Chapter 4: The Gate

Mu-hyeon stood up from the table.

"Then we'd better not be late," he said, and smiled the way he had at the post.

They rode for two days on Red Moon horses.

On the third morning the road ran out under a black cliff, and the cliff had a gate in it.

The gate was two leaves of iron-banded black wood, taller than four men, set into the living rock.

A red crescent was painted across both leaves.

Dried heads hung from the hooks above it.

Yeon-hwa counted six before she stopped counting.

"Alliance spies," Pyo said cheerfully. "The ones last spring."

"Is that supposed to make me feel welcome?"

"You're not Alliance, Young Lady. You're ours."

The guards at the gate saw Mu-hyeon and dropped to their knees in the dirt.

One of them burst into tears.

Mu-hyeon touched his shoulder as he passed and didn't stop.

Inside, the mountain was a town stacked on terraces, black roofs and red lanterns climbing all the way up into cloud.

People came out of every doorway as the riders passed.

They stared at him.

Then they stared at Yeon-hwa, in her dirty Alliance white, riding at his side.

She heard the word go up the terraces ahead of them.

He's alive.

And then, more quietly, who's she?

The ancestral hall stood at the top of the last stair.

Drums were beating inside it.

Mu-hyeon swung down from his horse and held his hand up to her.

"Stay close. Say nothing unless you have to."

"When have I ever said nothing?"

"Then say something good."

He pushed the doors open.

The hall was long and dark, lit by braziers, and every wall was painted from floor to ceiling.

A man with a sword fought his way across those walls, form after form, under a moon that grew fuller with every panel.

Below the paintings knelt two hundred people in red and black.

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