that climb didn’t feel like a cage.

It felt like a promise.

His father was breathing hard through flared nostrils, fury barely contained.

Hong Yeomrang paid it no mind. He simply drew the vivid crimson durumagi over his broad shoulders, letting the silk settle against his skin like spilled blood turned garment.

In his right hand he held the sword the king himself had bestowed—its lacquered scabbard gleaming wetly in the rain.

His father had sworn it was only for show.

“I’ll handle everything,” the old man had growled.

“Just play the part.”

Yet here was his son, turning ceremony into provocation, and the general’s head throbbed with the futility of it all.

From beyond the outer wall, villagers who had been stealing glances now stared openly. The sight of Hong Yeomrang—tall, unyielding, red-robed and armed—set their tongues wagging like wet leaves in the wind.

Soon the palanquin arrived, forced through the gate by servants who dared not disobey a direct order.

It was oversized, built to carry a grown man in comfort; six bearers bent beneath the poles, muscles already straining.

Hong Innam, who had kept a wary distance knowing his brother’s temper, fully expected Yeomrang to plant a boot through the lacquered panels and splinter the whole thing.

Instead—shockingly—the younger man ducked his powerful frame without protest and folded himself inside the swaying chamber.

A small commotion, a few hissed commands, and the procession lurched forward.

The sacrificial offering had begun its ascent.

Behind the palanquin trailed a long file of porters, backs bowed under the weight of ritual foods and the supplies needed for a hundred days on the mountain.

Every bundle was wrapped in shimmering silk bojagi, far richer than any common tribute.

If not for the size of the palanquin itself, anyone watching would have sworn this was a bride being carried to her wedding—not a son being delivered to a monster.

The bearers’ breaths grew harsher with every step up the slope.

A healthy man’s weight was no small burden on treacherous paths, and the rain had turned the mountain trail into a slick, sucking mire.

The journey to the tiger spirit’s cave stretched long and punishing.

Inside the palanquin, damp air seeped through every seam.

The steady drum of rain on the roof, the wet slap of footsteps, the low rasp of labored breathing—all of it pressed in.

Yet Hong Yeomrang never once touched the small latticed window.

He sat motionless, spine straight, crimson silk pooling around him like liquid flame, eyes fixed on some unseen point ahead.

For hours he waited in perfect stillness, as though already practicing the patience of something no longer entirely human.

“…Young master,”

One of the bearers finally panted, voice rough with exhaustion.

“We’ve arrived.”

The words hung in the saturated air.

The palanquin settled with a soft, final creak.

Rain whispered against silk and wood and skin.

Hong Yeomrang exhaled once—slow, deliberate.

Then he lifted the curtain. And stepped out into the mist-choked mouth of the mountain, red robes bleeding against gray stone, sword at his hip, heart beating steady and fierce like a war drum no one else could hear.

Somewhere deeper in the dark, something ancient lifted its head.

It had smelled silk.

It had smelled rain.

And now—very clearly—it smelled him.

He felt the answering pull in his blood, sharp and sweet, like the first taste of poison that promises to be rapture.

He did not look back.