Chapter 9: The Last Morning

Seo-jun woke before the bell on the last morning in Wolfhold and lay still, listening to his husband be sick in the next room.

It was the sixth morning in a row.

He had counted.

He got up quietly and poured water into a cup, and he stood at the door of the washroom until the retching stopped.

"Don't come in," Min-jun said.

"I wasn't going to."

"You're standing in the door."

"I'm standing near it."

A short silence followed, and then a damp laugh.

"Go and check the luggage."

"Yul checked it twice."

"Then check it again."

Seo-jun set the cup on the floor by the door and went away.

He had learned that pushing Min-jun only got him pushed back.

In the bedchamber, he stood at the window and looked at the courtyard, where the servants had begun to load the northern carriage.

It was dark wood, with wide iron-bound wheels.

It was not pretty.

The wright had worked three weeks on it with his sleeves rolled to the shoulder, and he had slept in the stable twice.

Seo-jun had never been so glad of an ugly thing.

He took the rice cake from the dish on the table, as he had every morning for six years, and set it on the moon shrine.

He bowed his head.

I don't know what I owe you, he thought. But he's still alive.

The morning wind tugged at the shutters, and for a moment he heard a woman's voice behind it, very faint, saying: *not yet.*

He lifted his head and looked at the empty room.

He had been dreaming of snow for a month.

It was always the same snow, white and deep, with a boy's red cloak in it.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Lost His Family in the Snow, He Returned to Save Them from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.