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Chapter 9
The horns she had hidden so carefully beneath her hair—leaving a little hollow space to keep them unseen—were now exposed.
Startled, Seoyu raised both hands to cover them and quickly bowed her head.
“I-I’m sorry!”
Among the Great-Horned Deer Clan, people said even looking at her half-grown horn brought bad luck.
They said it was proof of stupidity—that she couldn’t even perform a proper beast transformation nor conceal her ugly horn.
To think she had offended the very people who had treated her so kindly…
“You’re lucky, you know. Mutants like you aren’t welcome anywhere—yet you have a roof over your head.”
Perhaps even the Hwangryong Clan would cast her out at once.
“Idiot, I’m such an idiot.”
Lady Sujeong had always called her that, and now she knew it was true. Too foolish to be saved. She’d been so lighthearted that she’d forgotten even her deformity.
As Seoyu berated herself, the two women exchanged puzzled glances.
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you apologizing, my lady?”
Hesitating, Seoyu murmured almost inaudibly,
“Because… I only have one horn.”
A short silence fell. Then, softly,
“My lady, please look this way.”
Chogarim held a bronze mirror before her. Seoyu looked, and her eyes widened in astonishment.
“W-wow…!”
Her hair, once dry and brittle like old straw, now shimmered with a soft golden luster. It gleamed as though touched by sunlight.
Her long hair was brushed smooth and left to fall down her back, while the stray locks near her ears were braided neatly and gathered behind her head. She looked like an entirely different person.
“Look! Doesn’t she look like a fairy?”
“Yes!”
She nodded so eagerly that she startled herself, and hurried to add, “Not me—the hair! It’s beautiful.”
Chogarim laughed, eyes crinkling.
“Oh my, how adorable. To my eyes, you’re the one who looks like a fairy, my lady. Don’t you think so, Eunhyang?”
“Indeed,” Eunhyang replied simply.
Chogarim nudged her gently so she could see herself more clearly in the mirror.
“In this place, having only one horn means nothing at all.”
This place…
She didn’t fully grasp what that meant, but Eunhyang’s voice—unlike the cold touch of a reptile—was filled with warmth.
Perhaps that was why Seoyu wanted to believe them.
She gazed at the lovely girl in the mirror for a long, long time.
* * *
“You bring back no medicine—and instead, a child?”
The one who greeted Hyeonrang upon his return to the study was his steward, Ji Hwan-wol.
Hyeonrang brushed past him and sat down in his chair.
“The Kirin Clan sent only their young heir,” he said calmly. “Even if I pressed the matter, I’d hear nothing but that ‘now isn’t the right time for a meeting.’”
“A problem indeed. And not a matter we can raise carelessly with the young lord…”
Hwan-wol trailed off, realizing his worries were trifling compared to those of his master—a man whose wife had lain unconscious for five years.
He quickly changed the subject.
“Then who is that girl? I saw horns on her head.”
“Yes. She’s a deer.”
“I know antlers are prized for medicine, but harvesting a beast-person’s horn is illegal. And kidnapping one would be a grave crime. Above all, my lord, the lady would never—”
“Enough, Hwan-wol. Don’t talk nonsense.”
“Yes, sir.”
Though Hyeonrang’s expression was cold, he was a man of deep kindness. When such a man spoke in that tone, Hwan-wol knew better than to press further.
He mimed locking his lips, earning a weary sigh from Hyeonrang.
“She was falling from a cliff,” the lord said quietly. “Had I not intervened, she’d have crossed the River of Death before my eyes.”
“Ah! Then it was sheer luck she survived. The child must have been fated to live.”
“It wasn’t luck,” Hyeonrang said. “Someone called to me.”
“Called you, my lord? Who?”
“A voice.”
“Whose voice?”
“I don’t know.”
“What?”
Hwan-wol frowned in disbelief. But Hyeonrang had no other explanation.
He truly had heard a voice.
—Help her! Save that child!
It might have been a trap, yet he couldn’t ignore it. For in that instant, he had sensed a powerful aura—one he had known long ago but believed lost forever.
Still, he dared not speak of it aloud. The implications were too grave.
“Perhaps it was only my imagination,” he thought.
Until he could be certain, he would keep silent.
Instead, his mind returned to the sight of the girl plummeting from the cliff.
At first, he thought she meant to end her life—she had fallen without a scream or struggle, silent and still.
And yet…
“Those were the eyes of someone who’d given up on life.”
He knew that look well; he’d seen it countless times on the battlefield.
But just before her eyes closed, she had reached out—toward someone unseen, as if greeting a long-lost friend.
That fleeting expression was not one of surrender.
And so, Hyeonrang had saved her.
Even if that hadn’t been the case, he would have saved her all the same—but in that instant, all hesitation vanished.
“How did she fall?” Hwan-wol asked.
“She said she slipped while picking herbs.”
“Picking herbs? On a cliff? She can’t be more than eight or nine!”
“So she claimed.”
“The western folk are mad. They pretend to be so noble, yet they’re cruel to the bone.”
Hwan-wol clicked his tongue.
“But why bring her here? Wouldn’t treatment have been easier in the West?”
It was a fair question. The eastern lands of Hwangryong had been at war with the demon beasts for nearly a decade. Medicines were scarce and costly.
Even saying so felt heartless, but it was true: a refugee girl was an expensive burden.
Yet his master only replied,
“She didn’t wish to stay there.”
“What? She’d rather come here—to a land overrun by monsters—than remain in the peaceful West? Surely you jest.”
Hyeonrang remained silent.
He remembered her words vividly:
‘The nearest is the Great-Horned Deer Clan, isn’t it?’
‘No… no! Not there—never that house…’
Even half-conscious, the child had shaken her head with desperate terror.
‘All right,’ he’d told her gently. ‘All right. Rest now.’
Only then had she relaxed, falling into a deep, exhausted sleep.
“She said it was her home,” he murmured now. “I’ll still have to check whether the Great-Horned Deer Clan has lost a child.”
She had claimed to be an orphan, but he knew better. Yet if that home was one she refused even in death, she might as well be one.
To leave her behind would not be saving her.
And then, as though echoing from memory, a beloved voice whispered in his mind—
‘Hyeonrang, killing is too easy. You can do it with one hand. But saving someone? That’s what’s truly hard. I’ve no interest in a life that’s too easy.’
The sound of it ached in his chest.
“My lord,” Hwan-wol said cautiously, breaking the silence.
“In a few days, your sons will return. If they find that you brought back a deer girl instead of the medicine, Lord Lihan will be furious. And with your health already…”
At the mention of his condition, Hyeonrang’s gaze darkened for the first time.
“Ji Hwan-wol.”
