Father and son crossed the heavy doors of Sajeongjeon Hall, leaving behind the suffocating silence of a confrontation Min had failed to win.
The moment they stepped into the outer courtyard, the bitter morning wind caught the wide sleeves of their official robes and sent them snapping through the air.
Jun-ho lifted his gaze.
At the far end of the courtyard, a sizable contingent of armed men stood waiting.
They did not belong to the Saganwon.
Some were retainers of House Yi. Others had been placed discreetly under Jun-ho's command by military officers who still recognized the authority of the royal command plaque his father carried.
They had been there since before the assembly began.
Motionless.
Waiting.
Not a single sword had been drawn.
There had been no need.
Lord Yi Seong-jae advanced toward them with his back straight and the measured stride of a man who had just walked along the edge of a blade without allowing fear to disturb his breathing.
Jun-ho moved beside him.
One of the officers stepped forward and bowed.
"Daesagan."
Jun-ho acknowledged him with a slight inclination of his head.
"Any movement?"
"None, my lord. Councillor Min's men remained inside the compound."
Jun-ho glanced briefly toward the doors they had just crossed.
"See that it remains so."
The officer bowed.
Before entering Sajeongjeon, Jun-ho's instructions had been precise:
No one was to intervene so long as he and his father could leave the hall under their own power.
Only if they were detained by force—or if blood was spilled inside the chamber—were the men to advance.
Not before.
This was not about beginning a battle in the heart of the palace.
It was about making certain Min understood one thing:
House Yi no longer walked through those halls unprotected.
The soldiers parted.
Father and son passed between them without another word.
Throughout the walk toward the palace's outer gates, neither mentioned what had happened inside Sajeongjeon.
There was no need.
Both understood that Min's threat had ceased hiding behind decrees, formal bows, and carefully chosen words.
The war had not yet been declared.
But it had already begun.
Only when they reached the vicinity of Gwanghwamun did Lord Yi finally stop.
Jun-ho stopped beside him.
For several moments, the old statesman gazed up at the leaden sky hanging over the capital.
"We bought ourselves time," he said at last.
"Nothing more."
Jun-ho kept his eyes ahead.
"Three days."
"Min will not give us three days."
The young Daesagan slowly turned toward his father.
Lord Yi met his gaze.
"He knows now that we understand too much. And a cornered man does not wait quietly for the executioner to arrive."
Jun-ho understood immediately.
"He'll try to stop us."
"He needs me here," Yi replied. "He does not need you."
Silence fell between them.
Then the old man placed a hand upon his son's shoulder.
"It is time for the Daesagan to take flight toward the north."
Jun-ho held his father's gaze for several seconds.
Then he bowed deeply.
"I will return with His Majesty."
Lord Yi's expression did not change.
"Return alive."
Those two words were the only betrayal of the father concealed beneath the robes of the statesman.
Jun-ho bowed once more.
When he straightened, every trace of hesitation had vanished from his face.
Not long afterward, he rode out of the capital with a small escort of carefully chosen men.
North.
Toward the King.
And toward Haneul.
He had no way of knowing that, in those distant mountains, she had spent days suspended somewhere between life and death.
Nor did he know that while he raced along frozen roads to reach her, a truth whispered in darkness had already begun to reshape everything he expected to find upon his return.
Morning mist hung heavily over the mountain pass.
Hooves struck the frozen road in a hard, steady rhythm as Jun-ho rode at the head of his escort. On either side, pine trees rose between jagged rocks like motionless shadows.
Too motionless.
Jun-ho slowed his horse.
One of his guards noticed immediately.
"My lord?"
The Daesagan swept his gaze across the slopes.
No birds.
No animals.
Nothing but wind.
His hand descended slowly toward the hilt of his sword.
"Hold."
The whistle came a heartbeat later.
"DOWN!"
An arrow tore through the air.
The rider ahead of Jun-ho barely had time to turn before the shaft struck his shoulder and hurled him violently from the saddle.
Then the sky darkened.
"ARROWS!"
A storm of projectiles descended from the slopes.
Horses screamed and reared. Two soldiers fell almost at once as the survivors struggled to close ranks around the Daesagan.
"Protect Lord Yi!"
"No!" Jun-ho roared as he drew his sword. "Cover the flanks!"
Another arrow hissed past his face.
Jun-ho wrenched the reins and forced his horse sideways while his men scrambled for cover behind the rocks.
Then—
they appeared.
Dark-clad figures descended between the pines.
No banners.
No insignia.
Nothing to reveal whom they served.
Mercenaries.
Jun-ho did not need to ask who had sent them.
One man broke from the group and came directly for him.
Not his soldiers.
Not the wounded.
Him.
Jun-ho understood.
"I'm the target."
The mercenary raised his blade.
Jun-ho met it.
Steel crashed against steel, the force of the impact shuddering through both his arms.
His training did not possess the savage instinct of men who had spent half their lives surviving battlefields.
But neither was he a defenseless scholar.
He pivoted, redirected the enemy's blade, and answered with a slash that forced the mercenary backward.
Another attacker came from his side.
Jun-ho saw him too late.
"My lord!"
One of his guards threw himself between them.
The enemy blade drove into the man's side.
Jun-ho watched him collapse at his feet.
Something changed in his face.
He attacked.
This time—
without hesitation.
The mercenary fell into the snow.
"Break the encirclement!" Jun-ho shouted. "Do not let them hold us here!"
His men responded.
The narrow mountain road erupted into chaos—shouts, screaming horses, the savage ringing of steel against steel.
The frozen snow beneath them began to darken around the fallen.
A blade opened Jun-ho's arm.
Another strike tore through the sleeve of his official robe.
Still, he kept moving.
They could not win here.
And Min knew it.
This ambush had never been designed to defeat Jun-ho's escort.
It had been designed for one purpose:
to ensure Yi Jun-ho never reached the north.
"Daesagan!" the surviving officer shouted. "The eastern path is open!"
Jun-ho turned.
"Withdraw east! Take every wounded man who can still ride!"
"And the others?"
For one terrible moment, Jun-ho looked at the bodies scattered across the snow.
His jaw tightened.
"We come back for them."
There was no time for anything more.
He mounted again and drove his heels into the horse's sides.
The survivors followed.
Behind them, the mercenaries scrambled to reorganize, but the Yi men had gained enough distance.
Jun-ho did not look back.
Blood ran down his arm.
His robes were torn.
Men had died because they had followed him.
And still—
he rode north.
Because Min had just revealed something far more valuable than he intended.
If Min was willing to spill blood to prevent him from reaching those mountains…
then whatever waited there was something the councillor desperately feared he would find.
Lord Yi had been right.
The King was there.
And now Jun-ho intended to reach him—
even if Min had to bury the entire road beneath bodies to stop him.
Cliffhanger — End of Chapter
Behind him, the ambush faded into the mountain mist.
Ahead waited the King.
Haneul.
And a truth Min was willing to kill to keep buried.
Jun-ho tightened his bloodstained grip on the reins.
For the first time, he understood that the road north was not merely an escape route.
It was the one road Min could not afford to let him survive.